Snowblind {complete}

Dry- Immigrant

Snowblind – a racial slur. Refers to Southerners as they are considered ill-educated and so set in their ways that they are 'blinded' by the snow of their homeland and need to 'thaw' to be enlightened and make the best use of their talents.

(First City Dictionary)

It neared the end of the dry season. The rains would come soon, yet everything remained green. A warm breeze sighed through the exotic vegetation, and long, straight, tree-like plants that grew in sections filled the landscape.

Grass sprouted everywhere, bright and lush, long blades twirling in gusts full of unfamiliar scents, while fruit trees displayed appetising globes, but they dared not touch them – one mistake and their journey could end in tragedy.

Lanna's hands tightened on the driftwood staves. They dragged behind her, scraping and vibrating like a drumskin under her sweat-slick palms. Lashed between the wood lay her mother. The Blacklands canker afflicted them all, but her mother had lost toes.

The muscles in Lanna's back tightened where hips met spine, and the space between her shoulder blades burnt, perspiration trickling down the valley of her backbone. The furs she wore itched against her wet skin, but she had to wear them – her only alternative was underclothes.

Lanna rolled her shoulders and glared up, not quite at the sun but to a nearby patch of azure, watching scudding clouds with gold underbellies.

Her father swore and trudged ahead, knotted muscles in his legs and arms taxed beyond even his endurance. His walk dragged and his hands hung limp.

'Ma?' Lanna turned and checked her cargo.

The disgruntled face of her mother, Freya, peered from the leather strips and fur that held her in place. 'This pissing heat will be the death of us all.' Her mother's pallid face shone with fever, her cheeks and eyes hollow, shadows deepened by the merciless northern sun.

Worry tugged again at Lanna's stomach, threatening to make her falter. She had never seen her mother so weak.

'Take heart,' her father's voice grumbled from ahead. 'At least there's plenty to drink here.'

Lanna shrugged but a cold stab of fear sliced through her chest. As a good Clanswoman should, she didn't acknowledge such things, but the emotion refused to subside. A new country, a new people. Would they be accepted? There were no guarantees. Months of travel and they may find themselves unwelcome. She bit her lip. In the clans she had not been accepted – why would things be different here? The nation had changed but her sickness remained.

A stave struck yet another stone and the wooden poles jumped in her grip, rough bark rubbing at her raw palms. It didn't matter; the ancestors were giving her an opportunity to pay back her debt to her family. Usually it was her that needed care.

Hide boots fell once again into monotonous rhythm, and the ground yielded under her footing – rich, dark, fertile. Ever since they'd crossed the Blacklands, the heat had increased, day by day. They had never known air so hot that it lay thick and heavy in the lungs. Their fur clothes and pale, bulky bodies were not bred for this climate.

'It's like another world,' Freya muttered from behind.

'Yes,' Lanna whispered. 'It is different.' The word didn't come close to describing the mixture of wonder and foreboding that coursed through her in alternating waves. Lanna found this land unnerving in its strangeness. What creatures did those thickets of pretty plants conceal?

She pulled onwards. The track under her feet was some sort of cattle path, she thought. If so, surely there must be a farm or village nearby? She forgave her uncertainty – after all, there were no cattle in the south, so she had no knowledge of their upkeep or habits.