Turning the Tables of Ice

      Not like I have any.

      “C-c-com-ee-on-n, Gu-gu-mmmy-y,” this... girl, yanking on my ice-cold paw, demands yet again. The gale thrusts her hair into my face, and my hind legs slip on each ledge with claws scrabbling in terrifying noises to come to the surface of the while land.

      Gummy isn’t my name. It’s Gem. But as this girl doesn’t like to call me Gem, or just preferred Gummy; it doesn’t matter as long as she can call me Gummy. It irks me whenever she calls me, because as long as I stay at her account she will never acknowledge even the existence of my real name. I wish she would pay a little attention to me. I wish she’d learn to be a fair person. I wish she’d, I wish she... I wish she’d feed me.

      I wish she would get some Chewing Dung from the Snowager. It would at least be food, compared to a snowball.

      I refuse to declare her as my owner. I am an ice Xweetok who had a poor, but lavishing, family, until she came and traded for me. And I’m still poor, but now there is no lavishing. Nothing left, all replaced with greed.

      The slick, frozen, treacherous steps leading from Happy Valley to the Ice Caves have made themselves familiar in my mind; each crack and trapped leaf is unnoticed unless unfamiliar to the frosty pads on my feet. They are not welcoming, not as welcoming as the shorter route from the summit. And that is where the other greedy, wiser owners choose to traverse. Because there are greedy owners. And some can be wiser. Maybe kinder.

      The Ice Caves, as always during the shadowed hours, are filled to the brim with snow shards dancing in the passive wind. There is no need for vision, as sound will suffice when you’re heading to the cavern of screams. And this girl, speaking, saying in chattering mouthfuls, “N-n-n-eea-aa-rr-rl-y tth-the-he-err... n-n-n...”

      I look at the moonlight cast onto the walls in a brilliant pattern, and note that it would be so close to eleven ‘o clock, NST. Soon the Snowager will be fully awake and aware, if not already, but everyone believes that every second counts, even if only a single remains... but we are in no position to hurry up.

      It is when the whirls of powdered frost stop striking my eyes that I know, each time, that we’ve entered the lair of the beast, the beast of Terror Mountain, what makes the place a true terror. And they say there are more frights on the slopes, but the Snowager is the only one who can weaken the heart with greed, before striking with fear at a critical scale. And thus it drives more people into the darkness with a thirst for his plentiful hoard of treasure, especially when he drifts into slumber--if just for a few hours in a day.

      I do think the people are much more wise to take action when he is actually sleeping, versus this girl.

      A blend of frost, sweat, heat, and darkness sweeps along my icy spine. I can almost feel the shadows slinking back into the barriers of the room with the rising of the moon, as midnight reaches to just an hour away. I don’t believe that there are any seconds left. But I can’t say anything, not when a hand and a paw are laid upon the mighty beast’s treasures.

      A Mutant Draik Plushie here, a nervous twitch there, and the already wide-alert Snowickle rears its head at the unfortunate couple, pearly fangs casting a dull silver gleam that burns my eyes, judgmental face drowning my heart in sorrow. If I weren’t pure ice, I would be shaking like the girl who is too ignorant to notice it is eleven. Shaking the stalactites at the opening, so they seemed to be loose teeth in someone’s mouth. As if a twitch wasn’t enough.

      The Snowager strikes fluidly, with a shot from his breath that contains no degree in temperature. Instinctively, and with some concern to my mind, I dash toward the right, into the path of the icy force, and sweep aside the girl who led me here, so that we both collide into the far depths of the cavern, trembling and tearing. She doesn’t seem to notice, and only when the worm stops snorting out heat from its head I can prove that she’s faking an eternal slumber, trusting that everything will work out, that some mystic power will distract the predator to give an escape window.

      But the Snowager isn’t ready for us victims to escape. A burly tail cuts us apart, allowing me to slide, glide, and tumble toward the darkest nook of the treasure hoard. The girl flies over to the entrance, where her eyes react to the jolt by uncovering the pupils. She escapes, and all I have left to remember this girl by is the squeaking of her shoes and the shoeprints that have always been unfamiliar to me, that already are being imprisoned in the precipitating snow.

      I cannot feel the Snowager as it breathes onto me. We are both ice. I can only use the radar in my head and the fading awareness in my heart to understand what will happen to me.

      “Snowwy!”

      Soft crunching noises come from outside. I see a furry wing poke into the doorway before I see the mighty beast rear its head and snort-and wrap a chilling tail around my paws. I can’t help the trembling.

      It’s Taelia. “Honey, leave her alone. I’ll treat her well.” And the snow faerie glides over to the Snowager’s tail to “retrieve” me. “What’s your name? And where’s your owner?”

      “I don’t have one.”

      “Don’t have what?”

      I realize my mistake, even though it fit perfectly. “My name,” I choke out, “is-s, well...”

      She looks me over. “You do have a name, right?”

      “Well, yes,” I mutter, “but there isn’t anyone to call me by it.”

      Taelia chuckles, but I can’t find anything funny, much less bearable. “Well, you don’t seem so happy about it.” As she speaks, her fingers drape a crystal necklace under my fur collar, some gem from the Snowager’s hoard. “I entrust you with this--Thyora’s Tear.” She silences the cloud of warm air whooshing from my lips. “I think you can take care of yourself here, but this is for extra protection, and to let you trust yourself, not to mention others.”

      And I finally found an operating tongue within my mouth. “B-but, Taelia...”

      “Yes?” The faerie scrutinizes me, as if in worry her care isn’t enough.

      “How do you get out of here? My mind feels like a scrambled keno egg.” If I don’t get some food soon, I know Taelia will see me swirl to the ground.

      “No worries!” She gets up, stretches, and smiles. “The lift that Tarla installed, of course!”

      Her smile could warm me inside without melting my tail.

The End