Project Poseidon (The Winter Kingdom book 1)

== Disclaimer ==
This story will contain strong violence, death, and mild language (damn). If this makes you uncomfortable, do not read.
== Chapter 1 ==
April 20, 2241
Before I opened my eyes my first thought was; It’s really cold. My second thought was; Ow. It wasn’t until my third thought until I realized; My spacesuit isn’t on. I opened my eyes quickly, and didn’t see what I had expected. The interior of a spaceship was replaced by the wreckage of something large and wooden, and beyond that, a vast, pure white, desert. I sucked in a sharp breath, panic rising inside me. My thoughts seemed to be moving slower than they usually did, but slowly, the memories of the crash filtered into clarity. I had been going to Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, on the first Posiedon mission. Xena Corel, the first human to go to a gas giant’s moon. Everything had been fine, until I got into Neptune’s orbit. The spacecraft had changed, I didn’t know how, into a wooden ship, like the kind for the ocean. My clothes had changed too, my black hair turning into a braid down my right shoulder, my flight suit becoming a shite dress with a hood pulled over the top of my head, and a light, blue cloak. There had been two more ships floating in space around the planed, they had used catapults to launch large rocks at me, and my ship had spiraled down to the planet’s surface.
I pulled myself from the wreckage of the boat, feeling for injuries along my arms and legs. I was bruised, and had several small cuts and splinters, but I was, somehow, not dead, and not severely injured. My clothes were ripped, but they were all I had. I could see now that what I had thought were white sand dunes, were actually really huge drifts of fine snow, the kind of snow you got when it was too dry to snow properly but the sky decided to snow anyway. I wrapped my arms around my body, it was cold, and the dress and cloak didn’t do much to block the wind. I started to make a plan, starting by stating what I knew.
“I’m on Neptune,” I said to myself while rubbing my arms. “It’s not a ball of gas, it has a solid surface, and snow.” I was starting to panic, this wasn't how the world was supposed to be, Earth was the only inhabitable planet in the solar system. Everything I had learned about space was apparently false, because spaceships didn’t magically turn into boats. Wait! Magic. That was the answer, magic was somehow real. That realization didn’t blow my mind to pieces the way it probably should have, but I’m glad it didn’t.
The ships that had shot me down presumably belonged to people on the planet, so if I could find them they could help me, but then I was faced with another dilemma. I couldn’t see any sign of structures other than my shipwreck, and the shadows were almost non-existent, like it was noon, so I had about four hours before the sun would go down, but I couldn’t count on that being true. The ship’s supplies had all vanished, so I could wait there for someone to find me and hope I wouldn’t starve to death, or I could pick a direction and start walking. I chose option B.
The figurehead of the ship, shaped like some kind of bird of prey, had broken off and stuck out of the snow, pointing away from the ship, so I decided that was as good a direction as any to to start with. Without the dark shape of the shipwreck the vast dunes of snow seemed even more empty than they had before. I didn't know how long I walked, every time I took a step I had to lift my foot high to get it over the snow, and I sunk half-way up to my calf every time I put it down. The shoes I was wearing were far from waterproof, melting snow soaks through the material, making my feet numb. I stumbled many times, almost falling into the deep drifts, I was glad I didn't because I don't think I would have been able to get back up again if I did. The wind began to pick up, blowing snow across the dunes and buffeting me back and forth. I was tired and cold, my fingers and toes numb.
I was standing on top of one of the dunes, peering through the wind and snow, trying to see something, anything that could provide shelter, the only thing breaking the whiteness was a dark haze in the distance. The ground underneath me lurched and I fell, sliding with the snow as it fell. I looked up at the hill and saw it moving. Rising slowly, snow sliding in sheets off of shining white scales and leathery wings. A long neck and tail stretched and shook to rid itself of the last bits of snow. Yellow eyes opened blearily. I had just woken a sleeping dragon.
I ran, not exactly running, more like wading through the snow. Agonizingly slowly. The dragon still seems to be waking up, rolling its shoulders and arching its back. Nostrils flared, taking in my scent, and it turned its head toward me, then started crawling across the snow like a spider up a wall. It roared, a guttural howling that was like nothing I had ever heard before. I tripped, falling face-first into the snow, then rolled onto my back, staring up in horror at the massive reptile. It raised its head and mouth open, and it said my squishy Agony, shaking its head back and forth. Reddish blue liquid fell in large drops onto me and the surrounding snow. The dragon fell sideways into the snow, sending up a powdery white cloud.
I scrambled to my feet, shaking from the cold and fear.. I turned around when I heard footsteps running towards me. They belong to a man with messy brown hair and a matching beard, a bow in one hand. he was wearing boots made from some kind of animal hide with wooden boards strapped to their bottoms, they looked a lot more water-proof than mine.
“What are you doing out here?” His accent was similar to a British one from Earth. “No one should be out this late, especially not in the White Desert.”
“I’m not from here.” I tried to say, but my teeth were chattering and my lips were numb. He seemed to get the general meaning though.
“No kidding, I’ve never seen eyes like yours before.”
I was confused, my eyes were nothing special, just a dull green. But then I looked into his eyes, there were goals, and seemed to shine more than any other pair of eyes I had ever seen. He then moved faster than I could register, grabbing my arm and pulling me into a tight hold, a stone knife pressed to my throat. I took shallow breaths, every inhale pressing my throat into the sharp edge of the knife. 
“You go back where you came from, tell your queen that we're not here, we never were.” He hissed into my ear.
“What are you talking about?” I choked out. “I’m from Earth.”
His grip loosened a bit in what was apparently surprise, I stomped hard on his foot and he let go, shorter than what I could only assume we're Neptune is profanities. I ran as fast as I could away from the man with the knife. A sharp pain slave to cross my left bicep and I tripped into the snow. An arrow, fletched with brown feathers, was buried halfway up to its shaft in the snow a few feet from her face. Small spots of red trailed from the arrow, blood, my blood. I touched the scratch in my arm and my fingers came away sticky and red. The man was walking towards me, talking as he came.
“That was a warning shot, if you try to run again the next one will go straight through your heart. Besides, you’ll freeze to death  in an hour if you don’t come with me.”
I glared up at him, wishing that I wasn’t shaking. I knew that he was right, if I didn’t go with him I’d die either from cold or some animal that wasn’t supposed to exist.
“Those are your options, perish in the white desert or stand trial by the rebellion. I think you’re smart, so you should see the obvious choice.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but I did, I would have to go with the man who had tried to kill me. He was clearly on the run from the law, and he wasn’t hiding it. I would have to choose the lesser of two evils. Still glaring at him I stood up and said:
“Just don’t kill me on the way to wherever we’re going.” I growled.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He said, grinning. He took my injured arm and I jerked it away. “Relax, I’m helping you.” He sounded annoyed. He held up a strip of white cloth and took my arm again, and this time I let him. He wrapped the cloth around it, tying it tight so no more blood dripped from the scratch. “You’re going to have to wear these.” He held up a leather cord thatI had a feeling would go around my wrists.
“No, I’m not going to let you handcuff me.” I stepped away from him, shaking my head. “You’ve already tried to kill me today, and I’m supposed to trust you?” My voice was getting higher as I spoke. “I’ve almost died three times in the last twelve hours, and I’m on a planet where nothing makes sense.”
“If you’re really from Earth you’re going to have to get used to things not making sense. But things could be a lot worse for you.”
“And how’s that?”
“You could've been found by the queen's soldiers, they would’ve killed you in an instant. It’ll be dark soon, you have to pick, trial, or die in the elements. At least my way’s quicker.”
I gritted my teeth and presented my wrists to him to be tied. I thought that wherever he was taking me, I could escape after getting supplies, or that was what I told myself. I also let him tie a blindfold around my head. The ease with which he did this made me wonder how many other people had been kidnapped by this man. He took the tail left by the leather straps and led me through the snow. His makeshift snowshoes were apparently affective, because he was able to move across the snow much more quickly than I could. We hadn’t been walking for very long before he said:
“Watch your step, the ground’s rough here.” I could smell pine trees now, and the wind had lessened, now sounding like it blew through tree branches.
“We’re in the woods?” I guessed.
“Only shelter for miles. There’s plenty of game and the imps aren’t too much trouble. It’s really a paradise compared to the outside.” I felt branches scratch my face and pull at my clothes as we walked through bushes. “Ta-da, we’re here.”
He pulled the blindfold off with a flourish and I had to blink for a few seconds in the sudden light. We were in a large clearing surrounded by hedge-like bushes. There were tents and small, makeshift wooden shacks dotted around. Men and women were cooking over pits in the ground, or sewing boots and coats. Others were making arrows or bows, or stone tools. They all lifted their heads to stare at me as the man led me through the camp. He took me to the largest tent and pushed under the flap.
The floor was dirt, dry and packed and covered with frayed, faded rugs. A large table was in the center, covered in maps and melted candles, a plate of barely nibbled bread on one corner. A woman stood over the table, her brow furrowed in concentration. She straightened up when she heard us entered and I saw that she was tall and thin. Her hips jetted out sharply underneath her thin shirt and her cheekbones were clearly visible. She had dark circles under her eyes and her shoulder length brown hair was Tangled and dirty. Her eyes were gold, like the man but a more orange shade, that reflected the candlelight like mirrors. The man looked concerned as he looked at her.
“What is it?” She spoke in the same accent as the man, but she sounded more tired, like the world had beaten her down. “Who is this?” She was confused now.
“I found her out in the White Desert, a dragon almost got her.”
“I can speak for myself,” I snapped, glaring at the man. “My name is Xena Corel, I’m from Earth.”
The woman raised her eyebrows skeptically. “She really isn’t trying very hard is she?” She looked at the man and smiled, but he didn’t return it. “No. No you can’t really think,” he nodded stoically. She sighed. “Quin how long were you out there? Did you hit your head, you’re crazy to believe this.”
“Alex look at her, look at her eyes. You can’t say you’ve seen eyes that color before.”
“My eyes? You should see your eyes.” I interjected. I didn’t like hearing them discussing me like that.
“Quiet, it is not your time to speak. Quin, at best you have brought a crazy woman to our camp who has no reason to be here. At worst she is a spy, either way she will have to be killed.”
“What!” I yelled. “I really am from Earth, I have no idea what’s going on!” I was screaming now, ignoring Alex’s shouts for me to be quiet. I’m not proud of how I cried and begged, all I could think about was staying alive.
“Quiet!” She looked at me with disgust. “You can spend the night here, I’ll decide what to do with you in the morning, it’s too late tonight.”
“Thank you.” I gasped.
“I did not say that you would live, I am only giving you a chance.”
“A chance is all I need.”
“She can sleep in the women’s barracks, tie her to a wall. I’ll send someone to get her when I’ve made up my mind.’”
Quin nodded and led me out of the tent. It had gotten dark in the time we were inside, and torches were burning on poles around the clearing. He led me to a long, wooden building and knocked on the door. A red haired woman with blue eyes opened the door and stared at me.
“It’s just for the night,” Quin explained. “Until Alex decides what to do with her.”
“Well tie her tight, I don’t want her slitting our throats in the night.”
“Of course.”
The woman stepped aside and let us pass into the building. There were rows of blankets on the floor, and curtains were hung from the beams of the ceiling to divide them from each other. Other women were talking or combing their hair, but they all stopped as we walked, eyeing me distrustfully. I lifted my chin in a defiant way, trying to show them that I wasn’t scared, even though I was. Quin took me to one of the curtained sections and tied me to a post in the wall. He left me there and I heard the door open and close, then the whispers started. Everyone in the building apparently had something to say about me. I was too tired to listen to them. I was exhausted, and sore, and my brain had been overloaded for the day. In a short period of time everything I had known, my very idea of reality, had been ripped to shreds. It was  warm in the building. I curled up as best I could, quietly crying. I had been beaten down, and I would probably die in the morning.
== Chapter 2 ==
Apten 21, 334
I woke up to stiff joints and the feeling of sleeping in the wrong clothes. I looked around and remembered the events of the previous day. I did my best to stretch out my legs and back, the ropes making it difficult. I listened for the sounds of the other women, but the barracks were silent. I wondered what time it was, and where everyone had gone. I heard footsteps and I straightened up, my heart pounding in fear of Alex’s verdict. Quin pulled the curtain aside and looked down at me.
“Alex has made her decision, I’m supposed to take you to her.”
My mouth was dry, and the best reply I could get out was a strangled “Okay.”
He untied me from the wall but kept my hands tightly tied together. The barracks were empty, every blanked carefully folded and put up against the wall with a small chest. When we stepped outside the sun was bright as mid-day, so I wondered how long I had slept. But the camp seemed like it was just waking up. People were starting fires in pits in the ground and cooking over them. The forest was quiet like early morning, and birds were just starting to chirp in the trees. Quin led me to the tent where Alex had been the day before. It looked the same as it had before, but now Alex’s hair was in a ponytail and her clothes were cleaner and less wrinkled. She had a sword in a sheath at her side, not a knife like Quin, but a real, long, deadly looking sword. She was scarier now, my life and death was in her hands, I didn’t like someone else having that power over me. She seemed tall and intimidating, though we couldn’t be very different in height.
“You understand the difficulty in the choice I’ve had to make.” My heart was pounding in my throat, I felt sick. “But I was persuaded, against my better judgement,” my ears were ringing so badly that I almost did,’t hear the next few words. “That I will let you live.”
“What?”
“You will live, unless you’ve changed your mind about wanting to.”
“No!” I blurted as quickly as I could. “Thank you! Thank you!.”
“You understand that there must be precautions in place, I can’t just have an unsupervised outsider wandering around my camp, no. You will have to follow a set of rules, in addition to the rules followed by all of my soldiers, there will be a special few for you. If you break these rules, I will have to kill you.”
“Of course, I’ll do whatever you say.” I was so happy to be alive at all that I didn’t care about the conditions.
“You are not allowed to leave the camp without my or my brother’s permission.” She nodded to Quin, who was still holding me by the straps on my wrists. “You will stay here for a trial period of seven days, afterwhich, if you have proven your loyalty to the rebellion, you will be trained to fight alongside us. If you ever hurt a member of this army, you will be executed. I’m taking a risk in trusting Corel, don’t make me regret it.”
I nodded to each rule as she spoke, still thinking of ways to escape, preferably alive. This army she kept talking about, it seemed very likely that I would end up stuck fighting in a war, possibly on the wrong side.
“I’m putting you on stable duty until your probation is over. Quin, uncuff her and take her to get settled.”
He untied my hands, wearing a smile that I didn’t return. The leather cords had left indents in my wrists and I had to rub them to get circulation back to my hands. He then took me out of the tent and through the clearing to a low building slightly larger than the barracks. It smelled bitter inside, like medicine. A short woman in a plain white shirt and brown pants came up to us, eying me with interest.
“So, Alex decided to keep her?” She asked Quin.
“I’m as surprised as you are. Xena, this is Heather, she’s our medic.”
“I have fresh clothes that you can use, too.” 
Heather took me behind a partition and gave me a white shirt, thick brown pants, a thick coat, and tall leather boots. I don’t know what she did with the dress and shoes, but I didn’t really care. She cleaned and re-bandaged the cut on my arm and let me wash and comb my hair. She didn’t talk much, so I didn’t either. Quin was waiting for me outside of the hut and looked me up and down.  
“Very nice. You look like a regular rebel, without the weapons of course. Breakfast is usually ready an hour after sunrise, everyone takes turns cooking.” He showed me the storehouse where they kept dried meat and other assorted food items. He gave me some bread and what I could only assume was porridge.
“Don’t act like you didn’t try to kill me yesterday.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yesterday you were holding a knife to my throat and today you’re being nice to me. I’m just wondering which version of you is the real one and which one is the impostor.”
“I assure you, this is all the real me. And I’m being nice to you because I think that you’re a good person. Others around here won’t believe that you’re not a spy, so you may as well take all the friends you can.”
“I was alone in space for over a year, I can handle having no friends, and any friends I do have, I’m going to pick myself.”
“Alright.” He didn’t say anything after that, just led me over to the stables.
The stables were less like a building and more like a row of long shacks, connected by a large open area of grass. I could hear snorting and stomping from inside them.
“Olivia’s got a way with the unicorns, you’ll be helping her take care of them.”
“Unicorns?” I stared at him. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“Why would I be joking, we have to have something to pull our sleds.”
“Yeah, but unicorns?”
“Would you rather we use dragons?”
“Or horses.”
“Ah. I see. Your planet has gone so long without magic that you’ve forgotten that even unicorns exist. Well I have to go, Olivia will show you what to do. Olivia!” He called. “I’ve brought you a new helper.”
A woman poked her head out from behind one of the walls. I took in a sharp breath. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her skin was light blue, like the sky right before sunset. Her cheek bones were sharp and so was her chin. She had silver eyes that sparkled, like they were made from crushed glass.
“What’s the matter? Never seen an Altori before?”
“Sorry.” I looked away quickly. “I didn’t mean-”
“It’s fine.” She laughed. When she smiled I could see that her canines were slightly longer and sharper than any human’s I had ever seen. “Come on, I’ll show you what to do.” She waved at Quin to go away. Something about her made me feel at ease, more relaxed than I had been since I had crashed. “So you’re new here.”
“You could say that.” I wrinkled my nose at the smell as we entered the unicorn’s pen. They may have been magical, but they still smelled like livestock.
“These are our unicorns. It’s my job to take care of them, and now it’s yours too.”
There were three unicorns. Pinecone was small and brown with a white patch on her face and on her legs. Mystery was a silver gray with a long thin horn that sparkled slightly in the light. The third unicorn was huge and jet black. His horn was long and black, ending in a white tip that looked sharp enough to stab someone with. Olivia showed me how to feed the unicorns and clean the pens.
“Well that’s this morning’s work done, let’s go have some lunch and you can tell me about yourself.”
Lunch my first day at camp was grilled fish and fresh bread, and it was the best thing I had ever tasted.
“My dad always said food tastes better when it’s been cooked outside.” I said. “I guess he was right because that was delicious.”
“Yeah,” Olivia responded. “Levi’s the best cook in the camp.”
“You know, back where I’m from every little girl’s dream is to have a unicorn. And here I am being forced to do it as punishment. My little cousins would be so jealous.” I paused.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” It was a lie. It had just hit me that I would never see my family again. I would never hear my dad’s laugh or watch my cousins playing with the hose in the summer. I was stuck on a planet billions of miles away from my home, and my family didn’t know. They would think I was dead, and in a way I was. I would never see them again. I stood up quickly. “Let’s get back to work.” I said sharply.
I moved sharply, jabbing the ground with my rake. I often missed the wheelbarrow, which only made me more angry. We had to feed the unicorns again and I thought that I would make myself useful by feeding Victory. I opened the gate and walked in with the bucket of food. The great black unicorn reared onto his hind legs, towering above me and letting out a sound like a scream. A hand on the back of my coat pulled me back just as he brought his voices down where I had been standing. Olivia closed the gate quickly and whirled to face me.
“Never go into Victory’s pen!” she shouted. “He tries to kill anyone who gets close to him but Alex. While you’re working here you answer to me. Don’t do anything with the unicorns without my permission.”
I nodded, unable to speak. I was shaking and my hands were tingling. I saw that I had dropped the bucket and spilled the grain across the ground.
“What is wrong with that thing?” I said when I had regained control of my tongue.
“He’s Alex’s.”
“Well that explains a lot.”
“That’s not what I meant. She raised him from a goal, he doesn’t let anyone else touch him. Unicorns usually like me, but not Victory.”
I turned to the gate when I heard a creaking sound. It was Alex. She walked over to Victory and picked up the bucket.
“I assume it was you who dropped this?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “Olivia forgot to tell you about Victory’s temper didn’t she?”
“Is there perhaps a reason you came here, other than to tell us off that is?” Olivia crossed her arms over her chest, fixing Alex in a cold stare.
“Yes, actually. You should expect Quin around here soon. He’s taking Mystery to pick up that dragon he shot yesterday.”
“I’ll get on that.”
Quin and some other members of the rebellion took Mystery out with a sled and came back a few hours later, the sled piled with dragon scales. The scales had been roughly cut from the dragon’s body and were covered in bluish blood. Olivia and I were tasked with washing them.
“So how long have you been here?” I asked as I scrubbed the dried blood from a pearly white scale.
“About a season cycle.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
She thought for a few seconds. “Four seasons, you know what a season is?” I nodded. “Well a season cycle lasts from the first day of spring to the last day of winter. Each season is divided into three months, each month has twenty-eight days. Today is Apten twenty-first, the in the three-hundred and thirty-fourth year of Queen Corona’s reign. Apten is the second month of spring.”
“Wait, you said she’s been in charge for three hundred season cycles? No way she’s been alive that long, unless you live longer here than we do on Earth.”
“No. Three hundred season cycles is a long time for a Neptunite. They say she’s not human, she’s a dragon.” She looked down at the scale she was holding.
“How would people not notice the queen is a dragon, that seems like a pretty hard thing to miss.”
“Ice dragons have strong magical powers. Legend has it they can take the shape of a human if they want to.”
I shivered. Running from a dragon when you knew where it was was scary enough. Knowing it was a person around you, but not knowing who, that sounded even more terrifying.
“Obviously we can’t have a dragon on the throne of our planet, so that’s why we rebel.”
I nodded, it made sense. Maybe I would stay, Olivia didn’t seem so bad.
The world went dark. One second it had been bright as noon, the next dark as night. I screamed and Olivia grabbed my wrists.
“It’s alright Xena. This is normal.”
My eyes had adjusted enough to let me see that the other people in the camp were giving me odd looks. As far as I could tell no one else had reacted to the sudden loss of light.
“What just happened?” I asked Olivia.
“It’s night fall.” She explained. “The sun is too far away for us to get light from it, so the magic of the planet provides it. It turns on and off every twelve hours. This can wait until tomorrow.” She gestured to the pile of scales. “You must be tired after today, come on.”
She led me to the barracks and the section that I had stayed in the night before. It was no longer empty. There was a sleeping bag rolled up on top of a small wooden chest. When I looked inside the chest I found a change of clothes, a comb, and an empty leather water bottle. I unrolled the sleeping bag and curled up inside of it. I fell asleep almost immediately.Category:Literature
Category:Original Stories
Category:Original Stories (Unfinished)