"Ah, you've got a good eye!" Mika said as he wrapped up the box. "This was quite a find for us!"

"Thanks!" Kellen said excitedly. The Bori beamed as he rocked back and forth, waiting for his purchase. "I pride myself on always finding the perfect gift, but I had a bit of trouble with this one. You have no idea how many shops I searched before coming to your garage sale!"

"Well, we do have some one-of-a-kind items," Mika replied modestly as he finished tying the bow. "Here you are. Enjoy your party!"

"Thank you!" Kellen called as he walked out of the igloo, gripping his box tightly. He whistled as he began to skip through the snow, feeling quite satisfied with himself. He really had searched high and low for the perfect gift. None of the shops carried anything he liked, and every other item seemed to be owned by just about everyone else in Neopia. He had wanted something perfect... yet unique. It had cost him almost an entire day of waiting around at the igloo while the Chias restocked, but it had paid off in the end.

With a happy grin, the Bori took another leap... and landed right on a patch of ice. Before he could stop himself, he began to slide around, and without his arms to use for balance, he flopped over into the icy snow. The gift box flew from his hands and landed in a snowdrift at the top of a steep slope.

"Oh no," Kellen whispered as the box teetered dangerously on the edge and slowly began to slide down the mountainside...

The bow snagged on a rock outcropping, the box itself dangling over the precipice.

Kellen gulped, took a deep fortifying breath, and started cautiously down the slope himself. He dropped to all fours and dug into the packed snow with his powerful Bori claws, and he'd made it almost halfway down when he found an area of hard ice. He cast about for a way past it, but there was no way to go around.

He ventured onto the ice. One step, two, three, four, fi--

He slipped. He hit the smooth snow again at high speed and went sailing down the slope, flailing for purchase. At the last second, he spotted the gift on its outcropping, stretched out his hands, snatched it...

...and went flying off the edge of the cliff into the cold air...

It was then that Kellen realized that the Pteri was talking to him. "I am NOT flying!" the Bori cried, "I'm falling!"

"Beautiful form then, you're doing a wonderful job. Keep going in this direction and my best bet is you'll hit that bank of powder snow right down there."

"Where?"

Kellen collided heavily with the snow, blasting the air from his lungs. "There," the Pteri said without the slightest hint of sarcasm.

Kellen, a bit battered but no worse for wear, rose from the massive hill of powder snow and brushed himself clean. He didn't even noticed that the gift was missing, once again, until the Pteri spoke up. "That little present you had... seems you might have lost it in the fall."

Kellen sighed heavily, falling back into the snow and burying his face in his paws. He felt a reassuring wing on his shoulder, opened his eyes, and was greeted with the Pteri's broad smile. "No worries there, lad. I have a feeling your flying was more accident than experimentation and so me's thinking that I -- seeing as my flying be a natural thing and all -- could go up on high and see if I can't spot your little treasure for you."

Kellen smiled meekly. The Pteri seemed friendly enough. "Any help would be appreciated," he extended his paw, "name's Kellen." The Pteri took his paw in one big wing. "Oh jolly good it is to meet you Kellen, friends call me Bick." And then, without another word the Pteri spread his wings and ascended elegantly into the frigid air of Terror Mountain.

And as the Pteri lifted into the sky, Kellen felt his hopes lifting. If he could find the gift and bring it to his father, perhaps the gruff old man would forgive him...

"I found your little gift," Bick called down to Kellen, interrupting the Bori's thoughts.

"Great!" Kellen exclaimed, jumping to his feet, "Where is it?"

Bick landed as he used one wing to scratch the colorful feathers atop his head. "Well, locating it was rather easy," he began, "but retrieving might be difficult."

"Why?" cried Kellen, "Where is it?"

The Pteri sighed softly and motioned for Kellen to follow. They took a few steps towards a small ridge, and Kellen was surprised to find himself looking down at the Ice Caves. He hadn't realized that he had fallen that far. Yet, before he could marvel on his fall for very long, his eyes fell upon the present he had purchased just moments earlier.

He could see the gift plainly, sitting just inside the entrance of the Snowager's cave...

His smile quickly faded as he remembered the current situation. The gift was at the entrance of the Snowager's cave, which was far from fortunate. Everyone knew how much the Snowager loathed visitors. If he was sleeping, they were lucky. If he wasn't, they weren't. If he was sleeping, though, they would have to be silent, as they didn't want the latter from occuring.

"Just curious: What did you get him?" Bick asked.

"Huh? How do you know it's a 'him' I've bought a gift for?" Kellen replied.

"Answer me first. I asked the question first, after all."

"I bought him... a Snow Faerie Snowglobe."

"A Snow Faerie Snowglobe? That hardly seems like an adequate Christmas--wait, never mind," Bick commented spontaneously, then stopped.

"My mother gave him a Snow Faerie Snowglobe a long time ago for a birthday present. She's gone now, but he always kept that Snowglobe. He would look at it and paw at it every day; it always reminded him of her. And then... One day, he broke it. He arbitrarily knocked it off its stand and it broke. He was heartbroken with grief. I haven't been able to find one for him... Not until now."

"Ah," Bick replied.

Kellen was silent for a while; neither of the two pets spoke. The solemn quiet, however, was soon broken by an ear-splitting roar, quickly followed by a shrill cry and the sound of feet dashing against powdery snow.

Fear crept into Kellen's heart.

"Oh no," he muttered.

"RUN! RUN!" came a frantic voice, and before Kellen knew what was happening, a blue Chia was dashing past them, screaming like a lunatic.

"Wait! Little girl, do you have any idea what's happened?" Bick inquired, stopping the girl in mid-run.

Kellen suddenly realized how odd the girl looked. She was dressed in a platinum pink parka that looked like it had been designed by a color-blind infant; a pair of tawdry white skis were strapped to her back, painted with glittery silver snowflakes. Two braided pigtails stuck out on either side of her head. She was a young blue Chia, not any older than twelve, with a pair of beady eyes, two puffy, freckled cheeks, and a pair of protruding buckteeth that made Kellen instinctively cringe.

"Yesh, I know what'sh happened! Mishter, the Shnowager'sh awakened! I tried to take shome treashure -- I wash foolish -- and he woke up and now he'sh going to eat ush!"

"I'm sorry, with that lisp, I could hardly understand a word you just said," Bick replied nonchalantly. "Could you try and repeat it?"

"No time," Kellen stammered. "Look!"

And there, rising up like a great monster awakened from centuries-old slumber, was the Snowager. The granular snow was dusted off his frame as the monstrous ice worm rose up, roaring defiantly.

"Oh my, it's the Snowager! Someone must have tried to take some of his treasure, and he awoke, and now he's going to eat us! RUN!"

Bick flapped off in a hurry. Kellen, stricken with fear, did not know how to react to the sudden presence of the gargantuan beast.

With lightning-fast reflexes Kellen reached out and snatched up the present, which lay before his feet, still glittering with the snow.

Turning around, he dashed off, searching the skies frantically for Bick. So embroiled with the intensity of running was he that he didn't hear the shuffling of the Snowager's sleek body against the snow, nor the sound of the Chia's screams as she was hoisted into the air. He did not hear her screams fading as the Snowager departed, the intruder firmly in his grasps.

When he was a reasonable distance a way, and huffing and puffing as if he'd just run a race, Kellen slumped, exhausted, against a solid wall of ice outside the cavern entrance. Bick was perched nearby.

"Hm. That's odd."

"What, Bick?"

"The girl's not with you."

"What--" Kellen began, and then it hit him. The girl. The blue Chia. The odd-looking one with the gaudy parka, the tacky skis, the pigtails, the buckteeth, the lisp.

The girl.

Where was she?

"Oh no," he murmured, fearing the worst. He turned around to face the Snowager and whatever lay in between.

The Snowager was gone.

"What?" Kellen asked aloud.

"Yes?" Bick replied.

"No... The Snowager's gone, Bick... Where's that girl?"

There was nothing that even supported her existence. The entrance to the cave was desolate.

Desolate, save for a pair of sparkly skis planted firmly in the ground...

Bick was suddenly beside him. "I say, you're not really going in there, are you?" The usually ebullient Pteri sounded almost frightened, but Kellen steeled himself.

"Of course I am. I have to. That girl's going to get eaten if we don't do something." A tiny glint caught his eye, and reaching down Kellen picked up the tiny box, looked at it tenderly for a moment, then handed it to Bick. "You can stay here if you want," he said, forcing himself to sound braver than he felt. "I'm going to go and see what's happening in there."

And with that, Kellen forced his unwilling feet to carry him over the threshold and into the Snowager's lair. As he moved deeper into the cave, a frantic female voice came faintly to his ears. At first he couldn't make out the words, but as he got closer they started to be audible.

"Please, Mishter Shnowager, I'm shorry I tried to shteal your treashure -- I jusht want to go home. I won't try anything shtupid like that again -- I promish!"

As slowly and silently as a falling snowflake Kellen peered around the final corner. There ahead of him lay the Snowager in all its horrifying glory, its heavy ice-cold coils draped over a sparkling pile of treasure... and around a shivering young Chia in an equally blinding pink parka.

"Poor kid. Some of these youngsters don't seem to realize that the choices they make can be permanent."

Kellen jumped slightly and stifled a yelp. Bick had suddenly appeared beside him so silently that the young Bori hadn't even known he was there.

"Well," Bick continued, his voice so quiet that it was little more than a broken outflow of breath, "at least she isn't about to be eaten."

So it appeared -- but the fate the Chia had brought on herself seemed to be only a little less horrible. The poor little girl was pinned firmly beneath a heavy stone-cold coil of the Snowager's massive body. It seemed that her ghastly pink outfit had saved her life; being an inanimate brightly-coloured object, it had apparently been added to the Snowager's hoard, occupant and all...

"What?" Kellen asked in reply.

"See? She's so shiny that the Snowager thinks she's another part of his collection. Look how he does not care to keep her in his gaze, and he's obviously not caring about how much of his body is placed on her? It's obvious he views her as another shiny trinket in his massive pile."

"That's... preposterous..." Kellen breathed, but it had no conviction. He knew in his heart that Bick spoke the truth.

"You know in your heart that I speak the truth," Bick replied smartly. Kellen grumbled.

"Okay. So what does that mean? We're still in an equally unfortunate situation."

"It means that we're going to have to wait."

"Wait for what, Bick? A miracle to happen? The girl to miraculously break free? The Snowager to up and leave his horde? The chances of those things happening are slim to--"

"We're going to wait for him to fall asleep," Bick said, cutting Kellen off.

"Oh. Very well."

"Everyone knows the only time you can take a piece of the Snowager's horde is when he falls asleep. Otherwise, he'll chase after you and eat you."

"Duh. Everyone knows that," Kellen snapped.

"So... we wait."

"We wait," Kellen restated. "We wait..."

"Honestly, how many cups of coffee does the Snowager drink a day?" the Pteri muttered.

Kellen forced a chuckle, although his heart wasn't in it. At this rate, he was never going to make his father's birthday party on time.

Then again, getting to the party was definitely the least of his worries right now.

A sharp peck to his ear broke Kellen out of his contemplation. Barely stifling a yelp of pain, he glared furiously at Bick. “What was that for?” he snapped, only to have his mouth covered by a wing.

“Look!” Bick whispered, pointing to the Snowager with his other wing. “I think he’s about to go to sleep.”

Sure enough, the Snowager had lowered his head onto his massive pile of treasure, and, as the pair watched with baited breath, slowly closed its eyes. Kellen started forward, but Bick shook his head frantically.

“Not yet,” he hissed. “Wait a few minutes or it might wake up again.”

Kellen reluctantly drew back, his entire body humming with tension. The next few minutes crawled by agonizingly slowly. Just as Kellen felt as though he either had to act or explode with anxiety, the Snowager began to emit soft snores.

“Let’s go!” the Bori exclaimed, relieved that he would no longer have to endure the horrible waiting. Bick nodded curtly, and the two Neopets entered the giant cavern quietly. Kellen immediately rushed over to the Chia’s side.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured to her soothingly. “We’re here to rescue you. Can you move?” The girl shook her head, trembling, and Kellen’s heart fell.

“Alright, then. Here, grab onto my neck.” Shivering arms encircled Kellen’s neck, and the Bori planted his front paws against the pile of treasure firmly. “One . . . two . . . three!” With a grunt, he pushed off of the pile with his strong forelegs, and the girl popped out, clinging to Kellen’s neck desperately.

Kellen grinned triumphantly. “We did it!” he exclaimed jubilantly, looking at Bick; however, the Pteri’s stare was fixated on something else. Kellen, confused, followed Bick’s gaze and saw something that nearly made his heart stop. The Chia’s escape had dislodged a shimmering crystal from the top of the pile of treasure; now, as Kellen looked on in horror, the crystal wobbled precariously and began to fall...

Suddenly, a bright blur whizzed beside him in a flurry of feathers as Bick swooped frantically into the air. He dove after the crystal, wings straining, beak stretched to the limit, and caught it with the tip of a claw the instant before it shattered on the floor.

The cave was silent except for the flap of wings as Bick hovered just above the ground.

Kellen stared at him in disbelief. He let out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"Good catch," he said. He cirled his paws around the little Chia. "Now, let's go before it wakes up."

Bick nodded and gently set the crystal back onto the treasure pile. He turned to leave, but as he did so, the long feathers of his tail brushed up against the small jewel and flung it onto the ground where it shattered into a thousand tiny pixie pieces with tinkle like bells.

A great eye snapped open.

Bick's eyes widened with horror. Kellen saw the eye open and yelled, "Run!"

He dashed into the long ice tunnel, clutching the little Chia tight to his chest, as Bick fluttered after him. The ice was slick, and he slipped and skidded and scrabbled for purchase.

A low rumble echoed through the cave from behind them, vibrating through his teeth and bones. The little girl shrieked as several icicles crashed to the floor right in front of them, showering Kellen with prickly shards.

Kellen stumbled and lost his grip on the child. She flew out of his arms, sliding on the ice and around a corner. "No!" he shouted.

From behind them, the Snowager suddenly roared! The sound shook the whole cave and mountain, and Kellen's breath caught in his throat as the creature started moving and the floor rumbled.

Kellen raced toward the corner, catching it with his paw, swiveling around it in time to see the child land with a puff agains the snow outside -- right next to her broken skis.

"We're almost there!" he shouted back to Bick, who fluttered quickly behind him.

"Yes," Bick shouted back,"But what do we do after?!"

As Kellen reached the snow, he scooped up the pink puffball child and bounded out onto the slope and into the snow, legs, heart, and head throbbing to the bursting point, churning against the powder with Bick launched into the air right above him.

Panting, he decided to risk a quick glance back and turned just as the Snowager burst out of the cave's entrance in an explosion of ice and rock and snow with its head reared back in rage as it coiled into a blood-draining roar.

It paused for a moment, swaying back and forth, and then its head swiveled as it looked right at them...

The Snowager's eyes flashed in anger at the sight of his escaped victims. It coiled back, ready to launch forward. But then it caught sight of the sparkly skis still sticking out of the snow.

Kellen felt his heart stop beating, and he watched in astonishment as the Snowager turned curiously for the skis, and took them gently in his icy jaws. Then, without even taking a second glance at the three Neopets, the beast simply slithered back for his cave, carrying his new-found treasure with him!

A few minutes of silence passed as Kellen could only gasp for breath, and the little Chia still clutching tightly to him seemed to have practically fainted.

Bick fluttered down, carrying a familiar object in his beak, "Don't you think you should get this delivered now?" he mentioned as he handed Kellen his present.

Bick had taken responsibility for the little Chia, who had to have thanked the two Neopets for saving her only about a million times, with that same strange lisp to her voice.

Now Kellen was prancing proudly through the snow, and down the path to his father's house.

Before he knocked on the door, he took a quick peek in the window, and saw his father and a few other relatives sitting down at the table, which was festively decorated.

He'd made it just in time.

Nervously the young Bori knocked at the door, and an old bearded blue Bori answered it. The two stared at each other for a moment, and Kellen couldn't help but gulp. "Happy Birthday, Dad," he stammered. Then, as his father unwrapped the gift with a kind smile on his face, the Bori added, "You have no idea how much trouble I went through to get it."

The End