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| Credit: photo by Dirk Spijkers on Unsplash |
She stared down at the gelid water, the glacial equivalent of a hot spring.This was where their mission had taken them. After months of preparation it was hard to believe they were finally so close - but they could still fail. Snow surrounded the pool, merging with the frosty ice that grew on the edges. The water rippled against the ice, sliding away from crystal clear to shades of aquamarine before turning into a deep frozen sapphire blue in the center. It had all the beauty and deadliness of a hot spring, just at the other end of the thermometer.
Wren adjusted her scarf, glad she had spent the money on qiviut yarn. She was wearing enough of it (knit up into her scarf, hat, gloves, sweater, etc.) to make a dragon’s hoard look cheap, but at least she was warm! She glanced over at Felix, who was visibly shivering and winced. She’d told him that golden ram fleece - even with warming spells knit into it - wouldn’t be enough.
“Don’t you dare say I told you so,” he grumbled. “Who knew earth yarn could be better than the ones here in Entrelac?”
Wren coughed and received a glare. She grinned, “You should listen to me more. Come on, let’s those crystals before the Frore Guard gets here.”
Felix nodded, glancing anxiously around, as if the griffin riding guards where already there. They slid down the snowy hill. Wren landed on the ice, which cracked loudly in the still air. With a sharp gasp, she scrambled backward, colliding with Felix as he tried to pull her back. They fell into the snow with nervous laughs. “Well, that would be one way to end the mission.” Wren said lightly.
Felix shuddered, “Let’s not.”
They pulled themselves up quickly. Felix pulled out a knit circle and lightly tossed it into the air where it floated. It had taken them all summer to make the circle, beginning with collecting the fleece of a sea goat and a cloud, spinning them together under starlight on the night of a new moon, and taking turns knitting the circle on ice needles. “Let’s see if this works.”
“It has too,” said Wren, staring at the circle. She chewed nervously on her lip. The magical circle was the only way they could find the Ameliorate Crystals, which where second only to unicorn horns for healing. A lot of people where counting on them to retrieve the crystals. And on top of that, they had to get the crystals before the Frore Guard found them, otherwise their mission would fail. They watched the circle with bated breath and waited. And waited, and waited. Wren lost track of time and wished that she still had her watch. It had been wrecked in the water when they were trying to catch the sea goat. The circle kept hovering in the air. Wren began to wonder if they had gotten the spells wrong. Would the Guard find them before the spell worked, if it worked?
Suddenly, the circle flashed silver and the waters of the cold spring began to churn. A few minutes later, two large blue crystals, the same sapphire color as the center of the pool, rose up and flew into the circle. Wren whooped and hurried to tie the circle closed, transforming it into a bag. “It worked!Mission accomplished!”
Felix laughed in relief, “And all before the Frore Guard got here! We’ve passed the last exam.”
Felix tucked the crystals into his bag while Wren rummaged through her own pack for sandwiches. “Now that we’ve got the crystals, I hope they get here soon,” she said as she handed one to Felix. “Preferably with hot chocolate.”
“I don’t know. The longer they take now, it’s proof that we were efficient with our time. We’ll get higher marks for that. And don’t count on hot chocolate. The exchange rate is lousy between Entrelac and earth. They might have amber delight though.”
“So long as it’s warm,” Wren bit into her sandwich. “I’m definitely not doing anything like this again. It was the worst internship ever.”
This is the second time I've dumped Felix into a really cold place. Poor guy. Here's the other story I have about Wren and Felix: The Sweater Curse. Chronologically, The Cold Spring come first.
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