Chloe

This is a series of pictures I have been drawing in my spare time over the past month about a fictional five year old girl named Chloe Walker, her parents, Patrisha and Thomas Walker and her two aunts, Olivette Walker and Blanche Morgan (all equally fictional).

The cold forest continued

PART THREE

It had been three years since the evening they had argued. In that time Angele triumphed over her husband, they set out, Angele had a baby boy and Lana and Jermaine became engaged.

So far their journey had been rough, cold and dangerous. They were not always trusted and often had to sleep in sheds. It was easier to find a place to stay in the cities because of the shelters put up for the express purpose of helping those on the long march and giving them a good meal and a bed for the night, but despite these comforts there was always a sense of uncertainty and the feeling that all was not right. The towns were thick with armed patrols, some more than others. And everyone had some kind of weapon which made the little group feel very exposed as they weren't allowed to carry weapons to The Hidden City. They didn't feel comfortable in the cities and were always glad to get back into the countryside. All the guns gave the impression that a great number of the city dwellers didn't die of natural causes. Angele and Lana were in constant fear of being attacked, as were Ralf and Jermaine, although they didn't show it. They had got rather lost after leaving one of the smaller towns and wandered into the cold forest where they kept going for a few hours until they met Sonia.

Angele woke with a start, she was sure she had heard something, but all was quiet and she soon dosed off again.

“Angele! Angele! Angele wake up! Angele!”

“What?” said Angele sleepily,

“Angele! Connal is gone! And Ralf and Sonia!”

“Connal?” Angele was still only half awake.

“Yes, Connal! Wake up! They're gone!”

“Gone?!”

“Yes!” Lana was shaking her; Angele was beginning to comprehend. 
“Where?!”

“We don't know. Jermaine's gone to look for them and I'm going to go help him when you're ready, unless you'd rather stay here.”

“No, I'll come.”

Jermaine was standing outside waiting for them when Angele and Lana emerged from the hut.

“What have you found?” asked Lana.

“Tyre tracks heading in that direction.” said Jermaine, pointing, “I can't tell how they got into the vehicle since the ground was all frozen.”

“Oh Ralf.” Angele almost sobbed.

“We'll see where the tracks lead. Don't worry Angele, we'll find Ralf.” said Lana, taking her hand. They walked for hours as the sun rose higher but the temperature didn't. It soon became uncomfortably obvious why it was called the cold forest. The trail ended at a wall of rock. Angele sat down and burst into tears. 

Star Wars Cartoons Part Three: The Aeroplane

The Cold Forest

PART TWO

Sonia crept forward stealthily. The bee (a large furry black animal which is killed for food, its fur and its horns. It is not related to the honey or bumble bees and does not sting in case you were wondering), was nearly in range. She aimed her gun carefully.
 Sonia had been born and spent the early years of her life in Beton, a small town in the warm regions, but her father had disappeared when she was ten and her mother had died the next year, no one knew why. One day Sonia had gone to the beach with her mother. She had run off to collect shells for half an hour leaving her mother sitting on the sand. When Sonia returned her mother was dead. Sonia was taken in by The Government, an organisation for looking after homeless children.

One day Sonia was out walking with her caretaker when a car careered down the street and came to a screeching halt just in front of the pair. A hand holding a gun came out and shot the caretaker. The car doors opened. Two black figures emerged, seized Sonia and buzzed her so she became unconscious. When she awoke she was lying on a black leather sofa in a dark smoky room. A strange man with a beard and a black leather jacket was watching her. He said his name was Mirabell and he would be training her to be part of their group. When the actual training began, Sonia caused so much trouble that they left her in the Cold Forest with nothing but a knife, a gun and the promise that they would return when they thought she was ready. That had been three years ago, when she was fourteen.

A stick cracked in the bushes and the bee bolted. Sonia fired after it but missed. She sprang up angrily, broke off a branch of fire tree and beat the rocks around her in frustration. It gave her satisfaction to see the branch in her hand blaze up in orange flame for a few seconds. When the branch was spent of its fire she snapped it and kicked it as far as she could in the direction the bee had gone. She was about to start throwing dirt after it too when out from the bushes on her right came five people: two men, two women and a small boy about three years old. The two women gasped upon seeing her and leapt back. The men looked startled and the boy hid behind the elder woman's skirt.

Sonia stared at them silently, still holding her hands full of dirt. Something told her she should speak to these people but she had not spoken to anyone for so long that she was a bit unsure of herself.

“Who... who are you?” she said slowly, her heart pounding.

The lighter haired man who seemed to be the leader said, equally unsurely, “We're... on the long march to...” he swallowed, “the hidden city.” Sonia gave him a puzzled look.

“Will you let us pass?” said the other man nervously.

“We're looking for a place to spend the night.” said the first man, “Could you give us directions?”

Sonia shook her head slowly.

“Oh.” he turned away. Sonia took a deep breath.

“You... can stay... with me.”

The younger lighter haired woman sighed in relief as her companions' faces lit up. Sonia rose and picked up her gun from where she had dropped it.

“This way.” She slipped silently through the foliage in the direction of her cave-hut where she occasionally slept, prepared food and made her clothes. As the others followed they spoke to each other in low voices. It was dark by the time they reached the small building so they had a light meal and put the boy, Connal, to bed. Then they sat around the fire, talking. Their names were Ralf, Angele, Lana and Jermaine. 

The Frozen Plains

PART ONE

“I don't think we're going to get anything else tonight.” said Angele,

climbing down from the rock and handing the cardan to Lana who sighed and put the lifeless little body into the bag.

“How much do you think we'll get?” 
“I'd say about fifty six centros perhaps.” 
“Well, let's get back. We don't want to be out after nine.” 
They began to climb down the hill to a red and white yurt just outside the camp. Angele and Lana lived alone, getting by on the money they earned from selling coffee, cardan skins and pies (a cardan is a small animal which lives on and around the frozen plains, has beautiful long, white, brown, black or golden fur and tastes like nondescript stew when cooked). Every morning the girls could be seen at their stall where they would stay cooking pies and coffee until 3 pm when they returned to their yurt. After preparing the cardan skins for sale the next day, they went out hunting until 8:30 pm. On their return they would skin the cardans they had killed, cook the meat and roll out pastry for the pies.

Angele had lately become engaged to Ralf, another, more successful hunter who had his own herd of bahrams, an animal like a sheep but larger which was farmed for milk and wool.

Ralf lived with his mother Zara in a brown and blue yurt near the middle of the camp

and was a close friend to Mirabell, one of the higher class yurt-owners who lived with his wife Iona.

He had a herd of bahrams and a flock of whills, a large kind of pigeon, which earned him a small fortune each week with their eggs, meat and feathers.

He even had the money to buy an extra powerful motorised sled to haul his yurt and belongings from one campsite to another when everyone else had to do it themselves or with the help of their friends. Every few months or so gangs of robbers would come down from the mountains on raids to carry away livestock and sometimes small children. But other than that everything went well in the frozen plains camp.

“Evening Lana, evening Angele.” 
“Good evening Mirabell. Where are you going?” asked Lana, they had reached their yurt where they encountered Mirabell leaving the camp. 
“I'm off to find one of my bahrams who's gotten loose.” 
“Good luck sir.” said Angele, nodding goodbye. Mirabell was soon lost to view in the gloom. As they prepared for bed that night Angele was strangely quiet. She would marry Ralf tomorrow and her life would change completely. She didn't realise how completely. There would be no more sitting out in the small, draughty stall dealing with customers. Ralf would do all the selling. She would go hunting with him, help haul the yurt and he might even teach her how to drive his quad bike to herd the bahrams when they moved next. Something thumped against the wall of the yurt. Angele and Lana jumped and looked at each other. Robbers? No, they never bumped into yurts and it wasn't time yet anyway. They rushed outside and dimly distinguished in the gloom a figure lying motionless on the ground not far from their boots which they had forgotten to take inside. 
“Oh no!” said Lana. 
“I'll get Ralf.” said Angele.

When Ralf came it was revealed that the figure was a man in foot traveling gear without a gun. He was obviously on the long march to the hidden city. There was a nasty looking cut on one side of his head and his arm had been hit by a hand thrown missile. He had dark hair and his eyes were tight shut. They carried him to Ralf's yurt where Zara took care of him with Lana's help.

He said his name was Jermaine.

Ralf and Angele were married the next day and the camp moved to new territory. Mirabell still had not returned from his search for the bahram but no notice was taken of it except by Ralf who remarked that it was strange for him to take so long since bahrams never strayed very far. The new couple were happy as possible for exactly two weeks and three days. Then everything went wrong. Jermaine was indeed on the long march and had been attacked by three big men who stole his pack. Before they could steal anything else he had raced for the camp but had been hit by one of their missiles and tripped over some boots outside the girls' yurt.

After listening to him talk about the long march for a while Jermaine's enthusiasm began to rub off on Lana. One evening she came over to Angele and Ralf's yurt for tea. 
“Jermaine's been telling me what it's like on the long march and he asked me to go with him when he's better. I want to go but I wanted to ask your advice.” she said while they were eating. Ralf and Angele looked at each other, then at Lana. The long march was a long and dangerous road and many travelers did not survive it. Lana and Angele were not sisters or blood relations of any kind but they loved each other just as much as if they were. Like many others in the camp, they were orphans taken in by members of the young hunters organisation until they were old enough to take care of themselves. This love built up over years of living together spurred Angele to do something she would regret for the rest of her life. “We'll go with you.” 
“What?” said Lana, aghast.
“We're going with you Lana.” 
Ralf started up, “Angele-” 
“We're not going to let you go by yourself with a stranger.”
“Angele, it could take years.” 
“I don't care how long it takes. If you don't go with me I don't care, I'm going, whatever you say.” 
“Angele and Lana, please reconsider.” 
Ralf looked pleadingly at Angele. "I wish Mirabell was here, he could talk some sense into you both" he said unhappily.
“Maybe I shouldn't go.” said Lana, staring down uncomfortably at her plate. 
“You should go Lana. I'm going with you.” 
“Angele.” 
“I am.” Angele stood up and left the yurt.