Frostbite

Had anyone told the young Suzhen that she should apply herself in tolerating her more cold loving Oathsworn brethren, she would have laughed. Surely not, she would have replied. For what need would a tinkerer, a seamstress of wind and threader of metal, need lessons in dealing with a frozen tundra?

Now though, those lessons were thoroughly missed.

Gone were the conveniences of sand and sun, replaced by white powder and winter chill.

A necessary sacrifice to prolong the hopes of Rilochy.

Wind howling as the lone two travelers marched. Suzhen herself carried forward, her forearm brought up to block the jagged daggers of cold from spearing her eyes. Her partner tugged along, before suddenly moving forward. Faster and faster as she realized the need for sudden speed.

A cabin. Lights off and no smoke. But a cabin nonetheless. Haven. Running towards it, trails of their steps behind disappearing under sleet. Up the steps. Onto the porch. Unlocked.

Abandoned. For no reason.

Better here than outside they thought.

Pressing against the door, it’s hinges threatening to press against the wind, she can only barely manage a counterwind to lock it. Click.

Safety.

Slumping down, sweat dripping from her brow as they finally gained a reprieve from the tundra.

Only minor though. They had to check the cabin.

On cue, Qing responded “Ourby senses no threats.”

On command, her chest drops, breath holding no longer as relief courses through. They still need heat at least. The hearth in plain view would provide that. She just needs to make sure that lighting it won’t kill them. A small wind current is more than enough needed to check through the chimney. Access to the outside.

Her bag. Nothing but clothes, food, water, and survival tools. Staples of a trek through the desert but a pittance in comparison to the native fruit and fur. Searching for the firestarter. It’s quick enough to warm the building. Letting them truly relax for now.

The rooms were scarce, a mattress in each. Enough for them to sleep in with privacy if need be.

Wordlessly, they work to unpack their own belongings, divvying up duties between them. Before long, there’s a cauldron of something warm brewing as her body crashes.

Providence and pride, words etched in her eyelids watching over the vast wasteland. Her people in tents, in tears looking up at the peak in which she stood. Corpses in the sand praying that the ones above do not join them soon.

Her people turning away, not in disgust but fear. Fear as the land reverts. Sand in the ground raising. Cadavers animating back into people walking, watching as a singular figure opposite to her brings destruction. She can only watch, powerless just as her citizens are when it arrives. When the setting sun charts eastward to daybreak.

Eyes open, heart in her throat, threatening to release her stomach. It’s a close thing. Qing is on her in seconds, hands pressed against her back as she’s brought upright. Blanket falling off of her shoulders. A ruined cape fitting for a cursed queen.

“Lady Suzhen?” Her voice soft like the blanket pooling at her feet. “What troubles you? What visions cloud your dreams?”

“Thoughts of home.” There’s a contentment to stay like that, bathing in each other’s warmth even with a fire blazing. “My people.”

“Oft have I heard that the killer of dreams is true responsibility. Hast that fate befallen you?”

Killer of dreams indeed. “I could ask the same of you, high priestess.”

The cushions underneath shift as the priestess leaves, a more primal bit of her sorely missing the comfort. “I am but a simple head on the whole of the hydra, though the hydra and its work is not the importance here. Tis you.”

“Tis me indeed.” Clutching at the warm linens of the fallen blanket, she bundles it up into her lap. “I fear for my people’s future. If this were to fail…”

“It shall not fail, the mother serpent decrees it.” A tankard of something warm placed in front of her as Qing slides back into place. “If it were to fail, you would not have embarked on this journey.”

“I embarked on this journey to redeem myself and save my people, priestess.” Gazing at the hooded priestess, blindfold covered in the caverns of her hood. “I would have journeyed regardless of failure.”

“Yet to seek the cavern alone when a patronage would have joined you in a heartbeat suggests something else.”

The tapping of glass alerts the both of them, turning towards the sound. Only to sigh as they find the cause. A tree branch pressing against the window from the storm.

“The wind is fierce. As is your stubbornness.” A heartwarming sort of stubbornness. Enough to draw her tail out and seek that beacon of willpower.

“Tis a trait of blindness I’m afraid.” There’s a rustle as Qing takes off their hood, coarse hair jutting out at odd angles. “I must follow what few leads I have in life to their end.”

She curls her eyebrows.“Including mine?”

There’s a gentleness as Qing rests a hand on her thigh, a paradox of possessive and protective. “Especially yours.”

“Would the others in your sect approve of this foolhardy desire? To follow a crownless empress?” One hand clasped on top of Qing’s. Scared. Daring.

“Would you believe in me when I say that my only duty is to follow my desires? To follow the signs of the serpent? To watch the marks and trails that it leaves behind?”

“I would, given how you’ve been acting around me.”

Fingers curl into her flesh, small clutching marks maring skin. “Then do you accept my reasons? My desires?”

Fingers curl into her flesh, a mirror of Qing but self-inflicted. “I accept your reasons.” Her tail slithers out of the blanket’s den to coil gently around the priestess’s neck. “But I’m afraid I cannot accept your desires.”

This is the moment. Most who had gotten this far fell into outrage by this point. Anger. Concern. Distrust. Everything compared to the simple placidity on display.

“I see.” Qing said with clarity that rivaled the snowflakes outside.

“Do you?” Suzhen asked. “Most would have released me by now.”

Up close like this, she can see the features of the priestess. Minute scars spaced out, faded over time. The smoothness of a blindfold holding secrets unforetold. A paradoxical simper, confidence and self-consciousness twirled and twisted within one another.

“I do, for you have not released me. For I know you, Long Suzhen. You are not a glass portrait nor am I.” There’s a rebuttal on her lips, out her tongue yet cut off by the grazing of her tail. Nails, Qing’s nails caressing the tip closer. “You may not accept my desires now, but that is understandable. You are a warmother of the sands. The serpent’s embrace you. There is too much for you to do and many eons before the Mother Serpent lays claim to your tail.”

A thumb rubs along her scales, a direction and warmth that Suzhen can only internally agree with. Guided towards Qing’s mouth. Lips. Lips press against her tail, soft and chaste. “You have duties far beyond me. But I will wait for the time when I can be by your side, however you desire.”

Funny, with how tumultuous the outside conditions are, with how far removed the two were from Rilochy. Somehow, Suzhen still found her mouth as dry as cattle skulls in the desert. “You will have to wait for a while.” It’s softer than she’s used to. The kind of comfort and promise never given in a battlefield.

“Fair Lady Suzhen,” their hands intertwined, laced within one another, “I have waited in darkness for many years. I am content to wait more if only to sip from your cup.”

They stay like that. Content to be by each other’s side. It’s not long before eve sets towards them. A veneer of sparkling ink in the sky covered by roiling pufts of dark cotton. Last minute checks of everything. Food storages contained. Locked doors. The fire snuffed (despite their well wishes for it’s warmth). Enough for them to whisk away to separate rooms, intent on sleeping early and waking up earlier than that

Jostling, muted voices wake her from the dregs of sand dreams. “Lady Suzhen!” Her eyes force apart as the covers get discarded. “We must leave! The cabin wo-”

All goes silent as things drop. Snow, the first vanguard of mother nature’s forces to break through the barricade. Followed closely by the second in command, wind. Silence gives way to creeks and cracks, the whistling arrival of the storm bearing only destruction and ruin.

A moonlight sonata of cacophony.

Qing’s the mistress in the spotlight, debris dust a sprinkle of sparkle as everything connects together. A breath in as everything pauses in the score, a placement of quartet sensations that leaves her lung in a note full of full notes.

For a moment she sees it. A flicker of a tongue laughing at her. The maw of a great serpent writhing and coiling around Qing. There’s only moments as she watches everything fall apart, torn by winter’s bite. Great segments disappearing as lumber snaps in twain.

Running towards the Priestess, she doesn’t dare disturb the channeling of the spirit around them. Yet she knows what needs to happen as soon as the ritual disappears.

Three seconds. Three seconds pass as the building comes down around them. Qing collapses forward, falling into her arms. Three seconds is far too long for them to stay like this. They need to move.

Scanning the rubble, she needs something to lay the Priestess on. Enough for her to rest a weary soul. Searching through, still holding Qing close. The logs of the building all are snapped apart, something that would require time to make into a large enough platform. The door?

It would be a miracle if the door survived.

A miracle.

It’s just short of one really. She finds it underneath shattered shards of glass. Not whole, splintered and bisected. But still large enough that she can place Qing comfortably. A warm blanket on top is the only comfort she can provide. It’ll have to be enough.

Rope. She needs a rope. The other blanket. Ripping it into thirds gives her enough length. Twice around to fasten Qing down, once around for a loop to carry. A poor man’s sled.

“S-”

Her attention shifts towards the priestess. Her priestess.

“Rest for now.” A thumb on her chin. Fingers just underneath the ears. Lips pressed on her forehead. “I’ll see us through.”

Gathering the blanket turned bridle, her sights set on the peaks far in the distance. The original plan had been to rest past the storm, yet now that was no longer an option. Brave the storm it was.

One step forward. That was the only choice. The second step, no easier than the first. But they needed to move.

The interrupted rest meant she hadn’t the time to stockpile reserves. A limited pool that she can draw upon. Back to basics then.

Air. Warm air. A technique that the oathsworn were taught as a precursor to their elemental breaths. Only a trickle of mana needed but even a trickle could cause a flood if left unchecked. Circulation, warmth pooling within her. This’ll do.

This’ll have to do.

Sand and Snow. Ironic how things are. How the two are so similar yet so fundamentally different. How trudging through it felt like marching against powdered concrete.

Dying here would truly be ironic. Dying of proverbial drowning whilst her people were dying of thirst. There’s nothing she can do about it though. A shadow in her periphery is an immediate change in mind. There is in fact something she can do about it. Not letting herself and Qing die to whatever that is.

The ropes around the make-shift sled pull tight as she forges forward, speed accelerating as she seeks to not tussle with whatever thing is in the corner. The side. It fancies the two of them a free meal then. A desperate choice. A pitiful one.

Hopefully it chooses against a merciful death.

Backing up, she concentrates on the air around her. Mana seeping through her being, rushing and collecting the wind into a torrent. It’s a dangerous thing considering how frail, how vulnerable her charge is. But this display of force should be enough to dissuade any sane thing into leaving.

Desperate though, is not sane.

The beast charges from the canopy. In proper light she can see it’s features. Great bulking wings shatter her barrier, or is it the roar that does it. She can’t tell. Just that the rush of circulating around her stops. Dead air. Dead air filled by the war cries of a beast. A maw full of teeth that drool and gnash. Roped muscles that squirm underneath pulsating skin.

Eyes scan, pinpointing vulnerabilities. Wing joints. Patches of skin where feather and fur blend.

The beast leaps, wings aiding in a jump that closes the distance.

The cold. It’s bothering her. Limiting her ability to respond as she would like. A goliath of a punch comes crashing against her, blocked only just in time by the shift of her flesh. Verdant scales crisscrossing up and down her left side as her arm bulks up to shield the blow, catching the strike within her palm.

Her tail wraps around the prone form of Qing. There’s a time limit now. For how long she can keep this up before her arm droops uselessly at her side. Her unchanged arm fills with nascent strength. Not enough to force a transformation but enough to feel blood coursing through.

Her fingers stick, bound together as she reaches towards the captured arm of the goliath. No. Not reach. Puncture. Fingers punching holes in thick flesh. A roar of pain as wings slap futilely at her, desperate to make Suzhen let go.

Roped muscles mean nothing as claws on her shifted arm pierce in between fingers. . Withdrawing her unshifted hand, she aims at the elbow. The beast tries to dodge, writhe out of her way. But her aim is true. Piercing into the joint, thumb against a vein as her fingers caress bone.

Mouth open in a roar, she wedges the hand up and away whilst bringing the elbow closer and yanking it down.

It’s uncertain what’s louder. The crunch of bone snapping in two or the cry of pain.

Mana gathers around her dragonic arm. With a twist, she wrenches the arm off, ichor spraying around her. A crimson arc in the snow. Grasping at exposed bone, she yanks. Enough to draw the creature of it’s balance. Enough for her great claws to pierce into it’s neck.

It’s a formality at this point. Even as the beast’s other hand comes to try and squash her arm. Nothing can stop her. Stop her from squeezing, blood trickling down open wounds and into the interlocking corridors of her scales.

Her breath fills out in the form of mist as the final one escapes the beast. A pity.

But faltering here isn’t an option.

Even now as she feels her arm revert. Even now as she can feel numb creeping, icicle winds spearing into her front. There’s no path but through.

The mountain imposes upon the skyline, twin peaks that make her gamble and push harder. With the beast dead and a trail of its blood following behind her, there’s no option to hunker for rest.

Press onward.

Even as the storm bellows across the mountain, carrying snow and hail. Numerous times did she stumble. Collapsing into blankets of white only for her to press deeper and deeper into the well of mana left inside her.

Hands numb. Legs numb. Face numb.

It’s a small wonder that she finds herself resting against a great pine tree, her shoulder braced against frozen bark. A cover of needle leaves the only blockade against the unrelenting blizzard.

There’s a temptation to rest. To slump down and give up. Leave a set of corpses as a monument of her failure. But that was just it. Temptations were sweet releases from agony. Even as she felt the cold sapping warmth away in licks and bites.

She recalls the screams. The terror in her people as everything they built painstackling crumbled around them. All at the whims of one woman.

All at their negligence. Their hubris. That the great populace was enough to overcome the divine. One woman was enough to leave them a crater on the map.

She’s not sure what hurts more. The numbness of everything or the dagger twisted in her heart. Right for the wrong reasons.

There’s only one way to right this wrong. Pushing off from the tree with her one good hand, she turns just briefly to look at the face of the pale priestess resting blissfully in the blizzard.

She forges onwards towards the mountain the distance.

The winds lambaste her. Daring her to shred the area around her for a smoother ride. That would just leave her a manaless shrivel, buried underneath a cover of white.

It’s a miracle that she even finds the mountain. But that isn’t it. A mountain wasn’t heaven. It was just a rock. There must be a cave somewhere. Anywhere. A hole they can grovel in. Her left side to the wall, they set onward.

How long has she been walking? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? She can barely see in front of her. Would she even be able to find the cave? What if she walked the whole way around, going in the wrong direction simply because she couldn’t bear to deal with the wind against her useless arm.

What if they were in the wrong place? That this was all for naught?

Then she sees it. The outcrop of rock, contrasting even the rough exterior of the mountainside. Willing force into her legs, the sight bounces. Falling as she stumbles even now. Almost there.

No giving up now.

Facefull of snow, Suzhen the Desert Snake crawls towards the entrance of a cave. Dragging the priestess inward, sheltered against the elements.

Her head is telling her to find out if the cave is safe. Make sure there are no threats. Start a fire to keep them warm.

If only though, she could keep her eyelids from drooping downwards.

A cove alight in dazzling crystal. Iridescence spread amongst everything. Yet even what she saw paled in comparison to the sight directly above her.

“I see you’re awake.”

Reaching up, no scratch that. Pain rings up and down her arm. No reaching up. “Where are we?”

Fingers curl against her jaw, thumb caressing the chin. “The both of us are alive if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“A pity, death by blizzard would have been a funny epithet.” There’s the barest hint of a smile on the priestess face, enough for her to laugh. Laughter that turns into pain, eyes shutting close as muscles protest even the slightest movement.

“Careful, that sharp tongue of yours might cut you to bits in your state.” Forget being the priestess of the snake. Qing was a snake charmer at this rate, the way she massaged her weary bones. Enough to make her shut up without rebuke. “But I will say congratulations, Lady of Rilochy. You ferried us to the cave.”

“To keep us from dying.” Her mouth is full of cotton it seems.

“I believe you misunderstood Fair Lady Suzhen.” Grasping a few strands of unkempt hair, Qing pulls them all back. Tucking them behind her ears. “You have not ferried us to a cave. You ferried us to the cave.”

Realization strikes like one of the Oathsworns many bolts. They…they made it. Breath hitching, she’s close to tears at the idea. Her people may not perish after all.

“Child of the sand.” The sonorous voice makes her head turn towards the middle of the cavern. “For what reason do you shed tears?”

There’s an immediate need to squint for simply how bright the entity is. There’s a quick retort on her tongue but considering who they’re speaking to…it’s almost impossible. Comfort presses down on her like the most inconvenient weighted blanket.

“I cannot speak for the Fair Lady, but it is blinding to be in your presence o’ spirit beneath the mountain.” She can almost imagine the curt bow Qing would be making right now. Something she could immediately see happening, if it weren’t for the fact that the priestess’s lap was being occupied by her head.

“It’s been many a revolution since one called me Spirit beneath the mountain, Child of the serpent.” The light got closer, brighter. Yet despite it all, her eyes aren’t searing. If anything she can make out even a small portion of the figure. An almost shapeless mass that refuses to stay in one spot. “I believe the two of you can see much clearer now?”

“Yes, though I do not know what to call you.” Suzhen said.

“Nor do I, and I was the one who brought us on this journey.” Qing said after.

“Let us skip the more proper formalities, call me Snowball.” Snowball proclaimed.

“Snowball then.” Chest filling as much as she can, Suzhen prepares the speech. “I have a request. Your aid-”

“I accept.” If jaws could drop low, Suzhen and Qing’s would be subterranean.

“I-1 beg your pardon?” Just like that? Like that!? “We haven’t even discussed the terms.”

Qing’s hand closes around hers as Snowball advances towards them, ever closer. “You wish to aid your people. I wish to escape this mountain. It’s a fair trade.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

How…anti-climatic.

There were thoughts in her mind about a potential sacrifice. A test of strength. Of will.

“You sacrificed much already, child of the sand. Your voyage was many tests, ones that you passed. Or did you forget me already?”

Forget?

Snowball changes in front of their eyes. It’s difficult to make out precise details with the glare, but the effect is almost immediate. The wings. The bulky arms. The stacked legs.

The beast.

“You were testing her.” The conclusion spoken aloud that both had realized. “You were testing the Fair Lady.”

Snowball proceed to shift back, their form rescinding back into a simpler spherical shape. “Of course, for what is a boon if you cannot protect it?”

“Were you not imprisoned here for that reason? So that Father Winter would forever keep you in his clutches.” A mythos. Firmly something that was out of her field.. “Why would you change jailors?”

“Tis not a change of jailors if I desire it. But enough talk. Let us return to your people Child of the Sand, bearing the fruits of your labor.”

She almost has enough time to bring her hand up for the incoming flash. Almost.

Hope.

Serenity. Rings in the pond of her body that ripple from the center to the outline, calm pressing outwards through her skin. The serenity shifts as more and more ripples drop in. Each a metronome’s beat that only accelerates faster and faster. More and more, until she can no longer simply slumber.

Eyes spread as the harsh rays spear into unprotected irises. When will she learn to open her eyes slowly?

Movement. Underneath…no. Not underneath. Through the ground. On top of something. Arm pinned underneath something. Turning towards that something, one of the best decisions she’s made.

The placid face of Qing. The priestess. Her priestess. Further down, the creature they’re riding on contrasts the pale woman greatly. “Child of the Sand, you approach your people soon. What will you say?”

What will she say? Truthfully though, there’s only one thing to say.

“Welcome home.”