Elder Altross stumbles, and I’m at her side in an instant, propping her up by the elbow. Teuila’s prison is half its size, but the elderly woman seems bereft of energy, unable to continue. I drop my head to my chest, every muscle in my being drooping and sagging. Thankfully the moisture evaporated, and left through what seems like a hidden chimney that angles out above the foyer’s bay window. Otherwise it would simply re-form against Teuila’s enchanted prison, wasting what progress Elder Altross’s sacrifice had made.
The regal woman jerks suddenly away from my support, and heads to a pile of chopped lumber, and begins painstakingly hauling one piece after another into the iron bowl that contains Teuila and her prison. Is— is she planning to burn Teuila? Would that even have any effect?
I stand inbetween Elder Altross, and the bowl on one of her trips, and I beg an answer, “Please, please speak to me. What are you doing? The ice is enchanted, the kobolds told me that regular fire wasn’t doing anything. I don’t want you hurting yourself for no reason.”
Elder Altross licks her exceedingly dry lips, steps around me, and throws another chunk of wood into the bowl. I sigh as I shake my head. I maneuver to the wood pile, standing in her way. I’m not sure if I want to humor her, or if I want to just move on with my journey, or what, at this point. She shoots me a glare as I stand in her way, so I sigh, and begin stacking wood for her, creating a pyre around Teuila.
Elder Altross reaches behind the pile of wood, moves something that sounds like a tile, or panel, and pulls out what looks like a cross between a brick of charcoal, and feces. I scrunch and contort my face, surprised that the refined woman would handle such a disgusting looking object. She deigns to say, “Dragon dung.”
My jaw drops slightly, and my index finger can’t decide whether to point, or curl back towards my face. Elder Altross, or Dame Altross, she still hasn’t introduced herself, throws the dragon dung into the center of the pyre. I guess, maybe that could turn the fire into dragon’s fire? That’s, well, honestly not a solution I’d have thought to take. I was thinking of seeing if Lil would be able to thaw out Teuila when we finally reunited, like Lil once thawed me out, after I’d had to freeze myself to save my own life.
My focus on Teuila’s prison, and my belief in the various hopes and possibilities of freeing her from it, have left my mind filled with uncertainty. I’d forget conclusions from one moment to the next, maybe come to conflicting conclusions at another time. I’ve been left reeling. I don’t know if I can handle the hope.
Dame Altross fishes out a long box of striking-sticks, matches as it were, ones that are approximately a foot in length. She pulls forth one of the matches, and sets the box back where it belongs. With a fluid grace, Dame Altross uses what must be a hidden blade to strike the match, and her thumb simultaneously. I’d be afraid she accidentally injured herself, if it weren’t for the confidence and intent behind the motion. She throws the bloody, flaming stick into the fire pit, from a fair distance, and after a moment’s crackling, the pyre roars to life.
Minutes pass, hours pass. I flutter between hope and despair, seeing the flames lap haltingly at the ice, seeing the progress slowly work away at the frosty hell that entraps My Wings, Teuila. I’m worried what will happen to Dame Altross when she realizes this isn’t Taylynn, or Tabitha. I don’t know if her vision is great, but I can’t imagine Teuila fooling her for long. I don’t want this poor elderly woman to be alone in her grief and agony, over the loss of her last remaining descendant, if Tabitha never returns, but neither of us have time to spare. The refugees couldn’t all stay here either. As sprawling as the estate is, it’s not large enough for the miles and miles of people that are slowly working their way this way.
Glancing about the room, trying to occupy my mind, to keep from focusing on hope that keeps giving way to crushing despair, I spy a portrait, that is actually a map of the region. If I’m reading this right, southwest of here is another isthmus, and it bypasses the most dangerous regions of the Jaggedfen Bog. Is that how Dame Altross came to this estate? I mean, it must be. It looks like there are a few that one would have to pass through to get to the west end of the continent. With that map, and decent bearings, the refugees might be able to make it to Jeegoobotstan unmolested.
I sigh a bated breath that I hadn’t realized I was holding. Something might actually go right. They might be able to make it. That’s good, because it’s only three days until September, and there’s far too much swampland, marshland, and bog to cover, to seek out the hydra, or hydras. My expiry is looming dangerously close, so much so that I’m not sure I should be waiting here, watching ice slowly dripping away from the massive block containing Teuila. The season will soon begin to turn, and when it does, I die.
I’m something like two weeks stalwart travel from the location that cropped up in my mind, Drakkheim, the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, the Medusa Falls. Closer to two and a half, from my current position. It’s about two weeks from the north edge of the worst of the swamplands. Even with my death looming, and my soul being torn between hope and despair, my mind drifts to other problems, other issues, other friends and loved ones. Tiktik hasn’t been showing the signs of recovery that she should. Her injuries seem almost cursed. Hellga has been showing appropriate recovery, but she’s traumatized, barely functional when she’s awake.
My eyes wet with tears as I imagine what I’m going to have to suggest to Tiktik. I hate myself for it. I don’t want to separate from our amazing new companion, but we haven’t made enough progress, the refugees need as much protection as they can get, and if she can’t heal, she needs a support network that she can’t get while traversing marshy wastelands and region after region. Dippy, Dippy’s animal companions, Scrap, Miza, and Miza’s son might be able to take out a hydra, working together, maybe put one down, possibly. I should leave the waterlit candle with them, so they can use it like a stick of dynamite. That would help keep a hydra down, keep it from regenerating, if an ever-burning candle was lit in the gassy muck beneath the swamp beneath it. But if there’s more than one, managing to halt their regeneration could be tricky, let alone fighting them simultaneously. Tiktik could do it. At least, she could do it at peak health. She’s basically an arch-sorceress.
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Tiktik isn’t at peak health though. She doesn’t seem like she may ever be again. Maybe she’ll try to be optimistic about it, joke about living in a wizard’s tower in the rebuilt city of Alta Vista, serving as its protector from afar. Maybe she’ll try to play it off as not goodbye, pretending that she believes I’ll come back, that I’ll succeed. Heck, maybe she does believe I’ll succeed, and survive. I would definitely return to see her again some day, preferably sooner rather than later. Maybe she’ll insist she’s coming with though. I can see that. The hope in her eyes, the determination, with a hint of mischief glinting at their edges.
I can’t stand staring at this icy prison, seemingly making no significant progress in melting any longer, so I bow to Dame Altross, and excuse myself. I’d hate myself if I wasn’t there if and when Teuila broke free, but it could very well be a day yet at this rate. Although, the rate should actually increase as the volume of the enchanted ice decreases. Still, calculating that out in a paused moment between moments, I’ve got a minimum of three hours at the earliest to see the effects of the ice being reduced down to Teuila’s personal volume. I need to find Tiktik, and apologize for being on autopilot, and explain what happened, why Teuila shut down, and why I shut down.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take long. Tiago had the sick and the wounded moved to near the fore of the procession, so that he could be closer to me and the carriage. I step into his embrace willingly, without speaking. Sighing for a moment, I shake my head when he tries to speak. I ask one word, “Tiktik?”
Tiago points to one of the canvas-covered stretchers, a bit like a mobile mini-tent, and he strokes my back before letting me leave his embrace. I think towards the tent, hoping Tiktik is awake, and able to join me in thinkspace.
A grinning avatar appears in my mindscape, rambunctious, playful, no signs of the lingering injuries that are keeping her bedridden. Tiktik’s gorgeous orange ponytail catapults her towards my mental avatar, as she calls out, “Tiger!”
I chuckle, catching her, and my mental avatar falls sprawling on the grassy hillock in my mindscape for my troubles. I draw a deep breath, and sigh, trying to focus on the moment, to focus on the renewed hopes. I don’t want to think about the fact that my expiration date could be as near as three days from now.
Tiktik pouts, and sniffles, reading my thought train. She asks, “Really, it’s that close? I’ve been out of it for weeks?”
I nod, explaining, “Yeah, we left Autumn Brook in the middle of August, and it’s the end of August. I’m worried that you’re still not even healed from the injuries you took in Autumn Brook, let alone the exacerbation caused by the ice dragon. I thought maybe you were recovering on the way to the gap, but I guess I was wrong.”
Tiktik continues pouting in response, before commenting, “I don’t get it. I usually bounce back a lot faster than this. You seem okay physically Tiger, how are your injuries?”
I do a cursory examination of my physical self, and I have to nod. I do seem to be pretty much in peak physical condition again already, other than the cored out nerve pathways. I’m still trying to learn how to deal with them, or if I should try to find some way to fix them. I’ve been slowly learning to cycle out corrupted mana residue through them, at least from newer spells and runes that I practice. If I’d had them at the start, if I had been doing this from the start, I could be an archmage, without the death sentence hanging over my head.
Tiktik frowns and nudges my telepathic avatar, as her physical self sits up, to wrap her arms around my waist, where I sit next to her, at the edge of her stretcher. I wrap an arm around her absentmindedly as well, feeling the swirling storm of emotions being temporarily held at bay from this small act of comfort. I kiss her forehead, and lean my head to the left, to rest it atop hers, while her face is buried in my chest.
I start, “So, you were there. You saw Teuila frozen, if you were conscious, or you’ve figured it out by now, either through chatter, or talking to Tiago, or listening in to my broken mental wavelengths, I’m sure. But before that, when Teuila shut us out, it—.”
I gulp, in meat space and thinkspace simultaneously. Kitten gently prompts, “Take your time Tiger. It’s okay. You—. I want to be here for you, for the time we have left.”
I nod, blinking away the tears that we the rims of my eyelids, blurring my only-recently-recovered vision. I have to gulp back sticky saliva, and sniffle, as I try to recall how it went down, “I had joined Teuila in the driver’s seat of the carriage, or she brought us out to it, um, the kobolds, there were kobolds being pressganged, forced to try to dig in to their warrens, by the black and white dragon couple. Olashax and Astridus I think. Astridus flew away, probably pretty certain that Olashax would just destroy us. She um, she’s definitely the woman in black, who hurt Daffodil. Her shapechanging is fast, and incredibly potent. Her dress, um, coverings, were actually her scales I think. Uh—. Anyway. There was a mix of kobolds, some that seemed to willingly follow Olashax’s orders, and desires, others that were innocents from The Gap kobolds warren, who must have already been caught, before Miza could start sealing off the warrens completely.”
I rattle my skull, shaking it side to side rapidly for a moment, breathing a quick, huffy sigh before continuing, “Teuila dodged a blast of frost, and then, glp, she, she attacks by leaping. All her acceleration happens the instant she leaves the ground, she’s incredibly accurate, and incredibly fast. The dragon, Olashax was faster. He—. Glp. He picked up innocent kobolds, and held them in Teuila’s path. She shattered his hand, but was showered in the gore of the innocents.”
Tiktik gasps, “Oh gods—. Poor Big Tee. No wonder.”
I nod. I’m not sure I need to say any more, but I might as well finish it, “Te broke down, she crumpled in on herself, her confidence shattered. She just slumped there, defeated, and Olashax was going to eat her, but I blasted his eyeball out with lightning, hurting him enough that he thought it wise to retreat. I don’t remember if he swatted Teuila before or after, I think it was after. He hit her so hard, that she flew hundreds of feet into the opposite canyon wall. I think it was only by the grace of some vestiges of her powers that she didn’t simply splatter there.
I draw a deep breath, and shudderingly sigh before continuing, “I stunned or killed the rest of the kobolds with lightning, and passed out, from improperly empowering an elemental rune in a non-spelliform manner. Dippy and his canines and lupines rescued us. So, um, yeah, that’s where we were. You seemed to wake up inside the cave where we’d been rescued to, and Teuila still hadn’t even really had a chance to process.”
I gulp back a sob, feeling the tears streaming free, “She—. She didn’t even get a chance, and then, glp, then the dragons were waiting for us, in the Derbrightmine Dominion. With her confidence shattered, she hesitated, but was also reckless.”
Tiktik nods, and squeezes me tighter. She mutters, “Thank you Tiger. Thank you for telling me. I’m so, so, so sorry. I’m so very sorry. No wonder you’ve been out of touch. Days, just a few days left, and all this happens. I don’t want to lose you both, but you’re going to tell me to stay with them, aren’t you? You’re going to tell me to stay with them, protect them, while you hunt dragons.”
My jaw hangs slightly slack. I can scarcely bring myself to nod, in my sadness, but I do nod, ever so haltingly, shudderingly.