Frosted Wings

"There's no emergency. Let's both take five more minutes today," comes a half-mumbled protest, muffled by a mound of pillows and sheets fashioned into a veritable cocoon.

The blaring alarm clock remains unswayed by the argument, releasing its shrill cry with all the dogged persistence of a corporate email account trying to dissuade customers from confirming their intent to unsubscribe. 06:01 already, it reads, the solitary occupant of the room concerned with the time of day. Without the dutiful timekeeper, there'd be no guessing whether the sun might be out, not in a room so dark, its sole window obscured by thick drapes.

"Three more minutes, then," the woman curled up in the bed weakly bargains, shifting onto her side, turning herself away from her insistent alarm. Hitting the snooze button would be fruitless, she knows all too well, having disabled the function herself.

06:03, the clock flashes, ceaseless in its toiling and ever uncompromising.

xxx

"Ay, ay, I'm aw……aaaaaake," she finally rises up in her bed, interrupted by a yawn as she hefts herself up, disentangling herself from the sheets. So, so cold - had the heat finally given out? Had she forgotten to check the fuel levels?

Hmm, still feeling in my fingers, she registers, wiggling them to make up for her inability to get a good look at them in the darkness. In that case, it's likely just the typical morning chill.

"You've woken me up for what, today?" She directs her inquiry to the alarm as she reaches over and finally silences it for the day, sparing a glance for the computer atop the desk on the other side of the room, too, the faint glow of its monitor the only other source of light in her cramped little bedroom. "How uncouth of me," she concedes as the machines, quite naturally, offer no response, taking the opportunity to drape one of her blankets over her shoulders as a makeshift shawl and grabbing a pair of glasses and a clipboard from the same nightstand upon which the alarm rests. "I shouldn't ask questions with answers I can look up."

She slips on her glasses, glancing down at the first page on the board, scanning first the header, bolded and underlined, conspicuous in its seat above the checklist taking up most of the page.

 

Modified from art by LeoleonardK10, originally posted to Twitter)

Ah, so it was Friday, was it? March 3rd, too. Did that track? Well, she had been sitting down to make that payment the other day, so it seemed about right that the month would have just switched over. Her last trip to Whalestrand had been… Well, the timeframe seemed about right, so it was certainly plausible.

Clipboard still in hand, she pulls her shawl more tightly around herself and finally gets up from her bed, shuffling across the room to her desk, stopping only to flick on the lights in the room. "So, you've finally become my office", she jokes, seemingly speaking to the room itself as she surveys the mess strewn about - a mess she, miraculously, hadn't tripped on, with papers and documents, spare blankets, oil-stained jackets, and even irregular bits of scrap metal making the already tight space feel even more cramped.

What a mess. It'd have to wait, though. What was first, today? The full calendar? Right, of course. Double-check everything before proceeding. Never assume anything is correct the first time.

Avoiding the seat at her desk, she leans over to use the computer, pulling up a virtual calendar, checking the extended entry under the listed current date - March 3rd indeed - and finding "open/maintenance" to be the only item on the agenda. "So you woke me to share the good news? How thoughtful". A trip into Whalestrand wouldn't have been the end of the world, but was it so bad to be happy she could conserve the energy that would require?

Her plans confirmed for the day, she turns to the radio equipment on the desk, a setup constructed to both broadcast and receive. "This is Ishii. Alive, awake, active," she broadcasts to the world… or, rather, a part of it.

Would anyone even hear her morning broadcasts out here, across a portion of the freezing lands stretching across Glasetera, on the far side of the mountains from Whalestrand? Probably not, and, if they did catch one, what would they care about it? They'd put an SOS out if they were in trouble, hopefully regardless of the time of day and regardless of her broadcasts. Still, though, it was fine, and the right thing to do. After all, if nobody was listening, that meant there was no pressure to say anything more.

Her broadcast made, Ishii rests her elbows on her desk, waiting for a moment to make sure no immediate responses come in. With nothing coming in over the air, she glances back at the clock.

06:11, hm? It wasn't even twenty minutes past the hour yet? How rare.

xxx

A couple hours later, Ishii slumps over the table in her "dining room", now properly dressed for the day in a button-up with a light but baggy coat - with a drab white color - mostly hiding it. She had washed up, dressed, checked the heat and fuel, no calls had come in… It had been a typical morning, and that was fine. Typical was enough for today.

"What's not immediately apparent from their structure," she turns to the stove, not more than a few feet away in the narrow kitchen which she had further cluttered with a table, "is that potatoes store two substances." The fork in her hand dips down into the mashed potatoes, topped with melted cheese, and accompanied by a main course of… baked potato. "Starch is stored in the potato, and so is joie de vivre",

Mmmmm, the warmth of a potato, diced, sliced, tossed in a stew, mashed, garnished with cheese or butter or shallots, fried, put on the stove or slid into the oven, what other sensation had such an impact? What other small joy in life could compare? Maybe, just maybe, it would all be worth it, trading it all away for endless days of sitting in her bed under five or seven blankets, curling up and munching on heated potatoes in their endless forms…?

"Mmmmm…" She loses herself in her thoughts as she nibbles at her breakfast, picking at it so she can spend all that much more time savoring every bite.

She had overlooked the humble spud for much of her life, but, ever since coming out here, where the land was cheap, but supplies were not, she had discovered a love for the tuber. How wonderful it was! Cheap! Hardy! Easy to prepare! What about a potato could a reasonable person be expected not to admire? Even transporting them all the way out here was - relatively speaking - little trouble.

The spud, plant product of little pressure, with its dearth of demands, had made life at her little alleged airfield more bearable. It might have been a key in making it possible at all. Even the model for this venture in the distant - about as distant as possible, no less - south, Troll Airfield, had an actual crew, actual supply chains supporting it. Here, it was just her, just her and an irregularly-maintained, minuscule runway in the middle of nowhere.

Not that such thoughts bother her, consumed by her potato consumption as she is.

"What sounds most appealing for dinner?" She again questions the stove. "So I thought, too," she responds after a moment's silence. "Stew's the ideal meal for an open day." Reaching across the table, she grabs her nearby clipboard, flipping a couple of pages and jotting some notes down for dinner.

The matter settled, she returns to her meal, letting the rest of the world melt away in favor of searching for the pleasure waiting under a mound of mashed potatoes.

xxx

Some hours later still, the lights flicker to life in the largest building at the site… Or, well, most of them do, at least. An OSHA representative would most certainly object to the state of the working environment within the building, citing inadequate lighting and poor light distribution. Of course, that would require OSHA to have any power here, first, though…

OSHA the furthest organization from her mind, Ishii, clipboard tucked beneath her arm, steps into the hangar, now bundled up in multiple layers of winter gear. The chilling cold bit far harder in here than in her comparatively cozy living quarters. Keeping such a large building heated at all was no small feat, and, indeed, contributed more to her expenses than anything else. Making it comfortable? Out of the question.

She stands in front of the door for a long moment, slouched and with her hands buried deep in her pockets, scrutinizing the planes stored within the building.

No better than a heap of scrap right now… Broken down for years… Potentially salvageable with a reasonable amount of work, but likely a deathtrap even performing at its peak… That one had been stripped of most everything already… Then there were those three, functional enough still, with regular maintenance to combat the damage done to them by Glasetera's climate.

A glance at her clipboard, a new page topping the stack, and she makes for one of the three operational vehicles - the one nearest to her, her lifeline here, a modified BN-2 Islander, her workhorse. On her way over, she gets a cart of tools, wheeling it over with her.

"It surprised me, as well," she tells the aircraft, a hint of cheer creeping into her voice. "I thought we'd be waiting longer before your regularly-scheduled check-up."

xxx

The day passes, proving uneventful in the end. Boxes are checked. Layers are shed. Tools are set down. Oil-stained rags are tossed aside. Books are read. The calendar is consulted. New checklists for a new day are prepared. A signing-off for the day is announced.

By the day's end, Ishii, back in pajamas, with three blankets wrapped around her shoulders, once again sits in her bed, though, this time, she's huddled over a pot of stew! She basks in the delectable scent rising up from the pot, her fogging glasses naught but a minor concern, with the pot, held in her lap, warming her so nicely. Potatoes, onions, a few chunks of meat swirl in the pot as she dips a ladle in and prepares a second bowl. She had even warmed a biscuit on the side to go all-out in treating herself!

Tomorrow would bring with it an extended trip to Whalestrand, but she could leave her calendar and her lists to worry about tomorrow. For now, what mattered beyond the delightful dinner she had put so much effort into cooking? If only more people could experience moments like these…

"Petroleum or starch, the fuels you require and the fuels I require… both emerge from the ground," she muses with about all the energy she can muster.

Whalestrand always seemed to have something or another going on, a focal point for excitement in Glasetera, but word had it that even more excitement would be coming soon. What, exactly, was on its way?

"I won't discover its nature," she continues to muse with a contented sigh, looking into her pot of stew, "without more maintenance".

(Art by Gobera, originally posted on Pixiv)