Inspiration - The 1925 diphtheria serum rally run to Nome / Movies Togo and Balto.
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"Hey, you're back!"
The young ravenette looks up as she pushes her body weight against the modest door, trapping the loud, whistling winds behind the wood, metal and glass. She shivers despite the warmth of the fireplace burning in the hearth just a few feet away from her. The large dog in front of her shakes violently, trying to get the thick coat of snow from her fur. Mistress and mammal, they're unrecognisable until the mistress sheds her large fur coat from her body, removing the hood from her hair, and the dog finishes shaking out. "Why were you two summoned?" the honest, beautiful man asks his wife as she pulls off her snow covered boots and replaces them with house shoes. "Is it something about the shipment?" he asks.
"No, nothing like that." she sighs, looking from right to left. Her husband stands in the mediocre kitchen, his half brother stands at the stove, presumably brewing up the horrendously strong coffee needed to survive such a harsh winter in the north. His parents sit in the living room, his mother perched on the overstuffed, raggedy chair, holding a pair of knitting needles in her hand as she creates a pink and purple blanket. His father lays on his side on the floor, playing marbles with young Hercules and Margret. The others titter around in the background somewhere, she can hear her siblings-in-law's voices all around the cabin, as well as the dogs howling in the other cabin. She sighs at the domesticity that seeps through the cabin they've been living in for the last years, and the sight of the dimness of the sky, the home lit by candles and lamps and the fireplace, it clenches her heart in a way she cannot explain.
"Then, what? Knox never sends for you unless it's absolutely necessary or he's gotten himself into a hole and needs you to bail him out. Whatever it is, it's gotta be big." he says. She sighs, looking back at her husband again. He's concerned, curious. She doesn't want to tell him, but she has to.
"It's the children." she says. He falters slightly, licking his lips, absentmindedly looking from her to Margot and Herc. Word of the horrid sickness going around several villages surrounding and including theirs, it's startled them all so much. It's no wonder Henry and Catherine chose to keep their children from the school. Mary blinks back the tears as she remembers how sick little Henri was for such a long time until Doctor Samuel Nostradamus finally found a few drops of the precious antidote. There wasn't enough to go around, more and more children got sick from it. And with the news Mary just heard- "Darling, they're getting worse." she sighs.
He licks his lips again, exhaling slowly. Henri had survived, but even after the antidote, he was still so horridly weak from it all that he stayed in his room from morning to night, and then all over again the next day. The younger boys had had to bunk up with the girls, and even then, more often than not, one of the pairs who had to share a single bunk bed with three stacks on each side of the room, found themselves in one of the married couples' bedrooms.
"What can we do?" Francis asks. "We've done all we can, only leaving the ranch when it's to exercise the dogs, or to get food, and even then, we never see anybody else. Mother and Father have been so worried with Henri, they've taken every precaution Samuel has said, what more can we do to help try and keep the spread down?"
"That's the point, it's not enough, love." she sighs, reaching over for his hand. He gives it with a frown. This isn't how his wife usually acted. "Come, I have to talk to you." she leads him into their bedroom, closing the door behind them. Their bedroom isn't big, it barely fits the bed and their wardrobes, and little nick nacks they've managed to accumulate in their lives in the middle of a snow covered village in the middle of nowhere. Of course, both of them have made lives together, they've had little choice, since this winter wonderland is all they've ever known, having to escape Europe during the great war after it got too dangerous. He works tirelessly in the deliveries, while Mary does her job with her sled team, attaining trophies and recognition, and any other time, she was transport in the village and in between different villages. Married at seventeen, the two have grown up together in this wintery home, Francis knows Mary better than anyone, and had been her main support system when her mother and father and brothers had died from the last wave of TB three years previous. So, to see her now, so troubled, with almost the weight of the world on her shoulders, it troubles him in his own right.
"Mary, what is it?" Francis asks, as Mary lights up a couple oil lamps and sits down next to him on the bed that really should have been replaced several years ago.
"Obviously, you know how serious this disease is?" she begins.
"What kind of question is that? My brother nearly died from it."
"That's my point. And, obviously, you know how much the village recognises the team and I for the expeditions in the past," Mary pauses, looking down as she intertwines their hands. Their rings clank together. They're not expensive rings in the slightest, they'd been given to Mary when her mother and father died and left behind her families' jewelry collection, none of the Valois' are rich anymore, they haven't been since France was conquered in '14. They don't have a lot, but they have each other, so it's enough. "I mean, look at them." Mary looks at the trophies and grainy pictures framed in aged, cheap silver, the medals and the plaques she's attained over the years, and bites her lip for a moment. "They know me, they trust me, they know how good Duchess and I are with the team."
"Mary, what is this?" Francis asks his wife again, frowning deeply. "You're beating around the bush, scaring me. Just tell me what this is all about."
"Francis, the children are dying. It's four more since sunrise." she whispers. "They need the antidote, it can't be flown in, the storm is too bad. It can't be taken in by sea, the seas are frozen for fifty miles around us. They've located the serum, it's in Nulato."
"Nulato?" Francis asks. "That's six hundred miles away, Mary."
"It is." she agrees. "It is." she whispers. "Six hundred miles of breaking ice, torrential snow and ice falling from the skies, of unsteady steeps and danger all around." she mutters. "Francis, Knox and Darnley, Narciesse and Conde, they know the only way to get the serum is by sled." she reveals, not wanting to say the rest.
Turns out, she doesn't have to. A moment later, Francis' realisation on what his wife is telling him falls upon his mind. His eyes widen and he begins to shake his head, tightening his hands around hers.
"You?" he asks. "Mary, no! You can't do that distance! You just got back from a three hundred mile trip last month! And now they want you to do this? Why is it always your turn to go on these sorts of missions? Why can't it be somebody else's turn?" he rambles, tightening his hands around his wife's.
"Because they know I'm the best." Mary whispers. "I am, Francis. Look at all of my credentials." Mary looks to the trophies again. "Trust me, I didn't want to put my life in danger for this mission, I don't. But I told them I needed time to think, and Duchess, Dawson and Ravenna, we stopped by the infirmary. God, Francis, those children, they're dying. I saw-" she swallows. "I saw Amelia D'Amencourt screaming as little Domenik was covered up in a sheet, Fredrick holding her back as she collapsed. Those little babies, they're suffering. How can I say no?"
"Mary! You said yes?!"
"What choice did I have, Francis?" Mary meets him on her feet. "Those children, they're going to die if I don't take twelve dogs into the wilderness! There's nobody else who can sled even a hundred miles, I'm the only one from the village who can save these children, their safety depends on it!"
"And what of your safety?" Francis asks. "What if you die out there?! I can't survive burying you out here, Mary!"
"It's a risk I have to take, Francis." Mary whispers. "Love, we know those people. We know those children, how can I go on with my life if I didn't go, watching those people grieve their children, knowing I could have done something to help them?! Francis, if I don't go, we've as good as signed their death warrants."
"And if you go, you've signed yours! Mary, please, they can get somebody else. I-I can't bare the thought of losing you to the wild again."
"You have to trust me, trust my abilities out there, Francis." Mary says, wiping her tears she didn't even know had fallen. "You have to trust Duchess as my lead dog, you know she's saved your life so many times here. You have to trust my team, I'm taking the best, the fastest, the strongest ones. Duchess, Floki, Bjorn, Ivar, Astrid, Lucia, Dawson, Misha, Artemis, Huntress, Lucious and Aspen. The strongest dogs I have, you have to trust them, my love. And you have to trust me."
"I-I-" he can't speak.
"I know." Mary whispers, cupping his cheeks. "Don't worry, I don't plan on dying any time soon."
So, that's why, just after dawn the next morning, when the sun hasn't even risen over their snowy little village, the entire Valois clan bundles out to bid their own adeu. The twelve dogs are harnessed and raring to go, trapped to the wooden sled that carries provisions for however long they may have to be in the wilderness for, at the mercy of the goddess of winter. Mary, who's bundled up in the thickest clothing she has, kisses her husband one last time, before she steps onto her sled and grips the wooden frame in her hand, using the other to lower the goggles onto her face and straighten the mask she wears. She looks back at her husband, one last time, before yelling out to her team. They instantly begin to run, and Mary takes a moment to look at her husband before he fades into the night, neither knowing when -or if- they'd ever see each other again.
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If anybody hasn't heard of the movies or the diphtheria epidemic in 1925 Alaska, I'd strongly recommend researching the events or watching the movies. It's a truly remarkable story.