@h4untng asked: ☜ + nat getting an answer on the satellite phone
up above the vast carpet of snow - matted tree line, the frigid wind bristled like needle points against natalie's exposed brow. the heft of the satellite phone's outer valise dragged at her shoulder and slipped in her gloved hands, jostling against her side as she climbed, one treacherous step at a time. somewhere in the latter half of her sojourn, up into the barren crags and steep, winding crevasses that'd lost their top - layer of powdered snow to the breeze, the air seemed to start to thin, the blaze of pale late - morning sun, un - shielded from view, scarcely enough to keep the oncoming barrage of cold at bay. nat's bones ached to the marrow with every stride, every clamber and one - handed grapple for balance — but not even the dizzying height to which she'd ascended swayed her single minded drive.
nothing could: not while the others had their eyes turned to the hunt. not when the time they'd granted her, to slip away unnoticed, was so precious.
the scarred, barely visible nick shauna's hunting knife had left at the base of nat's throat last winter twinged, as she walked, as though with sense - memory. she tried not to consider the implications of her teammates' last - ditch plan, and what they'd sacrificed to see her free: what was happening back there. who'd chosen which archaic weapon. who'd had the ultimate misfortune of drawing the queen.
if the queen or her prophetess had noticed she'd gone missing at all.
when she finally crested the uppermost peak of the mountaintop, where the saw - edged rise of it dropped into a near - vertical sheer cliff face, nat landed on her knees, and threw down her priceless cargo. cracked the casing of the equipment open, without hesitation, to watch with staggered, laboured breath while the weak signal blinked and sputtered to life, progressing heart - stoppingly slowly from useless red to less - than - hopeless amber. the breath that rushed out of her then was one of thin expectation: an appeal to the near - cloudless sky, or whatever else existed beyond it, for a fucking miracle. " come on. "
despite the numbing cold that'd taken hold of her extremities, the icy sweat wicking at the back of her neck and dampening her hair across her face, natalie snatched up the receiver in shivering hands, careful not to tangle up the coils of its loose - wiring. within seconds, the winking array wavered into the green — just barely. " fuck it. "
in an instant, nat's impatience was met with the rustle of static, of noise. her fingers flinched around the receiver, grimy with upturned soil and the makeshift kohl she'd smeared across her face, the rust - dark blood encrusted under her nails. the wind stung, welling up a sheen of tears behind her lashes: a steady flood that seemed to cool the moment she made to blink them away, haloing a vibrant corona of sunlight in her distorted periphery.
" please, help... help us, " she started, experimentally, like there was something to be self - conscious about; like she'd forgotten what it felt like to speak to a stranger. like she'd forgotten how to reach out beyond just the most sympathetic of her teammates, or travis. but nat needed her voice now — needed, more than anything, to be heard through the chatter of carrion birds swooping high overhead, through the howling gale blustering across the mountaintops to her unexposed and lonely perch.
the sacrifice her co - conspirators had made had to mean something.
" please, god, uh— " she stammered, and trembled, her iron grip constricting around the phone. she'd never believed in a higher power: not the mainstream god laura lee had sworn herself to, nor the hungry, vicious so - called deity of the wilderness that lottie had so willingly spilled innocent blood for. but if anything was listening, this had to be enough. it had to be. " send fucking help. we're out here! we need some fucking help— ! "
nat's voice cracked and wavered, the shivering break of it echoing across the blinding expanse of white. a plea.
" are you there? can you hear me?! " she tried again, begged, fingertips spasming with the cold, with the effort, with every agonising second that passed by in condemning, heart - sinking silence. " someone please, help. please. please, just fucking send help, please. "
nat's flickering, short - lived flame of blinding anguish flared and petered out in a blindsiding instant: a brief, clear window in a deluge of white noise. under the roar of the morning wind, a voice finally crackled through, the fuzziness of it giving every impression that it'd come from a million miles away. a staccato, flat ' hello? ', almost swallowed in the struggling, ragged heave of natalie's breathing. stumbling over herself, knee sinking into the uneven and compacted snow, she half - teetered forward, readjusting her grip like the handset nestled in the vice of her palms might give up, like it might burst into flames.
someone had heard her, she recognised, the very concept enough to turn her stomach with anticipation, with competing dread that it might be for the last time. to her astonishment, the connection blinked and stayed, the little green strip of light divoted into the transponder's steel shadowed from the blazing sun by nat's palm barely hanging on. she knew the feeling.
" hello? can you hear me? " she yelled out, and rose to stand, helpless to do anything but let herself scream into the whited - out void. " can anyone hear me?! "
the disembodied voice returned, a constant tone cutting through the metallic drone. nat only just made it out — but it was there, as concrete as the jackhammer of her pulse in her throat. as brazenly real, ringing out in her ear, as the taste of salt in her mouth. ' I can hear you. '
