ADAPTABILITY WAS one of the survival traits of any species. Find a difficulty and seek a means to obviate it. How though to adapt to the unseen, barely felt, but all-pervading sense of dread which crept into the bones and made more frequent visits to the water closet inevitable?
Have lingering lie-ins perhaps, ones that might linger long enough to discover doom had been missed, prompting a desire to roll over and get back to sleep.
Or there was the possibility of induced hallucinations. Popular one that, for somehow the future seemed more comical and less threatening under such derangement. Safety seemed less important too. After all what could possibly go wrong if one were to step off a cliff ledge or lean too far out of a window to admire distant vistas whilst dreaming of the power of flight?
Finally there was the option to make stuff up. Self-delusion, so beloved by certain popularity-seeking souls, was a transferrable skill if the financing was done well. Thus there was a roaring trade in amulets to ward off evil. And in the Highly Romantic Wilds of Xenia it really was a roaring trade.
'Get your Stare Down Eyeball amulet here!' a vendor roared in a snow-choked settlement surrounded by great granite mountains. 'Guaranteed to glare at doom and send it scurrying back to wherever it is doom hangs out when not being glum in merry company.'
'That'll be Tolly Dodge's Beer Cellar,' a passerby shouted back while wading through summer drifts.
'Oi! I heard that,' Tolly Dodge responded defensively from his recently cleared doorway. 'I'll have you know doom only shows up at closing time in my popular and welcoming establishment.'
'Looking remarkably like your wife, so I understand,' came another rejoinder.
'Oi! I heard that too.'
Any continued protestation at the disparagement of the Beer Cellar of Tolly Dodge was drowned out by something else. A great rumbling from on high. All that roaring was bound to have an effect in the deep valley below spring snows in Xenia and an avalanche duly wiped everyone out.
Once the great white mass of crystals had ceased to move a fist thrust up from a drift near where the amulet vendor had been standing.
'Get your Snow Tumble Guardian amulet here!' came a slightly pained chant. 'On a discount. Guaranteed to protect against avalanches from just about everywhere.'
There was no response to this except some residual drifts on a ledge near the settlement had felt itself tickled and teased by the additional sonic vibrations and so joined the rest of its fellows down in the valley to complete the obliteration.
Of course, the Highly Romantic Wilds of Xenia in summer was a place of numerous avalanches and the population was well versed in dealing with them. Tunnels were dug, shelters improvised and drift parties started so that anyone passing by a freshly snow-choked valley might be witness to the strange sight of coloured lights glowing beneath the snow and the sound of music making loose crystals dance to a jaunty tune.
Which is still a long way from explaining why this Summer Pause of all others seemed a great deal more doomladen than heretofore.
Nowhere across the Face of the World was immune to its sinister influence. In the happy land of Gloriosa people threw coconuts at each other in fits of despair and in the desert wastes of Greetiyah someone could be heard beneath the shrinking shade of a rock deploring how much more dry the sand seemed to be than usual. In Evernight someone even complained it was rather dark. Then there was trouble too in paradise.