The survey is about polar bears. Traditionally, polar bears receive their surveys by post, but this time, Sally\u2019s boss sent her north.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolar bear literacy rates are reported at 98%,\u201d said Sally\u2019s boss. This is the kind of thing the Formerly Lethal Corporation does in the apr\u00e8s-apocalypse environment. \u201cI don\u2019t believe those numbers. I think that many polar bears are ashamed to admit that they can\u2019t read. Others, unable to read, eat our survey. It\u2019s a tasty paper treat! We can fix the first problem with marketing \u2014 making it glamorous to admit one\u2019s flaws. But to fix the second problem we need someone on the site. We need someone to go there and put the question to the polar bears directly!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMe,\u201d said Sally. Her voice was quiet and her affect blank. \u201cSend me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s wonderful!\u201d exclaimed her boss, and hugged her. That\u2019s one reason why Sally is traveling north.<\/p>\n
The other is that she\u2019s had a hard life and she\u2019s tired.<\/p>\n
Sally reaches the north pole and begins lining up polar bears. She administers the survey to each. It becomes rapidly obvious that very few polar bears can read. Some even try to eat her. Sally does not want to live. But she clings to life. When they snarl and bite at her, she flees across the snow. Behind her, a more civilized bear runs interference, crying, \u201cWithout table manners, we are nothing more than animals! White furry animals! With teeth! Please, you must show restraint!\u201d<\/p>\n
Sally does not hear. She runs, and runs, until the ice cracks beneath her feet and she falls into a cavern beneath the snow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t deserve to live,\u201d she says. \u201cI have no value.\u201d<\/p>\n
A time passes, in the dark.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s so very cold.\u201d<\/p>\n
So she lights a flashlight and looks around her. She\u2019s in a great cavern, and all around her, in frozen sleep, they are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you?\u201d she says. But she knows. This is a thing that was not meant to exist in her world.<\/p>\n
She stands. She hobbles over. She stares at them.<\/p>\n
There are princes in shining mail, and great beasts, and witches, and old women, and golden spindles. There is Princess Anthology, who would have been for Peter, and the crow that could have saved Linus from his fate. And there, to the left, is hers.<\/em> Her prince.<\/p>\n She touches his frozen skin. \u201cI had a wicked stepmother,\u201d she tells him. \u201cI ran away from her, and I lived in the forest, and you did not come.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a forest. It was a boarding school. She is taking poetic license.<\/p>\n \u201cShe enchanted me, and I lived with that enchantment \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n That enchantment: you are no one important.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAnd in the end I heard that she had died and turned to ash and been scattered, but even so, the enchantment didn\u2019t break.\u201d<\/p>\n The prince is silent.<\/p>\n Sally touches his face. It is frozen.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you didn\u2019t come,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Sally walks through that great cavern, and sees them all, and after a time, she tells them the story of that place.<\/p>\n \u201cYou were here before us,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t even know if there were people. You were here before us, you shining principles. You were heroes. You were Kings and you were Queens. And you fought for us, you were our salvation \u2014 for there were monsters back then, nightmares and horrors, that were just as much made for us as you. And you won. You won, you were winning. But the world grew cold.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018We shall die,\u2019 said the princes, and the princesses with their golden hair, and the beasts that spoke, and the witches, and the frogs. \u2018We shall die. The world grows cold.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so you came to the coldest place of all and buried yourselves here. Not to die. Not truly. Simply to be<\/em>. And the lady of winter kept you. That must have been what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Sally sits, leaning against an ice-pink unicorn. Its face is feral and wild.<\/p>\n \u201cI do not think I can revive you,\u201d she says. \u201cI do not think anybody can.\u201d<\/p>\n The unicorn is silent. Sally\u2019s prince does not move.<\/p>\n If she escapes, she knows \u2014<\/p>\n If she survives this, then she will say it. She will tell people. She will tell people, even though she\u2019ll tell herself not to, and they will come, and they will see.<\/p>\n \u201cI must die here,\u201d she says. \u201cSo I won\u2019t tell them. They must never know.<\/p>\n \u201cThe universe cares for us more than I can bear, and that gift is frozen, under the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The survey is about polar bears. Traditionally, polar bears receive their surveys by post, but this time, Sally\u2019s boss sent her north. \u201cPolar bear literacy rates are reported at 98%,\u201d said Sally\u2019s boss. This is the kind of thing the Formerly Lethal Corporation does in the apr\u00e8s-apocalypse environment. \u201cI don\u2019t believe those numbers. I think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"series":[50],"class_list":["post-6991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vidars-boot-chapter-25","series-vidars-boot"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Icon_Winter.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6992,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991\/revisions\/6992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6991"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=6991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}