Theoretician

dragon reading a book

“You, humans, are so fragile! See? If, say, I were to bite your arm or leg off you wouldn’t be able to fight. Whoosh!”

Those words made Ren a tad anxious, so he reached for his sword, just in case.

“Phah!” the dragon threw his paws up. “You have no imagination at all! I was just thinking out loud. Hypothetically. Aren’t you curious about what makes things in the world tick?”

The man spat indignantly, but did sheath his sword. It seemed that the fire lizard was not going to eat him but wanted to talk instead. Very well, talk they will then.

“So, does it mean that if, say, I were to chop off your paws or your tail you wouldn’t feel a thing?” he asked and added sarcastically, “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

The dragon sniffed at him with contempt.

“Well, at least I wouldn’t die of blood loss on the battlefield! Also… it wouldn’t be pretty, of course, but my lost limbs would grow back in a few years.”
“If you survive the battle, that is!” Ren grinned in a very meaningful way. “Want to test it? Coward!”
“Rude!” the dragon retorted, his nose in the air, his gentle feelings obviously deeply hurt. “The likes of you deserve their head to be bitten off, not their limbs. Yes, the head, along with the dirty mouth.”

Ren burst out laughing. He got it: the huge green monster that had knocked him off the horse not a long time ago was afraid. The fire-breathing dragon towering above the little human with a broken leg - afraid! How funny is that?

Armed with the new knowledge, Ren decided to go onto the offensive. Not with his sword, though, but with his words.

“How do you know we are fragile? Are you some kind of specialist? Have a ton of experience in the field of biting?”
“I am a theoretician,” said the dragon in a very proud, very dignified tone. “I read about it! I am too… sensitive for such experiments.”

By the end of that little speech, Ren had already been roaring with laughter. It took him a huge effort to snap out of it and keep talking.

“Is that so? Does it mean that you swallowed lady Iris whole, my sensitive friend?”
“What!!!”
“Whole,” Ren kept playing the fool, “I mean, without biting and chewing.”

The dragon choked on his own smoke and backed away. His delicate nature was so heavily insulted, he couldn’t help imagining biting off all the limbs of that arrogant human. Just imagining, though, in his mind, nothing more.

“I’d ask you, sir,” he nearly shrieked, barely controlling his indignation, “to pick your words more carefully!”
“Or what?”
“Or…” The dragon’s eyes flashed. “Or I will tell everything to lady Iris!”
“What?”

The utter surprise reflected on Ren’s face looked very much like fear to the dragon. His spirits soared again. Finally, he had shown the little rude human who is the real monster here!

“Ah-ha!” he roared triumphantly. “Now be a good human or I will do that, I swear on my claws!”

Ren, who had just gotten over the shock the happy surprise had given gave him, answered the dragon with a long unprintable curse. Now the poor creature had to other choice but to keep his word.

“Don’t go anywhere!” The dragon wagged a clawed finger on Ren before leaving. He had no reason to worry, though, for now the human wouldn’t go anywhere even if his leg hadn’t been broken.

Like a little boy who calls his mom or grandma for help when some other child takes away his toy, the theoretician was happily gloating beforehand as he watched lady Iris walk toward the rude knight. Oh, how she would shame him, he thought.

The dragon’s jaw dropped as he saw lady Iris embrace the man instead. The next moment she was crying of happiness.

“Ren, my love, I knew you would come!”
“My dear Iris, I thought you were dead. I came here to avenge you…Please, forgive me. I can not get up, or I would’ve carried you home in my arms.”
“Your poor leg… Who hurt you? Was it…”

Iris turned back to the dragon, her gaze angry and scornful. The huge monster immediately lowered his long ears in fear and shame. He would have blushed deeply if he could.

“Ah, it’s okay,” Ren stood up for the monster all of a sudden. “It’s all for the better. I could’ve killed your green pal otherwise and you would’ve been sad then. I’d rather break my leg than see you cry… Tell me, why did he kidnap you?”

Iris gave Ren a smile. And a kiss.

“He wanted to be a real dragon. He read about them a lot. It turned out he was way too gentle and sensitive to follow their example, though. He couldn’t even eat the sheep he stole let alone a girl. He is such a pure soul. Righ, Vinnie?”

Her gaze was so warm and kind now it completely confounded the dragon. Vinnie raised his ears and tilted his head amiably. He would have blushed again if he could.

“He is a very kind and curious dragon and a real bookwyrm,” said Iris. “Yes, it was scary when he kidnapped me but he apologized! We even became good friends.”
“I see…” Ren groaned with pain as he stood up on his good leg trying his best not to disturb the broken one.

A huge, scaly paw carefully held his elbow so he wouldn’t fall.

(December 1, 2010)

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Random stuff

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Antisocial personality disorder is indeed a super interesting (and at the same time scary) subject. I thing humanity should put more effort in trying to understand it. There are therapies for helping sociopaths, but they are not effective enough at the moment.
What I love about columnar basalt is that it can be any colour of rainbow. And it can be striped, dotted, and have a dozen of other patterns. It can have curved, angled, knotted, and other shapes. Google for "basalt columns" if you're curious, you'll see amazing photos.
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McColl34:
Faith and Hope are fairly common English names. Love is not used as a name as often. It is not unheard of, but not as common. The trio of names first appeared in the Bible (I assume it was first appearance, the letters to the Corinthians were written about 1,900 years ago). Specifically, in First Corinthians 13:13, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." In the original Greek, they would be "πιστις" (pistis), "ελπις" (elpis) and "αγαπη" (agape).
Norns (Wyrd, Vernandi, and Skuld) come from North mythology, but there are similar mystical creatures (three women - old, middle aged, and young - having something to do with fate) in many different cultures, including Greek.
Aprillen:
The Norns were indeed Fates -- Urd means "fate", Verdandi means "in the making" and Skuld means "future". They would sit at the foot of the World Tree and measure out peoples lives and destinies. (Urd=Wyrd; I'm used to the modernised Norse variants of the names since I'm Scandinavian.)
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I'm a cruel author. Not George Martin style cruel, but still...
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Many greenhouses, at least the larger better ones will have fans that will mimic breezes that come on at night for air circulation and to toughen the plants like a wind does.
(discussing cat names of different countries)
McColl34:
Smoky Is a common name for grey or greyish cats. Socks is also fairly common for cats with different color fur on their feet.

Mildegard:
Blackie would be Chernysh in Russian (cherny = black). I had a black cat with that name. We have a cat name similar to Smoky. Dymok (dym = smoke). And I remember the name Socks... there was a movie where a man tamed a wolf and named him Socks. So I thought it was a dog name.
Jourell:
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Jourell:
What we think of as fairy tales and folk tales were originally a lot darker and didn't always have a happy ending. Children weren't necessarily considered different, they had to be taught lessons in a world that was generally a lot harder than it was today. there were often morals yes, but they were as much warnings of things that could happen. For example Hansel and Gretal was about the dangers of trusting strangers, particularly if they deliberately tried to attract children to them. Red Riding hood had sexual undertones and was a warning against rapists. In Cinderella one of the ugly stepsisters cuts off part of her foot to try to fit inside the shoe and the blood gives her away.
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Jude Wilkins:
Was there a Norn before Faith? Otherwise how do the embryos get implanted a woman in each generation? Thinking that since Hope is 24, Faith is likely around twice as old. So wouldn't Faith surrogate mother still be around or is the life expectancy shortened because of all that happened?

Mildegard:
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Jude Wilkins:
I'm curious to see what size Faith is compared to Nolan. If Hope is 24 years old, she's an adult but she's so small compared to Nolan plus she looks childlike still. Is Nolan larger than the people being grown from the embryo stage or is this something that you'll explain later?

Mildegard:
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Nolan's case: he no longer carries the virus and his immune system is mad at his own body cells. We can give him the drug and it might work, but once we remove it the effect won't last long. The drug will have to be present in his bloodstream every minute of his life (hello side effects and a deadly overdose!) just like the nanites he survived on. In theory, we can prolong his life for some days/weeks with the said drug but it will be torture and not really a solution. The solution is reprogramming his immune system so it wouldn't see him as an enemy anymore.
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GWI is a black and white comic, but I color the pages occasionally, mostly the ones my Patrons choose. If you support me by becoming my Patron of buying me a Ko-fi you can choose one too.
I make GWI sketches and contours in PainToolSai, add basic colors and gradients in FireAlpaca, do shading and add details in SAI again, and then add effects, text, and bubbles in Photoshop CS3. I usually make pages in packs (3-4 at once).
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No donation is too small. Where I live 1$ can buy me a tasty protein-rich lunch or two bus tickets.
"Gifts of wandering ice" is a member of Spiderforest collective. It's a friendly community where comic creators help each other (that includes sharing readers, providing hosting, helping with web design, collaborating on various projects, and other stuff). If you have your own comic you can join too.
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Comments are important. Very. Most comic artists are lonely people and get sad when they don't see any feedback from their readers.
There are two types of empathy: emotional and cognitive. The first type is natural (you are born with it or without it) and is based on the activity of mirror neurons. The second one can be learned by studying human behaviour and practicing imagining yourself in another person's place.
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Icebergs come in lots of colours. Not only white, but all shades of blue and green. Red and black ones are rare but not unknown either. The patterns and shapes also vary a lot. Striped icebergs - yes please. Shaped like castles - sure. Wavy - yep, those exist as well.
See a typo or a badly translated phrase? Tell me about it and I'll fix it as soon as I can.
Real life hexagonal basalt formations can be quite lofty, just like the mountains in GWI. Devil's tower (in Wyoming), for example, is 265m (867 feet) tall.
I have "Dreams" series on Patreon (open for patrons pledging 2$/month or more) where I draw stuff that cannot happen or can but won't be mentioned in the comic. Like Jan being a good brother and not a tattooed exile. Or Lara and Ren as little kids. Or Nolan with lots of cats around. Or little Hope helping her mother with cyberarm repairs, etc.
Ancient diseases returning because of melting permafrost is a real life thing already happening in our world. And since we're entering the global warming era, it's damn scary.
If you're interested in more webcomics about memory transfer I suggest checking out "Cato's apprenticeship". It's about a boy with a brain implant.
If you're interested in learning more about Ash and his life before he met Elie I have a story on Patreon (open for all patrons) titled "Tsunami kid".
Remember the ammonite shelf in Tim's room? Yep, some ancient ammonoides were that large. I bet they wouldn't mind eating a human if we lived at the same time.
Hunter shamans are not just firedancers and ceremony masters. Their main task is maitaining their tribe's physical and mental health. So a shaman is actually a healer and therapist rolled in one. And while their healing skills are inferior to, say, a cave dweller surgeon, their "placebo magic" based therapy provides better results than any cave dweller psychologist can promise.
Mute tribe uses sign language and wordless singing to communicate. They cannot pronounce articulate sounds, but understand the islanders' speech. The islanders can learn to understand their wordless singing but are unable to use it themselves because their vocal cords are different. Both human species can equally use sign language, though. And "magic rope" figures (like the ones Ren uses) are a part of it.
Hunters don't write books but they do draw a lot. Drawing a realistic landscape or a portrait is no problem even for their kids. Cave dwellers, who rely heavily on written language, rarely go beyond drawing simplistic stick figures.
"Gifts of wandering ice" has a page on TVtropes and you can edit it.
Samovar is a Russian device for making tea. I love them. My mother has one. It's not very old (older than me, though) and uses electricity instead of wood to boil water, but it's still cool!
Originally, I'm a writer. I decided to learn to draw at the age of 22, because I wanted my novels to have nice covers and was too broke to pay an artist.
Common Russian name for a tomcat is Vaska, for a female cat is Murka (mur = purr).
"Gifts of wandering ice" has a Discord channel. You can chat with me and the other readers there.
"I love nightmares. There I'm always the most dangerous monster".
Jan
"Nightmares are fun and so much better than life".
Jan
"The world is so real it hurts".
Elie
How dreamcatchers "work": good dreams get caught in the web and slide down to the sleeper along the feathers, bad dreams just go through the hole in the center of the web.
Evacuation capsules similar to those used in the comic exist in real life. I heard that in Japan you can easily buy one in a supermarket.
Floating cities, like many other things in the comic, were made in Zbrush. It took about 30 min after work and saved me hours of drawing.
I'm a cat person. I have two cats at home. The boy's name is Trikster and the girl is Omegana (my nerdy husband named her after Omegon from Warhammer 40000, I have no idea why :D )
I work as a 3D artist in a local animation studio. The same studio that was making my favourite comics when I was a kid.
Что случилось с русской версией комикса "Дары бродячих льдов"?
Комикс Дары бродячих льдов перезапущен в новом формате на сайте mildegard.ru
Randomwebcomic.com is a side project of Olga's (the author of GWI). It's a simple website that sends you to a random webcomic - a webcomic roulette. If you are a webcomic artist, you can add your comics there too.
In the beginning there was only a short story - "Ice gift" (13 chapters, 4 characters) - that later turned into "Gifts of wandering ice" you know.
GWI has a store with 1$ books and juicy freebies! Check it out :)
"Tales from the Afterworld" is a collection of illustrated short stories in different genres (sci-fi, fantasy, magical realism) from the author of "Gifts of wandering ice". You can read it for free here or on Tapas.
Did you know that there is a way to support the author of GWI without spending your money? Here you go: download Tapas app, subscribe to one of Olga's stories on Tapas, earn Tapas Ink in the app by watching ads or playing games, donate the ink. Easy :)
Everything is better with a cat.
My main hobby is telling stories but I also have another hobby: I play the ocarina (a ceramic flute). If you're curious, here's a video of me playing an Irish folk song in a Russian forest.