All Hail the Shifter King
Title: Down and Out in Rion Fell
Word Count: 281
"This is nothing," Katrina chirped merrily, dropping down onto the dusty curb beside him, stretching her tanned legs out into the dirt road. "This one time, when I was working in Sevenpines, I pawned my ticket home for a seat on a postal plane to this remote village, just so I could study a particular type of lichen that grows on glacial rocks." She reached into her pack and produced a bottle of water, grinning as she lost herself in memory. "It was thirty below freezing on any given day and I didn't even have a parka. I ended up living in an igloo and eating blubber for seven weeks until the plane came back."
"Sharing stories about how reckless and irresponsible you are is not making me feel any better about our situation," Jordan told her. She merely smiled at him around the mouth of her bottle as she drank.
"Look at it this way," she suggested. "At least it's beautiful here." She tilted her face toward the sun and sighed contentedly. "Man, I could live here forever..."
"I'm glad that you endangered my professional reputation so you could have a vacation," he muttered - Katrina sighed dramatically and smacked his shoulder.
"Are you ever happy about anything?" she asked. "We're in the most beautiful country in existence, on the doorstep of the only surviving rainforest in the world, and you're acting like we're down and out in the slums of some malaria-infested hellhole! Don't you have any sense of adventure?" She pulled her legs in as a rickety bicycle passed them, the three teenagers crowded onto it staring at them with dark-eyed amazement. "On second thought, don't answer that."
Word Count: 281
"This is nothing," Katrina chirped merrily, dropping down onto the dusty curb beside him, stretching her tanned legs out into the dirt road. "This one time, when I was working in Sevenpines, I pawned my ticket home for a seat on a postal plane to this remote village, just so I could study a particular type of lichen that grows on glacial rocks." She reached into her pack and produced a bottle of water, grinning as she lost herself in memory. "It was thirty below freezing on any given day and I didn't even have a parka. I ended up living in an igloo and eating blubber for seven weeks until the plane came back."
"Sharing stories about how reckless and irresponsible you are is not making me feel any better about our situation," Jordan told her. She merely smiled at him around the mouth of her bottle as she drank.
"Look at it this way," she suggested. "At least it's beautiful here." She tilted her face toward the sun and sighed contentedly. "Man, I could live here forever..."
"I'm glad that you endangered my professional reputation so you could have a vacation," he muttered - Katrina sighed dramatically and smacked his shoulder.
"Are you ever happy about anything?" she asked. "We're in the most beautiful country in existence, on the doorstep of the only surviving rainforest in the world, and you're acting like we're down and out in the slums of some malaria-infested hellhole! Don't you have any sense of adventure?" She pulled her legs in as a rickety bicycle passed them, the three teenagers crowded onto it staring at them with dark-eyed amazement. "On second thought, don't answer that."