Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 302

This week's picture prompt was taken by Juuso Hämäläinen over on Instagram. It was taken in Levi, Lappi, Finland. He has some stunning shots and art. Worth taking some time to enjoy them. 

Another Tricky story this week as she is at the forefront of my mind. The lst one was on Week 300. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.



Trace

Tricky was utterlyunprepared for this. Her clothes weren’t made to deal with all this white,thick, cold stuff. She was wet through, and felt weighted down. She’d neverexperienced snow before, only read about it. Apparently some big old jolly man,all dressed in red, was going to come careening over the slopes on a sleighpulled by some funny looking animals, and offer her a present – at least thatwas what all the old books said when it was the season for this stuff to fallfrom the sky, back before the shift.

But the only big old man likely to show uphere was Douglas Bottle, aka Gandalf, and Tricky knew his jolly disposition wasmore a sinister sneer. No, she didn’t want any old men showing up to give heranything, thank you very much. She was doing just fine on her own.

But why was he traveling this way? He wasway too easy to track in snow. He knew she was following him. Or was that thepoint? Was he thinking he was setting his own trap? Tricky chuckled to herself.He really hadn’t learnt, had he? He was helping her implement her own plan. Shejust needed to know where he’d gone soe she could pull all the threadstogether.

She stopped by one of the snow laden trees,a strong spruce. She put her hands on its trunk and received its high jittery,lime green energy. When she visualised Bottle, she saw his brightly dressedgarb rushing off ahead of her, slightly downhill, then it paused by a largeconifer and vanished.

She passed on some of her own energy to thetree as thanks, and stuffed her hands back in her pockets, attempting to savethem from the cutting cold. As she looked at the path ahead, she couldn’t help noticethe heavens above. Up high on a mountain side with air sharpened by the cold,the clarity of the night sky was striking. It seemed full to bursting withbright pinpricks denoting other stars in other universes. Tricky wasn’tfamiliar enough with constellations to know if the patterns were different fromher own time, though she suspected they were. And the streak of distantnebulous cloud which outlined the arm of their galaxy gave it more depth. Sheinhaled a deep lungful of crisp clear air and gave herself a moment beforecontinuing her pursuit.

Even though she was here to weave a littlemagic of her own, she still embraced the awe and wonder at passing through theselocations. And there was no shortage of them, as this particular stunt wasproving.

Tricky knew Bottle thought he knew what hewas doing, leading her into a trap, but he clearly underestimated her craftynature. It was a merry dance alright, but one he wasn’t going to end up enjoying,she was sure of that – oh yes she was. She smiled to herself as she set offdown the hill. She wished she could see his face when he realised how he’dallowed her to ensnare him.

When she arrived at the large conifer, sheclosed her eyes and took in a deep breath. The crystal air made everything alittle bit sharper and she quickly saw the remnants of the line Gandalf hadopened into the next time. But the energy colour had shifted slightly, as shesuspected, because he was trying to lead her into his own trap.

To those that could read energy as well asTricky, this ploy was obvious. He’d already tried it twice and she hadn’tfallen for it either time, but he hadn’t seem to have realised that. And whatit enabled Tricky to do was create her own little net of deception. The fact hewas still clueless meant there was a greater chance of success.

She took another breath and blew out gentlyacross the line causing it to glow. She took out the obsidian still wrapped ingermwort and scraped up a grain of creasy from the few loose in her pocket. Shedidn’t need much, just a spark to open it a slither. She held them in the airagainst the line, and when she dropped the creasy onto the covered stone, it openeda crack as she’d hoped. She took a tiny piece of aluminium foil out of anotherpocket and stuck it in the gap. It fizzed and crackled, but closed, leaving abarely visible scrap of metal in the air. Few people would notice its existence.

Such metals were a rarity in Tricky’s world,but she’d come across a roll buried in some rubble where there’d been adwelling before the shift. She’d only ever used tiny scraps, learning early on itsuse as a replacement mirror.

A raucous cackle escaped her and echoed offthe snow covered hills. Oh this was going to be so much fun.