Vocabulary Building

Words of the week: Kame, Blase, Neb, Tram, Quaver, Unco, Wonk, Cheeky

We rested near the bottom of a kame. I breathed deep, letting the frigid air burn in my lungs. My body quavered only a moment as my limbs rested for the first time all day. Aidan stood behind me, his shadow revealing just how annoyed he was by my less than enthusastic inability to keep up.

"Are we about bloody ready?" he asked in that English accent that would have been cute if he weren't such a ... what did he call me earlier? a wonk! What the hell was a wonk? He said I was better suited to sit behind a desk and answer obscure engineer questions. Apparently women could be book smart but had little ability to survive the elements in his opinion. Well excuse me for not being so blase about the whole stuck in the middle of nowhere with way below freezing temperatures.

"Yeah, ready to get this over with," I answered, rolling my eyes.

"You're a bit cheeky for a girl who depends on me to get her back to the helicopter without losing any limbs to frost bite or chilblains," he laughed.

"I just want to get this over with. Let's hurry. You and I both know a tram here is impossible. There's no way to keep that kind of transportation running in this environment. Now lets convince my bosses of that," I stood, my body feeling numb since the blood had slowed. I flexed my fingers and toes, bending at the knee to get the circulation flowing again.

He turned away from me and began leading the way once again. I fell in line behind him, watching the red colored rope slide across the surface of the snow as we walked, always in sync. He'd slowed his pace so that I could keep up with him, and he'd taken on more gear than he normally would have. At least that was sweet of him.

"We don't get many visitors out here. Kinda nice to see a unco once in a while. Can you imagine living here six months at a time?" he called over his shoulder as the wind whipped across the desolate snow covered earth.

No, I couldn't, but since he wasn't being a jerk for once I decided not to tell him that. He knew the answer anyways. The whole outdoor thing wasn't exactly my style. I prefered books and strategically working out dilemmas on paper. Why the higher-ups decided to send me to a frozen hell was beyond my scope of understanding. But at least he and I got to share one of those little yellow tents. No matter how cold it was outside, it was warm inside there with him.

"Look out there at that snowy owl. Do you see it?" he asked, stopping just inches ahead of me. I gazed out on the glistening snow and could barely make out the slight movement of the bird. "He is hunting. Those are the vultures of the tundra. Anything that fits in their neb is fair game."

I shuttered at the tone of his voice. Two more days in this godforsaken ice country.