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Winter Weather Advisory
I awoke to Sara’s cold touch.
That familiarity was nice considering the situation. We’d just arrived that day to the cabin where we would be spending the winter holiday, and so I hadn’t gotten used to the bed or room we were in, among other things.
One of those other things being the below freezing temperatures. That was taking some getting used to. I’d already begun shivering from the cold. Sara had tried to tell me just how bad it would be, but I really hadn’t realized what I was getting into.
I rubbed my eyes, still a bit groggy. “What time is it?” I managed to mutter.
“Few minutes before two,” she replied. “We’re going to both need to be downstairs soon.”
I flinched. It was already too cold for my liking, and the thought of leaving the sanctuary of the bed’s blankets didn’t appeal.
There was barely enough moonlight streaming in through the window to make out Sara’s outline. She plopped down on the floor next to the bed. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but it sounded like she was rummaging through our luggage for some reason.
“Did you forget something back at the apartment?” I asked.
In response, she retrieved something from one of the bags and tossed it on top of me. It was a coat, a very thick one. It was definitely more sturdy than what I’d brought along.
“Where’d you get this?” I asked. It wasn’t mine, and I knew that Sara wouldn’t have brought one for her.
“I picked it up for you before we left,” she said. “I was pretty sure that you wouldn’t take me seriously when I told you that yours wouldn’t be enough.”
Hard to be annoyed at the lack of trust when she had been completely right.
I pulled on the coat. The relief was immediate, and I sighed in content. Getting out from under the covers seemed possible now. “Thank you so much for not believing in me.”
Sara snorted. “Wouldn’t want you to freeze to death out here.”
She stood up and kicked the luggage. “I put some more cold weather gear in there for you. Put it on, be down in twenty. I’ll explain everything then.”
She moved to leave, then paused. “Almost forgot,” she said.
Instead of exiting, she turned around and walked right to the room’s small window. With practiced hands, she undid the rusty latch and threw the window open.
The wind quickly blew in the cold, and my shivering became even worse. “What the hell Sara?!”
“Please, leave it open,” she said simply as she exited the room, closing the door behind her.
From the bed, I looked through the window she’d just opened. For the first time I was able to take in how the forest surrounding the cabin looked at night. The snow gently fell onto the already covered ground below. There was just enough wind that some of the snow was getting in through the window, landing on the room’s floor instead.
If I’d been looking at the scene from behind glass- maybe next to a crackling fire and with some hot chocolate- I might have been able to appreciate it. But for some reason Sara had deliberately erased the barrier between those two worlds. And I was stuck in the thick of it.
As I changed into the new clothing, unkind and vulgar words were said of snow, and cold, and of all things Winter.
The cold was miserable, but those few minutes between leaving the relative safety of the bedsheets and getting dressed made me appreciate how much worse than miserable cold weather could get.
Standing in the upstairs hallway, I could see that there was a light coming from downstairs. That had to be the fireplace- it was too strong to be candles and the cabin didn’t have any electricity.
I had a bit of time, so I peaked into the two other upstairs rooms to check the windows. I confirmed that Sara had opened every window on this floor. Judging by the amount of snow under each one, they had all been open for a long time. I wanted to close them, but Sara had made it clear that she was doing this on purpose. I had to trust that she had a good reason for it.
My survey complete and my time almost up, I started to slowly walk downstairs. Slowly, because as I walked in became even colder. I couldn’t have given a ballpark estimate as to what the exact temperature was- my internal scale was essentially “cold”, “very cold”, and “intolerably cold.” Still, I suspected that the temperature was at or near the point where not being properly bundled up was a death sentence.
Which is why I was surprised to see Sara milling about in the living room wearing nothing but a tank top and shorts.
Surprised, but not confused. We’d been dating for a few years now, and all of the little oddities had been impossible to ignore. Watching her handle frozen items without flinching, gobbling down ice cream with no fear of brain freeze, the ice cold showers that she always took.
And, of course, the fact that she was always cold to the touch was a bit of a hint of something abnormal. Cuddling for warmth was not a thing for us.
“Is everything alright?” I asked her from my place on the stairs.
She finished what she was doing- drawing a circle in the middle of the living room with snow- and looked up at me. “Yeah, should be. What’s the problem?”
I gestured at her clothes. “You normally aren’t so blatant about being immune to the cold.”
She looked down at her light clothing, then back up to me with a wistful smile. “I guess it was too much to hope for that you wouldn’t have realized that something was wrong with me.”
I frowned. “There isn’t anything wrong with you,” I said firmly, and she seemed to brighten a bit at that. “But yeah, it’s been pretty obvious that something is going on with you.”
“You knew all this time and never asked about it? You must have been curious.”
“Sure I was. But it was clear that you didn’t want to talk about it, so there wasn’t much else to do.” I finished descending the stairs and sat down on the sofa, the closest seat to the fire that I could manage. “That being said though, I have been dying of curiosity for years now and would you please tell me everything?”
She laughed, and sat down on the sofa next to me. “Well, no point in hiding it anymore. We have a little bit of time, where should I start?”
“Something easy first then. What do you have going on here in the room and the rest of the house?” I asked, looking around a bit. She’d opened all of the doors and windows down here on this floor as well, and at this point there was more snow on the ground than actual floor. She’d moved some of the furniture around to create a space open enough for the large snow circle she’d drawn. There was nothing inside that circle right now, save for a large bucket filled with water.
“A lot of it is just symbolism,” she said. “Allowing Winter to reclaim what Man has taken for it’s own, defining a clear space to make the connection between There and Here, that sort of thing. Nothing strictly necessary, the only thing that’s really required is that I’m in a cold location. But it’s a bit of a comfort thing, you know?”
“Is weather this cold comfortable for you?”
Sara shrugged. “I can take it or leave it. And obviously it’s way too cold for you, and I’m sorry for that. We won’t have to do this again after the Winter Solstice passes tonight, we can keep everything shut for the rest of the stay.”
She paused. “Speaking of, the Solstice is in about a minute in a half.”
“You didn’t check your phone, and there aren’t any clocks in here. How do you know exactly when it is?”
She shrugged. “Instinct, I suppose.”
I breathed a mock sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness.”
“What?”
“Well, you know, for months now my lead theory was that you were a vampire-”
She made a face.
“-but if you have ties to the Solstice than it’s much more likely that you’re some kind of winter spirit. And, if I’m lucky, the type of winter spirit that lures travelers out into the woods to have their way with them.”
She laughed again. “I’ve read some of those legends. You know those spirits would leave those travelers to die in the cold afterwards, right?”
I made a show of looking her up and down, then shrugged. “Worth it.”
She shoved me in the arm for that one, still laughing. “Sadly, that’s off the table for this trip.”
“Sex, or leaving me out to die in the snow?”
“Both!” she said firmly.
“Okay, next question then. Why exactly did we come to be alone in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere with no electricity if we aren’t going to be having sex?”
She sighed. “Well, that’s the thing. We aren’t going to be alone.”
“Wait, what-”
“It’s time,” she said, interrupting. She stood up and pointed me to a corner of the room. “Stay over there for a bit. Nothing will be able to enter or leave the circle for a little while once it starts, so you need to step outside of it while you can.”
“You’re seriously going to leave me hanging on ‘we aren’t going to be alone?’”
“Things will make more sense very soon. Just… try not to freak out. I promise that you’ll be safe.”
There was nothing else for it. I did as she said, stepping far out of her way and out of the circle to where she’d indicated.
Sara grabbed the bucket of ice water and took its place in the center of the circle.
“Not gonna lie, I’m pretty excited to see an actual magic ritual.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, it’s going to be disappointing.”
With that, she took a few quick steps towards the fire and dumped the bucket of water on it in a swift motion. The hiss of the extinguished fire filled the cabin.
Come to think of it, that was the only sound I could hear at all now, and it was fading fast. The wind from the weather outside had long since faded into background noise for me, so it took a few seconds to realize that it was completely gone. No wind, no wildlife, none of the creaks that you expect to hear from an old house.
The last of the hiss went away, and we were standing in total silence.
Sara turned, facing the center of the circle. I’d been so focused on her that I hadn’t see what she was now looking at.
A snowball, about the size of a baseball, hovered about five feet above the dead center of the circle. As I watched it, it began to expand slowly. The slow expansion began to quicken, and before I knew it the ball took up the entire circle, and Sara with it.
“Sara, what’s going on-”
The snow fell away, and the words died in my throat.
There were two… things in the center of the circle. I would call them roughly the same height as a human, but that would be misleading. It creates a false assumption that they looked anything like a human.
I couldn’t figure out what to focus on. The teeth. The horrible chill. The eyes. The other eyes. The awful, arrhythmic wheezing of their breath. The icicles that jutted out in every direction. My senses were being assaulted on all fronts.
And Sara…
She smiled with glee, ran up to the two abominations, and drew them into an embrace.
“Hi Mom! Hi Dad!” she said to each of them in turn.
...what?
Sara broke away from the two figures. To my horror, she gestured at me. “I know you two have been hoping the person I’ve been dating for a while, and here they are!”
Their attention immediately snapped to me. Their eyes glared. Snow leaked from orifices, covering the last of the cabin’s floor. Their mouths opened wide in what looked like pained screams but sounded closer to a terrible storm. Spider legs beat out a rapid staccato on white carapace.
I screamed, and bolted from the house.
Away from the madness, I sprinted towards my truck as quickly as possible. It was about a mile away, but sheer adrenaline carried me from that house and those monsters quickly enough that I made good time, even in the snow.
The adrenaline also had a secondary benefit, I didn’t really feel the entirely new and terrible levels of cold. The only thing keeping me moving through it was fear. Well, fear and the winter gear Sara had gotten for me. Even with those things I wouldn’t be able to ignore the cold forever. Ignoring it for long enough to get to the truck was a possibility though.
The truck, with its glorious maximum heat setting and all-wheel drive that would allow me to get the hell out of here, regardless of the road conditions and weather.
But after a few minutes, I had to slow down. I wasn’t out of shape, but any kind of running in this outfit was hard to maintain. It was just as well, the path I was on was beginning to narrow, a steep decline on either side of me. A fall from the path wouldn’t be fatal, but it was definitely something to be avoided.
I trudged onwards. I had no real sense of how long I’d been running. If I remembered correctly, I was at least past the halfway point. Sara had said that they would be trapped inside the circle for a little while. But knowing her, that could mean anything from three minutes to fifteen. There was no way of knowing how much of a head start I would have, no way of knowing how fast they could move-
A thought occurred. I was taking Sara at her word when she said that they would be trapped in the circle. I hadn’t thought about the possibility that she might be lying, and now that I had I found myself rejecting that outright. I still trusted her.
And she’d promised that I would be safe.
I slowed down even more. I had been sure that I would be able to handle whatever weirdness that Sara had finally felt comfortable letting me in on. For a while, I’d been upset that she hadn’t trusted in me enough to tell me her secret. But based on my reaction to meeting those things- her parents- she’d been right not to tell me anything.
It must have taken a lot of trust for her to finally share that with me. And I had thrown it in her face.
I stopped, and sighed. There was nothing for it, I’d have to go back and apologize. I was not looking forward to being in the same room as her parents, but if I really trusted her I would have to suck it up and do it.
And at the end of the day, who looks forward to meeting their in-laws anyway?
I turned to head back to the cabin and-
-and before I had time to realize that I’d slipped on a patch of ice, I was already tumbling down the slope. Heart-pounding seconds later, I came to rest in the snow, staring up the steep slope to the path that must have been at least twenty feet above me.
Not a terribly difficult climb, in normal conditions at least. But I was tired, it was the dead of night, the ground was covered in snow, and it was freezing.
Maybe I could go around and find an easier way back up. I tried to get to my feet, and my left leg gave out from underneath me with a burst of pain. I face planted back into the snow, spent.
Time passed.
It was probably the cold, the hopelessness, and the hypothermia talking, but lying down here in the snow for a while was almost beginning to seem like a valid option. I didn’t want to die, although honestly there were worse places for it. It was nice here. Earlier I’d thought that I could only appreciate a proper winter view if I were completely removed from it. Though now that I was out here in the thick of everything winter had to offer, it really wasn’t that bad.
Except for that awful arrhythmic wheezing of course.
Wait.
I forced my body to turn over, and there was one of Sara’s parents. I couldn’t even begin to guess at their gender, but I was reasonably sure that this was the one that Sara had called her dad.
He approached quickly, and before I knew it he was standing next to me. He leaned over me, close enough that I could feel his breath on my face.
The energy to scream in terror was beyond me, so I just lay there as he continued to breathe.
In. Out. In. Out. Out. In. Out.
In. In. In. In-
He leaned backwards, and let out an explosive, deafening cry from his many mouths.
Hopefully, that wasn’t a hunting cry.
“Oh, thank god!”
That was Sara’s voice. I managed to tilt my head back over to look at her on the top of the slope.
With an inhuman grace, she ran down the decline I’d just rolled down. She easily came to a stop right next to us, and immediately went to pull me into an embrace-
One of her father’s tentacles got between us before she could though. She turned on him. “Dad, what are you-”
She stopped once he pointed a pedipalp at my ankle. She took one glance at it and winced.
“Oh, crap, yeah thanks for stopping me,” said Sara. “Probably would have jostled that pretty badly. Anything else I should know about?”
He retracted both appendages and shock himself in what even I was able to recognize as a negation. He began to slither back towards the direction of the cabin.
“I’ll come find you once I’m sure everything’s fine!” she called out to him. She turned her attention to me.
I struggled to form words. “Sara I-”
“Shhh,” she whispered, a finger on her lips. “Mom’s bringing the truck around. We can talk once you’re inside of it getting warmed up.”
I wouldn’t have thought that abominations could drive.
Sara pointed behind me. “Yeah, there she is now.”
I turned myself over to look in that direction. There was Sara’s mom, running up to us with the truck on one of her backs. Once she’d reached us, she placed gently on the snow just a few feet away.
“Hang tight,” said Sara. “I’m going to have to lift you into the truck.”
I was about to ask how she planned to do that, then took another look at her mother. Strength must run in the family.
True to her word, she lifted me into the passenger seat and shut the door. A few seconds later, she’d turned on the ignition and set the heat as high as it would go.
Exhaustion took over before I could start talking, and before I knew it I was out.
When I woke up later, it was already morning back in the cabin. I was in the living room once again, close to the now burning fire. Someone had brought down the covers from the bed I’d been using and laid them over me.
I pulled them off and stood up stretching. As I did, I remembered my sprained ankle. It didn’t seem to be acting up at all. I tested my weight against it gingerly, then more seriously once it was clear the ankle was perfectly fine.
“Mom healed you while you were asleep,” said Sara as she came out of the kitchen. “You probably don’t want to know the details.”
She handed me a warm cup of hot chocolate. I immediately took a long sip, relishing the warmth. “Thanks, I needed this,” I said once I’d finished.
“No problem.”
An awkward silence hung between us.
“I’m sorry-” said both of us at the same time.
Sara took the lead. “What do you have to be sorry for? This was all my fault!”
“You don’t get to take all of the blame here. You asked me not to freak out and told me I’d be safe. None of this would have happened if I’d just trusted you to begin with.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s unfair to you. I should have told you exactly what was going to happen. I’ve been trying to do just that for weeks now, but I’ve been waiting for a perfect moment that I know doesn’t exist because…”
“Because you didn’t want to tell me that you aren’t human,” I finished for her.
She nodded. “I saw how you looked at Mom and Dad, and it was exactly how I was afraid that you would look at me when you knew the truth.”
“A lot of that was shock,” I said. “You realize that, right?”
She looked away. “I can’t expect you to pretend to be okay with what we are.”
“Who’s pretending?” I said, incredulously. “It was definitely a lousy first impression, but when your parents follow that up with saving my life I can at least give them the benefit of the doubt.”
I looked outside through the window, and listened for the breathing. “Where are they by the way? I’d like to thank them properly.”
She wrung her hands. “I asked them to stay in the forest until after we left.”
“Wait, we’re leaving?”
She looked confused. “You want to stay?”
“Well, I should get to know my girlfriend’s parents while I’m here right?”
The slightest hint of tears began to form in her eyes, and she pulled me into a tight hug.
“And just to be absolutely clear, so you have no doubts at all, I am completely okay with having a girlfriend that’s an Eldritch Abomination,” I said softly.
“Actually, the PC term is Eldritch-American.”
“Hey, there’s already a perk. I don’t have to worry about talking politics with your parents.”
She winced in my arms. I let her go in shock.
“...you’re kidding, right?”
“Dad kind of has some… extreme views.”
“Such as?”
“...that human civilization needs to be destroyed for the good of the planet?”
“Umm…”
She held up her hands quickly. “No, no not in an ‘eternal winter of doom’ sort of way. He’s just not a big fan of humans in general.”
“Ummmmmm…”
Her hands started waving around. “No, you’ll be fine! He likes you! He thinks you’re good breeding stock. High IQ, left handed, maybe a bit lacking in cold tolerance even for a human but you’ll be able to bear several hundred strong children-”
“UMMMMMMMM…”
She smiled impishly. “That last part was a joke.”
I collapsed on the sofa in relief.
“Alright then,” she said. “I need to go out and tell them we’ll be staying through Christmas like we’d originally planned. If you’re sure?”
I nodded.
“Great! See you in a bit then!” Sara ran over to the door and was out in a flash. Through the window for just a moment, I could see her bounding across the fresh snow, hair whipping around freely and unabashed joy all over her face.
I grabbed my hot chocolate, moved over to the fire, and took a long sip as I enjoyed the view outside.
That familiarity was nice considering the situation. We’d just arrived that day to the cabin where we would be spending the winter holiday, and so I hadn’t gotten used to the bed or room we were in, among other things.
One of those other things being the below freezing temperatures. That was taking some getting used to. I’d already begun shivering from the cold. Sara had tried to tell me just how bad it would be, but I really hadn’t realized what I was getting into.
I rubbed my eyes, still a bit groggy. “What time is it?” I managed to mutter.
“Few minutes before two,” she replied. “We’re going to both need to be downstairs soon.”
I flinched. It was already too cold for my liking, and the thought of leaving the sanctuary of the bed’s blankets didn’t appeal.
There was barely enough moonlight streaming in through the window to make out Sara’s outline. She plopped down on the floor next to the bed. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but it sounded like she was rummaging through our luggage for some reason.
“Did you forget something back at the apartment?” I asked.
In response, she retrieved something from one of the bags and tossed it on top of me. It was a coat, a very thick one. It was definitely more sturdy than what I’d brought along.
“Where’d you get this?” I asked. It wasn’t mine, and I knew that Sara wouldn’t have brought one for her.
“I picked it up for you before we left,” she said. “I was pretty sure that you wouldn’t take me seriously when I told you that yours wouldn’t be enough.”
Hard to be annoyed at the lack of trust when she had been completely right.
I pulled on the coat. The relief was immediate, and I sighed in content. Getting out from under the covers seemed possible now. “Thank you so much for not believing in me.”
Sara snorted. “Wouldn’t want you to freeze to death out here.”
She stood up and kicked the luggage. “I put some more cold weather gear in there for you. Put it on, be down in twenty. I’ll explain everything then.”
She moved to leave, then paused. “Almost forgot,” she said.
Instead of exiting, she turned around and walked right to the room’s small window. With practiced hands, she undid the rusty latch and threw the window open.
The wind quickly blew in the cold, and my shivering became even worse. “What the hell Sara?!”
“Please, leave it open,” she said simply as she exited the room, closing the door behind her.
From the bed, I looked through the window she’d just opened. For the first time I was able to take in how the forest surrounding the cabin looked at night. The snow gently fell onto the already covered ground below. There was just enough wind that some of the snow was getting in through the window, landing on the room’s floor instead.
If I’d been looking at the scene from behind glass- maybe next to a crackling fire and with some hot chocolate- I might have been able to appreciate it. But for some reason Sara had deliberately erased the barrier between those two worlds. And I was stuck in the thick of it.
As I changed into the new clothing, unkind and vulgar words were said of snow, and cold, and of all things Winter.
The cold was miserable, but those few minutes between leaving the relative safety of the bedsheets and getting dressed made me appreciate how much worse than miserable cold weather could get.
Standing in the upstairs hallway, I could see that there was a light coming from downstairs. That had to be the fireplace- it was too strong to be candles and the cabin didn’t have any electricity.
I had a bit of time, so I peaked into the two other upstairs rooms to check the windows. I confirmed that Sara had opened every window on this floor. Judging by the amount of snow under each one, they had all been open for a long time. I wanted to close them, but Sara had made it clear that she was doing this on purpose. I had to trust that she had a good reason for it.
My survey complete and my time almost up, I started to slowly walk downstairs. Slowly, because as I walked in became even colder. I couldn’t have given a ballpark estimate as to what the exact temperature was- my internal scale was essentially “cold”, “very cold”, and “intolerably cold.” Still, I suspected that the temperature was at or near the point where not being properly bundled up was a death sentence.
Which is why I was surprised to see Sara milling about in the living room wearing nothing but a tank top and shorts.
Surprised, but not confused. We’d been dating for a few years now, and all of the little oddities had been impossible to ignore. Watching her handle frozen items without flinching, gobbling down ice cream with no fear of brain freeze, the ice cold showers that she always took.
And, of course, the fact that she was always cold to the touch was a bit of a hint of something abnormal. Cuddling for warmth was not a thing for us.
“Is everything alright?” I asked her from my place on the stairs.
She finished what she was doing- drawing a circle in the middle of the living room with snow- and looked up at me. “Yeah, should be. What’s the problem?”
I gestured at her clothes. “You normally aren’t so blatant about being immune to the cold.”
She looked down at her light clothing, then back up to me with a wistful smile. “I guess it was too much to hope for that you wouldn’t have realized that something was wrong with me.”
I frowned. “There isn’t anything wrong with you,” I said firmly, and she seemed to brighten a bit at that. “But yeah, it’s been pretty obvious that something is going on with you.”
“You knew all this time and never asked about it? You must have been curious.”
“Sure I was. But it was clear that you didn’t want to talk about it, so there wasn’t much else to do.” I finished descending the stairs and sat down on the sofa, the closest seat to the fire that I could manage. “That being said though, I have been dying of curiosity for years now and would you please tell me everything?”
She laughed, and sat down on the sofa next to me. “Well, no point in hiding it anymore. We have a little bit of time, where should I start?”
“Something easy first then. What do you have going on here in the room and the rest of the house?” I asked, looking around a bit. She’d opened all of the doors and windows down here on this floor as well, and at this point there was more snow on the ground than actual floor. She’d moved some of the furniture around to create a space open enough for the large snow circle she’d drawn. There was nothing inside that circle right now, save for a large bucket filled with water.
“A lot of it is just symbolism,” she said. “Allowing Winter to reclaim what Man has taken for it’s own, defining a clear space to make the connection between There and Here, that sort of thing. Nothing strictly necessary, the only thing that’s really required is that I’m in a cold location. But it’s a bit of a comfort thing, you know?”
“Is weather this cold comfortable for you?”
Sara shrugged. “I can take it or leave it. And obviously it’s way too cold for you, and I’m sorry for that. We won’t have to do this again after the Winter Solstice passes tonight, we can keep everything shut for the rest of the stay.”
She paused. “Speaking of, the Solstice is in about a minute in a half.”
“You didn’t check your phone, and there aren’t any clocks in here. How do you know exactly when it is?”
She shrugged. “Instinct, I suppose.”
I breathed a mock sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness.”
“What?”
“Well, you know, for months now my lead theory was that you were a vampire-”
She made a face.
“-but if you have ties to the Solstice than it’s much more likely that you’re some kind of winter spirit. And, if I’m lucky, the type of winter spirit that lures travelers out into the woods to have their way with them.”
She laughed again. “I’ve read some of those legends. You know those spirits would leave those travelers to die in the cold afterwards, right?”
I made a show of looking her up and down, then shrugged. “Worth it.”
She shoved me in the arm for that one, still laughing. “Sadly, that’s off the table for this trip.”
“Sex, or leaving me out to die in the snow?”
“Both!” she said firmly.
“Okay, next question then. Why exactly did we come to be alone in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere with no electricity if we aren’t going to be having sex?”
She sighed. “Well, that’s the thing. We aren’t going to be alone.”
“Wait, what-”
“It’s time,” she said, interrupting. She stood up and pointed me to a corner of the room. “Stay over there for a bit. Nothing will be able to enter or leave the circle for a little while once it starts, so you need to step outside of it while you can.”
“You’re seriously going to leave me hanging on ‘we aren’t going to be alone?’”
“Things will make more sense very soon. Just… try not to freak out. I promise that you’ll be safe.”
There was nothing else for it. I did as she said, stepping far out of her way and out of the circle to where she’d indicated.
Sara grabbed the bucket of ice water and took its place in the center of the circle.
“Not gonna lie, I’m pretty excited to see an actual magic ritual.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, it’s going to be disappointing.”
With that, she took a few quick steps towards the fire and dumped the bucket of water on it in a swift motion. The hiss of the extinguished fire filled the cabin.
Come to think of it, that was the only sound I could hear at all now, and it was fading fast. The wind from the weather outside had long since faded into background noise for me, so it took a few seconds to realize that it was completely gone. No wind, no wildlife, none of the creaks that you expect to hear from an old house.
The last of the hiss went away, and we were standing in total silence.
Sara turned, facing the center of the circle. I’d been so focused on her that I hadn’t see what she was now looking at.
A snowball, about the size of a baseball, hovered about five feet above the dead center of the circle. As I watched it, it began to expand slowly. The slow expansion began to quicken, and before I knew it the ball took up the entire circle, and Sara with it.
“Sara, what’s going on-”
The snow fell away, and the words died in my throat.
There were two… things in the center of the circle. I would call them roughly the same height as a human, but that would be misleading. It creates a false assumption that they looked anything like a human.
I couldn’t figure out what to focus on. The teeth. The horrible chill. The eyes. The other eyes. The awful, arrhythmic wheezing of their breath. The icicles that jutted out in every direction. My senses were being assaulted on all fronts.
And Sara…
She smiled with glee, ran up to the two abominations, and drew them into an embrace.
“Hi Mom! Hi Dad!” she said to each of them in turn.
...what?
Sara broke away from the two figures. To my horror, she gestured at me. “I know you two have been hoping the person I’ve been dating for a while, and here they are!”
Their attention immediately snapped to me. Their eyes glared. Snow leaked from orifices, covering the last of the cabin’s floor. Their mouths opened wide in what looked like pained screams but sounded closer to a terrible storm. Spider legs beat out a rapid staccato on white carapace.
I screamed, and bolted from the house.
Away from the madness, I sprinted towards my truck as quickly as possible. It was about a mile away, but sheer adrenaline carried me from that house and those monsters quickly enough that I made good time, even in the snow.
The adrenaline also had a secondary benefit, I didn’t really feel the entirely new and terrible levels of cold. The only thing keeping me moving through it was fear. Well, fear and the winter gear Sara had gotten for me. Even with those things I wouldn’t be able to ignore the cold forever. Ignoring it for long enough to get to the truck was a possibility though.
The truck, with its glorious maximum heat setting and all-wheel drive that would allow me to get the hell out of here, regardless of the road conditions and weather.
But after a few minutes, I had to slow down. I wasn’t out of shape, but any kind of running in this outfit was hard to maintain. It was just as well, the path I was on was beginning to narrow, a steep decline on either side of me. A fall from the path wouldn’t be fatal, but it was definitely something to be avoided.
I trudged onwards. I had no real sense of how long I’d been running. If I remembered correctly, I was at least past the halfway point. Sara had said that they would be trapped inside the circle for a little while. But knowing her, that could mean anything from three minutes to fifteen. There was no way of knowing how much of a head start I would have, no way of knowing how fast they could move-
A thought occurred. I was taking Sara at her word when she said that they would be trapped in the circle. I hadn’t thought about the possibility that she might be lying, and now that I had I found myself rejecting that outright. I still trusted her.
And she’d promised that I would be safe.
I slowed down even more. I had been sure that I would be able to handle whatever weirdness that Sara had finally felt comfortable letting me in on. For a while, I’d been upset that she hadn’t trusted in me enough to tell me her secret. But based on my reaction to meeting those things- her parents- she’d been right not to tell me anything.
It must have taken a lot of trust for her to finally share that with me. And I had thrown it in her face.
I stopped, and sighed. There was nothing for it, I’d have to go back and apologize. I was not looking forward to being in the same room as her parents, but if I really trusted her I would have to suck it up and do it.
And at the end of the day, who looks forward to meeting their in-laws anyway?
I turned to head back to the cabin and-
-and before I had time to realize that I’d slipped on a patch of ice, I was already tumbling down the slope. Heart-pounding seconds later, I came to rest in the snow, staring up the steep slope to the path that must have been at least twenty feet above me.
Not a terribly difficult climb, in normal conditions at least. But I was tired, it was the dead of night, the ground was covered in snow, and it was freezing.
Maybe I could go around and find an easier way back up. I tried to get to my feet, and my left leg gave out from underneath me with a burst of pain. I face planted back into the snow, spent.
Time passed.
It was probably the cold, the hopelessness, and the hypothermia talking, but lying down here in the snow for a while was almost beginning to seem like a valid option. I didn’t want to die, although honestly there were worse places for it. It was nice here. Earlier I’d thought that I could only appreciate a proper winter view if I were completely removed from it. Though now that I was out here in the thick of everything winter had to offer, it really wasn’t that bad.
Except for that awful arrhythmic wheezing of course.
Wait.
I forced my body to turn over, and there was one of Sara’s parents. I couldn’t even begin to guess at their gender, but I was reasonably sure that this was the one that Sara had called her dad.
He approached quickly, and before I knew it he was standing next to me. He leaned over me, close enough that I could feel his breath on my face.
The energy to scream in terror was beyond me, so I just lay there as he continued to breathe.
In. Out. In. Out. Out. In. Out.
In. In. In. In-
He leaned backwards, and let out an explosive, deafening cry from his many mouths.
Hopefully, that wasn’t a hunting cry.
“Oh, thank god!”
That was Sara’s voice. I managed to tilt my head back over to look at her on the top of the slope.
With an inhuman grace, she ran down the decline I’d just rolled down. She easily came to a stop right next to us, and immediately went to pull me into an embrace-
One of her father’s tentacles got between us before she could though. She turned on him. “Dad, what are you-”
She stopped once he pointed a pedipalp at my ankle. She took one glance at it and winced.
“Oh, crap, yeah thanks for stopping me,” said Sara. “Probably would have jostled that pretty badly. Anything else I should know about?”
He retracted both appendages and shock himself in what even I was able to recognize as a negation. He began to slither back towards the direction of the cabin.
“I’ll come find you once I’m sure everything’s fine!” she called out to him. She turned her attention to me.
I struggled to form words. “Sara I-”
“Shhh,” she whispered, a finger on her lips. “Mom’s bringing the truck around. We can talk once you’re inside of it getting warmed up.”
I wouldn’t have thought that abominations could drive.
Sara pointed behind me. “Yeah, there she is now.”
I turned myself over to look in that direction. There was Sara’s mom, running up to us with the truck on one of her backs. Once she’d reached us, she placed gently on the snow just a few feet away.
“Hang tight,” said Sara. “I’m going to have to lift you into the truck.”
I was about to ask how she planned to do that, then took another look at her mother. Strength must run in the family.
True to her word, she lifted me into the passenger seat and shut the door. A few seconds later, she’d turned on the ignition and set the heat as high as it would go.
Exhaustion took over before I could start talking, and before I knew it I was out.
When I woke up later, it was already morning back in the cabin. I was in the living room once again, close to the now burning fire. Someone had brought down the covers from the bed I’d been using and laid them over me.
I pulled them off and stood up stretching. As I did, I remembered my sprained ankle. It didn’t seem to be acting up at all. I tested my weight against it gingerly, then more seriously once it was clear the ankle was perfectly fine.
“Mom healed you while you were asleep,” said Sara as she came out of the kitchen. “You probably don’t want to know the details.”
She handed me a warm cup of hot chocolate. I immediately took a long sip, relishing the warmth. “Thanks, I needed this,” I said once I’d finished.
“No problem.”
An awkward silence hung between us.
“I’m sorry-” said both of us at the same time.
Sara took the lead. “What do you have to be sorry for? This was all my fault!”
“You don’t get to take all of the blame here. You asked me not to freak out and told me I’d be safe. None of this would have happened if I’d just trusted you to begin with.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s unfair to you. I should have told you exactly what was going to happen. I’ve been trying to do just that for weeks now, but I’ve been waiting for a perfect moment that I know doesn’t exist because…”
“Because you didn’t want to tell me that you aren’t human,” I finished for her.
She nodded. “I saw how you looked at Mom and Dad, and it was exactly how I was afraid that you would look at me when you knew the truth.”
“A lot of that was shock,” I said. “You realize that, right?”
She looked away. “I can’t expect you to pretend to be okay with what we are.”
“Who’s pretending?” I said, incredulously. “It was definitely a lousy first impression, but when your parents follow that up with saving my life I can at least give them the benefit of the doubt.”
I looked outside through the window, and listened for the breathing. “Where are they by the way? I’d like to thank them properly.”
She wrung her hands. “I asked them to stay in the forest until after we left.”
“Wait, we’re leaving?”
She looked confused. “You want to stay?”
“Well, I should get to know my girlfriend’s parents while I’m here right?”
The slightest hint of tears began to form in her eyes, and she pulled me into a tight hug.
“And just to be absolutely clear, so you have no doubts at all, I am completely okay with having a girlfriend that’s an Eldritch Abomination,” I said softly.
“Actually, the PC term is Eldritch-American.”
“Hey, there’s already a perk. I don’t have to worry about talking politics with your parents.”
She winced in my arms. I let her go in shock.
“...you’re kidding, right?”
“Dad kind of has some… extreme views.”
“Such as?”
“...that human civilization needs to be destroyed for the good of the planet?”
“Umm…”
She held up her hands quickly. “No, no not in an ‘eternal winter of doom’ sort of way. He’s just not a big fan of humans in general.”
“Ummmmmm…”
Her hands started waving around. “No, you’ll be fine! He likes you! He thinks you’re good breeding stock. High IQ, left handed, maybe a bit lacking in cold tolerance even for a human but you’ll be able to bear several hundred strong children-”
“UMMMMMMMM…”
She smiled impishly. “That last part was a joke.”
I collapsed on the sofa in relief.
“Alright then,” she said. “I need to go out and tell them we’ll be staying through Christmas like we’d originally planned. If you’re sure?”
I nodded.
“Great! See you in a bit then!” Sara ran over to the door and was out in a flash. Through the window for just a moment, I could see her bounding across the fresh snow, hair whipping around freely and unabashed joy all over her face.
I grabbed my hot chocolate, moved over to the fire, and took a long sip as I enjoyed the view outside.
This is pretty alright!
I think the ambiguity of text doesn't quite pull as much weight as you would like it to, when it comes to the abominations. I get that they're supposed to be indescribable, but I didn't understand quite how horrible or aberrant until much later on in the story. As such, the main character fleeing seemed just patently callous, rather than understandable. And his emotional turnaround also seemed to come a little too fast. Finally, the actual plot of the story is fairly rote; I was never particularly surprised, outside of the appearance of the parents, and even that was built up so much that I expected it to be... more.
But you've got a good core here, and you accomplish the goals of the story in a consistent manner. I appreciate that! If you did some work on either the pacing & details of the parents arriving/flight afterwards, a lot more might fall into place.
I think the ambiguity of text doesn't quite pull as much weight as you would like it to, when it comes to the abominations. I get that they're supposed to be indescribable, but I didn't understand quite how horrible or aberrant until much later on in the story. As such, the main character fleeing seemed just patently callous, rather than understandable. And his emotional turnaround also seemed to come a little too fast. Finally, the actual plot of the story is fairly rote; I was never particularly surprised, outside of the appearance of the parents, and even that was built up so much that I expected it to be... more.
But you've got a good core here, and you accomplish the goals of the story in a consistent manner. I appreciate that! If you did some work on either the pacing & details of the parents arriving/flight afterwards, a lot more might fall into place.
In the spirit of egalitarianism, here's a review for the currently least-reviewed fic.
I liked a lot of this. You get into the story fairly quickly, and you do some fun things with it. On the whole, the prose is effective and clear, even if I'm not entirely sure what he's doing wearing a coat in bed before he gets dressed?
I think what's holding this story back is the way the conflict is structured throughout it. It seems to me like you've got two (EDIT sorry three I can't count :P ) things that hold us in the story; the discovery aspect of what's going on with Sarah, which accounts for the hook and the first third or so, and the 'parents are eldrich abominations what do' aspect which is the second third-ish, and the broken foot/freezing in the snow which is after that to the end of the story.
The thing is, the discover aspect mostly peters out once the parents show up, and the fear of the parents mostly resolves itself right after it appears, as he runs. And by the time he's lying in the snow at the bottom of the ravine, the ending seems like it's fairly obvious; if they hadn't shown up to help him by that time, I'd have been shocked.
As such, while this is nice, I feel like it's also kinda... light? Uncompelling? It's not pushing any really hard or strong problems for the characters. Or, rather, although any of these conflicts (what is Sarah, does he trust Sarah, will Sarah and her parents save him) could be compelling and interesting, they're all set up and dealt with quickly and efficiently, and none of them really hit hard enough or stick around long enough to grasp me in a way that leaves a real impression.
This is good work, but kinda choppy and jerky.
I liked a lot of this. You get into the story fairly quickly, and you do some fun things with it. On the whole, the prose is effective and clear, even if I'm not entirely sure what he's doing wearing a coat in bed before he gets dressed?
I think what's holding this story back is the way the conflict is structured throughout it. It seems to me like you've got two (EDIT sorry three I can't count :P ) things that hold us in the story; the discovery aspect of what's going on with Sarah, which accounts for the hook and the first third or so, and the 'parents are eldrich abominations what do' aspect which is the second third-ish, and the broken foot/freezing in the snow which is after that to the end of the story.
The thing is, the discover aspect mostly peters out once the parents show up, and the fear of the parents mostly resolves itself right after it appears, as he runs. And by the time he's lying in the snow at the bottom of the ravine, the ending seems like it's fairly obvious; if they hadn't shown up to help him by that time, I'd have been shocked.
As such, while this is nice, I feel like it's also kinda... light? Uncompelling? It's not pushing any really hard or strong problems for the characters. Or, rather, although any of these conflicts (what is Sarah, does he trust Sarah, will Sarah and her parents save him) could be compelling and interesting, they're all set up and dealt with quickly and efficiently, and none of them really hit hard enough or stick around long enough to grasp me in a way that leaves a real impression.
This is good work, but kinda choppy and jerky.
Story Title: Winter Weather Advisory
Genre: Monstergirl Romance
Seriously, maybe we ought to just make that a prompt one of these rounds.
... So the narrator is putting on a coat while still in bed?
(Did they go to sleep dressed with everything else, or are they doing this flasher style?)
Someone picked an inconvenient route back to the car.
Nitpicks aside, this was pretty engaging! I like the whimsy we see here in the story having Cthulhoid ice-beasts. The prose occasionally left me hanging -- like with the above; or with the story seeming to shift between "the narrator has no basis for understanding what's going on" and "everyone knows magic exists and the abominations are common enough to be called Eldritch-Americans" depending on the needs of the plot and/or jokes -- but the overall arc is pleasant and the characters sympathetic, especially the parents.
The biggest issue here is its heavy leaning on character Idiot Balling, though to your credit, you keep realizing that the characters are being idiots and at least lampshading it in hindsight, which helps. For example, they are both utterly moronic about the first contact scene, and that sets up them apologizing to each other later on. But Sara's choices turn it into a sort of have-your-cake-and-eat-it author choice. Does she trust him enough to have him meet her parents, or not? Why would she even arrange it if she didn't? But if she does, why didn't she give him at least some basic context? Even on smaller levels that bugged me: his aforementioned off-and-on cluefulness about her magical nature and his straight-up acceptance of magic and his eagerness for the ritual throw his reaction to it into sharp relief.
And I realize it's reasonable to be spooked by eldritch abominations, but now that he's got some time for logic, he's completely glossing over "Hi mom! Hi dad!" here. (He does reassert his trust shortly thereafter, but it's for other reasons.)
Basically, while all of the weird logical flaws are at least reasonably lampshaded, you can only lampshade so much before it strains credulity anyway.
Against that, the fact that these people are all ultimately good people to each other helps my mood quite a lot. Like with this round's other monstergirl romance, the crucial point here is selling us that these characters should be together, and even if the characters are idiots half the time I feel that this does. That means your core here is a fundamentally working story, all my complaints aside.
Tier: Strong
Genre: Monstergirl Romance
Seriously, maybe we ought to just make that a prompt one of these rounds.
I pulled on the coat. The relief was immediate, and I sighed in content. Getting out from under the covers seemed possible now.
... So the narrator is putting on a coat while still in bed?
(Did they go to sleep dressed with everything else, or are they doing this flasher style?)
It was just as well, the path I was on was beginning to narrow, a steep decline on either side of me.
Someone picked an inconvenient route back to the car.
Nitpicks aside, this was pretty engaging! I like the whimsy we see here in the story having Cthulhoid ice-beasts. The prose occasionally left me hanging -- like with the above; or with the story seeming to shift between "the narrator has no basis for understanding what's going on" and "everyone knows magic exists and the abominations are common enough to be called Eldritch-Americans" depending on the needs of the plot and/or jokes -- but the overall arc is pleasant and the characters sympathetic, especially the parents.
The biggest issue here is its heavy leaning on character Idiot Balling, though to your credit, you keep realizing that the characters are being idiots and at least lampshading it in hindsight, which helps. For example, they are both utterly moronic about the first contact scene, and that sets up them apologizing to each other later on. But Sara's choices turn it into a sort of have-your-cake-and-eat-it author choice. Does she trust him enough to have him meet her parents, or not? Why would she even arrange it if she didn't? But if she does, why didn't she give him at least some basic context? Even on smaller levels that bugged me: his aforementioned off-and-on cluefulness about her magical nature and his straight-up acceptance of magic and his eagerness for the ritual throw his reaction to it into sharp relief.
Sara had said that they would be trapped inside the circle for a little while. But knowing her, that could mean anything from three minutes to fifteen. There was no way of knowing how much of a head start I would have, no way of knowing how fast they could move-
And I realize it's reasonable to be spooked by eldritch abominations, but now that he's got some time for logic, he's completely glossing over "Hi mom! Hi dad!" here. (He does reassert his trust shortly thereafter, but it's for other reasons.)
Basically, while all of the weird logical flaws are at least reasonably lampshaded, you can only lampshade so much before it strains credulity anyway.
Against that, the fact that these people are all ultimately good people to each other helps my mood quite a lot. Like with this round's other monstergirl romance, the crucial point here is selling us that these characters should be together, and even if the characters are idiots half the time I feel that this does. That means your core here is a fundamentally working story, all my complaints aside.
Tier: Strong
Well holy crapples, it's a strong, relationship-driven story that works both as urban fantasy and as part of an overall romantic arc. I guess I can't dispute the idiot balling >>horizon noted, nor can I find a lot to pick on otherwise, but this left me a satisfied customer.
It's a fun, silly take on the winter waifu story. While it avoids some of the worst romcom tropes, the idiot ball issue that the entire story centers around is frustrating. I really think the story would be helped a lot for the guy to think he's prepared and just, you know, eldritch abominations are still mind warping even at the best of times. You can almost play the entire story back out identically with that change, and I think it'd be better for it.
(Also, I realize it's comedy, but man, this guy seems literally insane for never bringing up his wife's oddness.)
(Also, I realize it's comedy, but man, this guy seems literally insane for never bringing up his wife's oddness.)
This was a cute story. I always enjoy tales where humans try to deal with precious abominations of nature (and their parents), and I think this piece utilized the idea in a fairly entertaining way. I also liked how Sara was quick to apologize for the whole shenanigans, keeping this story from turning into a "you humans are just stupid" tale. The father's twisted "politics" were also pretty entertaining as well.
The biggest issue with this story is consistency. There's definitely proof that the guy knows that Sara is not human, yet the ending of the story seems to imply that he actually did think she was human. But why would he look at her building an occult circle and joking about her being a vampire? This is not something normal humans do, and the fact that he knows about her immunity to cold just puzzles the mind further.
Also, while I give Sara credit for owning up that she should have told Boy Toy (that's what I'm calling him, sue me) about her parents, it doesn't change the fact that he's 100% justified for his reaction. Even if he didn't think she was human, why would she suddenly spring on him her parents without explaining what they are and how they look? This was a disaster just waiting to happen. You could try to argue that she was just naive or unsure of "human ways", but I don't really buy that based on her interactions. She comes off as very understanding of human norms, so her actions that set this off just seem out-of-character.
A cute story that just needs more consistency with its characters.
The biggest issue with this story is consistency. There's definitely proof that the guy knows that Sara is not human, yet the ending of the story seems to imply that he actually did think she was human. But why would he look at her building an occult circle and joking about her being a vampire? This is not something normal humans do, and the fact that he knows about her immunity to cold just puzzles the mind further.
Also, while I give Sara credit for owning up that she should have told Boy Toy (that's what I'm calling him, sue me) about her parents, it doesn't change the fact that he's 100% justified for his reaction. Even if he didn't think she was human, why would she suddenly spring on him her parents without explaining what they are and how they look? This was a disaster just waiting to happen. You could try to argue that she was just naive or unsure of "human ways", but I don't really buy that based on her interactions. She comes off as very understanding of human norms, so her actions that set this off just seem out-of-character.
A cute story that just needs more consistency with its characters.
Good bits first. Most of what the reviewers had issue with are things I realized were problems when I submitted (more on this later). But what I was really worried about was whether the romance between Sara and the narrator was enjoyable. I don't have much experience writing romantic comedy and I wasn't confident at all that would go over well, so it's great to see that it worked for the reviewers. I thought I'd be able to fix the other problems after submission, but that was the one thing I was really worried about.
Speaking of those other problems. I think the winter coat thing is representative of a lot of them. I was not expecting that to come up in the reviews at all, and when it did I'd thought it was a reaction to the idea of putting on a coat under bedsheets. Then I re-read the relevant passage and realized that I'd never actually stated that the narrator was doing that.
Not stating or being vague about necessary facts comes up several times in the story, and in much more important places like why characters are doing the things they do. I left a lot on the cutting room floor writing this. I think it's a net positive since there was a lot of chaff there, but I definitely ended up removing some parts that needed to be there. When I revisit this I definitely need to make more clear the Narrator's view on the supernatural and how that relates to Sara (for the record, I was going for "There's obviously something weird going on with Sara. But she doesn't want to talk about it, no one would believe me if I told them, and even if I tried she'd probably bail. So even though I'm curious I'll wait for her to feel comfortable enough to talk to me about it").
The missing context issue is even more confusing since I did a poor job of disguising that characters acted certain ways solely because I wanted certain things to happen. Sara realizes that Narrator is going to freak out and does nothing to prepare them. Narrator is accepting and calm about their girlfriend being a monster girl, then completely freaks out when the story calls for it, then goes right back to calm. I didn't think about it in Idiot Ball / Lampshading terms as I was writing it, but that description is spot on. Reviewers called me on all of this, and they were right to.
A lot of these issues came down to the time crunch, which I was completely unprepared for. That being said this beats my usual process of having an idea, mulling it over for months, maybe getting down a thousand or so words before getting stuck on a piece of awkward dialogue or description and never touching it again. Unneeded scenes that I would have tried to make work were much easier to cut, and the clock really helps in getting something ready despite lingering issues.
Thanks to all of the reviewers for the helpful feedback, and specific thanks to horizon for posting about the writeoff on fimfiction. I've been meaning to give this a try once a free weekend lined up with an event and I wouldn't have known about it otherwise.
Some stray thoughts:
I went with the title Winter Weather Advisory because I didn't want to spoil that this is a meet the parents story (though maybe I should?) or abominations aspect, so I wanted something that would bring to mind weather reports about snowy weather. I've lived my whole life in Southern California though, so I have no idea if that title actually works. I have very little attachment to it if someone has a better suggestion.
Ferd Threstle called out the summoning ritual scene being a bit of a let down after the buildup. I'd like to say I didn't realize that but I literally described it as disappointing in the text. That should have been a red flag that I should be doing something there and I completely missed it. Another thing to work on.
Most of the scene ideas I abandoned were for the better, but I really would have liked to work in a "If you hurt my daughter- *cocks shotgun*- I'm not afraid of going back to jail" sort of scene. I think there's space for it.
Speaking of those other problems. I think the winter coat thing is representative of a lot of them. I was not expecting that to come up in the reviews at all, and when it did I'd thought it was a reaction to the idea of putting on a coat under bedsheets. Then I re-read the relevant passage and realized that I'd never actually stated that the narrator was doing that.
Not stating or being vague about necessary facts comes up several times in the story, and in much more important places like why characters are doing the things they do. I left a lot on the cutting room floor writing this. I think it's a net positive since there was a lot of chaff there, but I definitely ended up removing some parts that needed to be there. When I revisit this I definitely need to make more clear the Narrator's view on the supernatural and how that relates to Sara (for the record, I was going for "There's obviously something weird going on with Sara. But she doesn't want to talk about it, no one would believe me if I told them, and even if I tried she'd probably bail. So even though I'm curious I'll wait for her to feel comfortable enough to talk to me about it").
The missing context issue is even more confusing since I did a poor job of disguising that characters acted certain ways solely because I wanted certain things to happen. Sara realizes that Narrator is going to freak out and does nothing to prepare them. Narrator is accepting and calm about their girlfriend being a monster girl, then completely freaks out when the story calls for it, then goes right back to calm. I didn't think about it in Idiot Ball / Lampshading terms as I was writing it, but that description is spot on. Reviewers called me on all of this, and they were right to.
A lot of these issues came down to the time crunch, which I was completely unprepared for. That being said this beats my usual process of having an idea, mulling it over for months, maybe getting down a thousand or so words before getting stuck on a piece of awkward dialogue or description and never touching it again. Unneeded scenes that I would have tried to make work were much easier to cut, and the clock really helps in getting something ready despite lingering issues.
Thanks to all of the reviewers for the helpful feedback, and specific thanks to horizon for posting about the writeoff on fimfiction. I've been meaning to give this a try once a free weekend lined up with an event and I wouldn't have known about it otherwise.
Some stray thoughts:
I went with the title Winter Weather Advisory because I didn't want to spoil that this is a meet the parents story (though maybe I should?) or abominations aspect, so I wanted something that would bring to mind weather reports about snowy weather. I've lived my whole life in Southern California though, so I have no idea if that title actually works. I have very little attachment to it if someone has a better suggestion.
Ferd Threstle called out the summoning ritual scene being a bit of a let down after the buildup. I'd like to say I didn't realize that but I literally described it as disappointing in the text. That should have been a red flag that I should be doing something there and I completely missed it. Another thing to work on.
Most of the scene ideas I abandoned were for the better, but I really would have liked to work in a "If you hurt my daughter- *cocks shotgun*- I'm not afraid of going back to jail" sort of scene. I think there's space for it.