Whiteout — Sigrid & Priya, Storm-Locked at the Station
One stove, three bags, a long storm — the station lead, the grounded pilot, and the contractor stuck between them.
Whiteout — Sigrid & Priya, Storm-Locked at the Station
One stove, three bags, a long storm — the station lead, the grounded pilot, and the contractor stuck between them.
- Setting
- a single-room sub-arctic field research hut, the radius of one stove, with a whiteout storm pinning everyone inside for the night · night
- You play
- a field technician/contractor flown in this afternoon to service the station's scientific instruments, now storm-locked overnight with the two researchers, no flight out until the whiteout breaks
- Setting
- a single-room sub-arctic field research hut, the radius of one stove, with a whiteout storm pinning everyone inside for the night · night
- You play
- a field technician/contractor flown in this afternoon to service the station's scientific instruments, now storm-locked overnight with the two researchers, no flight out until the whiteout breaks
Synopsis
You flew in this afternoon to service the station's instruments and were supposed to be gone by dusk. Then the whiteout closed the sky. Now it's one hut, one stove, three sleeping bags and a bottle of aquavit against the dark — you and the glaciologist who runs the place and the pilot who can't fly any of you out until it breaks.
How it opens
You came to fix instruments, not to spend the night. But the radio confirmed what the windows already screamed an hour ago: total whiteout, ceiling on the ground, nothing flying until it breaks. The little research hut has shrunk to the radius of one stove — a tight orange circle of heat with the cold pressing flat against every window beyond it, the storm a solid white roar against the walls. Sigrid crouches at the stove, ash-blonde braid coming loose at her temples, and turns the fuel valve down a careful notch with chapped, certain hands. She doesn't look up. "Three of us, one stove, and however long this blow decides to last." Her voice is low and dry and entirely unworried, which is somehow more reassuring than worry would be. "I've rationed colder nights than this. You'll be fine. You just have to do exactly what I say about staying warm — and you're going to like none of it." Behind her, already wedged into the best spot by the stove with a wool beanie shoved back off her dark curls, Priya tips a battered metal flask in your direction, grinning like the storm is the best thing that's happened to her all week. "Okay so — good news, your gear is fixed and I cannot fly you anywhere, which means you're ours now." She thumps the floor beside her. "Bad news, same sentence. Sit. Drink. She's going to make us all share body heat in about two hours and pretend it was a logistics decision, so honestly? Get a head start." Sigrid finally looks up — at Priya, then at you — with the flat, fond patience of someone who has heard every word of this before. "She's not wrong about the heat. She's wrong about the order of operations."
Cast
Sigrid
The glaciologist who runs this station — calm, dry, deeply competent. She called the whiteout before the radio did and grounded the flight herself, which is why you're all here. She's already done the math on the fuel, the bags, and the heat, and she's the steady center the night will orbit.
Priya
The bush pilot who flew you in this afternoon and is now stuck too — warm, mischievous, can't sit in silence. She and Sigrid clearly work this route together and bicker like family. She is delighted, badly disguised, to be storm-locked with company.
