“Ha! It’s a pleasure.”
Fenna shakes Abel’s hand with a hoarse laugh and turns back to the newcomers. She seems to be regaining her usual verve pretty quickly, even in the dire situation.
“So it is Dexter, then, and T-A-R-A-N? Can I call yous Tarry? With an A?”
She laughs again, but two things said by each of the new boys (respectively) are nagging at her. The first:
Taran “So you were on the bus too? Then we’ve gotta be in the Cascades somewhere, right? Hm…”
“Cascades, like, the West Coast? I was last conscious in the middle a’ Chicahgo in July, so… Make a’ that what ya will.”
And the second, much more urgent:
Dexter Blanche “Right, the ice right here is thicker. So, as long as the entire circle of it doesn’t all crash into the water at once, drowning us, we should be perfectly fine!”
“… Should we, uh, get movin’, then? If it’s gettin’ heavier…”
She squints off into the distance, looking for any sign of solid ground. The horizon is miles away, but it looks like there are others out on the ice with them, and if it gets stronger when people move together…
