Tyler hated heights. He hated heights so much. He hated that surprisingly good looking Cult leader, hated the ice and snow, hated the Gems, hated this mountain.

And it was a mountain.

They had climbed and climbed and climbed, and the ice wall had only gotten wider till-

“What?”

Tyler was mindlessly climbing, one foot and grab after the other, trying hard not to look down or think about how high they were. Just grab, step, grab, step, grab, step, grab. Only for their not to be another step. He looked up and gaped. Riary was standing next to him.

Standing.

The ice wall had transformed into a mountain at some point. Snow covered the ground he was flat against and looking up… he could see a peak that continued to go far, far up into the sky, all made of ice. Just covered with the white of snow. It had gotten so side, so large, that there was actual ridges he could stand on.

Shakily, Tyler stood, taking a few more steps away from the edge quickly.

“Tyler… this isn’t good.” Riary said.

“What?” He was still mostly in shock.

“The Algethroic Principle is-” Riary stopped and glared at him. What did he do?! “...the uncompression of space over time means that space can warp, in more ways than just more over time. Not just more, but other.”

“I don’t understand.”

He could visibly see Riary holding back a sigh.

“It means. That so far the ice wall has gotten ‘bigger’ but now… it’s begun to grow out in other ways. Flatter, bumps, waves, hills, odd geometric shapes. But it hasn’t actually gotten less tall. All of the time we spend not going up, doesn’t get us any closer to our goal. And the hills and flat plains could be… massive.”

Tyler understood. Their journey had just gotten that much longer and that was dangerous. There were clearly monsters up here and they had no food. Not to mention the cold. Riary’s soul was somehow keeping them warm but it wouldn’t last forever. He could already feel a chill coming over him as he had climbed. It was getting colder.

Adding another month onto their journey… was bad.

“Well… nothing we can do about it. We should just keep moving.” Tyler said.

“The next one of those creatures we see, we should try and make clothes out of them.”

Tyler grimaced at that. The clothes they were currently wearing were wolf pelts and they were more like raw fur than anything with burnt wolf on the other side. It was not great to wear. But they would do what they needed to do.

He nodded and they began to walk.

Tyler looked around at the ice. There were ridges and bumps of it all over. They were coming up to the top of a hill they couldn’t see past yet. Honestly, Tyler felt great. They were still way, way too high up but now he wasn’t literally clinging to the side of a wall. He had flat ground underneath him again so his mood was pretty high.

They walked up the ice hill and-

“What.”

“The fuck.”

Riary and Tyler stopped dead, not believing their eyes. Riary stared ahead with a glare and a frown on her face while Tyler rubbed his eyes, blinking rapidly.

“Riary.”

“Yes Tyler?”

“I think I’ve gone insane.”

“Then we both have, because I see it too.”

Standing in front of them… was a house. An odd little… shack. Made of red brick, with a chimney puffing out smoke. Tyler looked around, wondering if there was some pile of bricks or something he had missed on this ice wall. Then another thought struck him like a bell.

“...there’s a person here.”

Tyler almost couldn’t believe it. Riary and him had managed to break out and survive… somehow. So of course other people probably could as well but… there was actually people on this frozen ice? How? Why?

The door to the shack opened and-

“Riary.”

Riary was already summoning her new Ice Fire. One of those four arm yeti like creatures had walked out and-

“Wait!”

Right before Riary was about to send her fire towards it, facts that had seemed impossible struck out to him. The four armed yeti… was standing, fully bipedal. It was also… wearing an apron. And most damning of all… it was waving at them with a smile on it’s furry face.

“Hello!”

“...Tyler are you sure we’re both mentally stable?”

Tyler was too busy gaping again, at what seemed to be a… sentient and sapient yeti… with an apron and small cottage. She even sounded like an old woman! …was it some kind of curse?

“Um… Hello!” Tyler called out lamely.

“Oh, come in, come in. This dang cold will freeze you down to your bones. Come into mama’s house and let me warm you up a little! Oh, what are you wearing?! You’ll get sick like that! Young ones these days…”

With that said, the woman(????), returned to her cottage, muttering about putting on a pot of stew. Riary looked at Tyler as Tyler looked at Riary.

She sighed.

“...let’s go I guess.”

****

“Oh, that is just dreadful! Dreadful! Here you go deary, have another bit of stew, you’re practically skin and bones!”

Tyler sat in a chair, a rocking chair, with a bowl of warm soup in his hands. Next to him in her own chair, sat Riary, who… Mama… was pouring more stew into her bowl. They both were wrapped up in thick blankets, two of them even, like bugs in a rug. …Mama… had immediately started to take care of them the second they walked in the door, strongly ‘suggesting’ they sit down and then wrapping them up in blankets and practically shoving a bowl of stew in each of their hands.

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Having four arms sure made you fast at stuff.

Then she had sat across from them, in her own rocking chair, and asked for their story and how they had come to be on the mountain, while she had begun to knit. Honestly, Tyler felt it was all a bit… unreal.

But still… the stew had smelled good and he was hungry. Their stomachs had battered at their resistance and Mama just felt so… kind. He had dug in soon, Riary giving him a glare in response, before she had begun eating too. Then he had begun to tell them about how they’d come up here and what had been going on. He had worried about mentioning the other Yeti that had attacked them but… Mama hadn’t really reacted to it.

After he was done… well…

“Damnable fools. Oh, not you two sweeties but those culty people. Why, I never. Stranding two young children up here, all alone, naked and cold, why I would give them a piece of my mind if they were here. Give them a right wallop with my cane I would.”

Mama kept grumbling and… lamenting for a while before Riary finally couldn’t resist anymore.

“So… uh…”

“Mama.” The Yeti said with a smile.

Riary blinked, then frowned. Heavily.

“.......Mama.” He didn’t think he’d ever seen Riary ever grimace so hard. “What are you doing up here anyway? How did you even get up here?”

“Oh! Well let me tell ya. It was a fine young day, sun shining, the wind was blowing heartily, I was out and about enjoying myself when wouldn’t ya know it? A house fell right on top of my head! I was shocked and surprised, before I began to clamber and boy, whoever made this fine young thing sure knew how to build em! Why, I don’t think it’s ever had any issues at all. Even in this cold weather, it’s always been able to keep the heat and isn’t that a nice how do ya do? Let me tell ya, cleaning is so much easier with water instead of ice and I make sure to keep the good ole lass in fine young shape. We’ve had trouble with a few rabble rousers here and there but nothing Mama couldn’t take care of. Oh! Oh wait deary, I’m so sorry, you asked how Mama came up here. Sorry about that. Getting senile in my old age, wanting to ramble on and on about the past. Tch. But to answer your question, Mama has always been up here! Why, I can remember it now. The winds were different then, I tell you, back in the old days. They swept more left to right then up and down! And the chill, why…”

Tyler blinked and his jaw slowly dropped as Mama just kept going and going and going. Most of it was just… complaints about the weather changing. Sometimes she’d talk about having to send a ‘group of rabble rousers packaging’ or talking about the few rare issues she had had like ‘the time a piece of hail clogged up the good ole chimney!’ and more and more.

Riary was clearly growing frustrated but it looked almost… pained for some reason.

“Mama.”

“And then I- oh. Yes deary?”

“That…” Riary seemed like she was struggling to think of what to say. “...how did you learn our language?”

“Oh! Well, I will say, it is quite a rarity to see people come around but not unheard of! Why, it had to be a few millenia passed when this charming young chap showed up and-”

“...Millenia?” Tyler blurted out.

“Oh, why yes deary! Visitors are oh so vanishingly rare after all. You just missed him in fact. Well, relatively speaking. Before him, gosh, even Mama can’t remember that far back! A nice fellow with a good smile and charming eyes. Why, he played the best music Mama has ever heard! And he had such a charming name. Called himself ‘Happy Go Lucky’. Isn’t that just adorable?”

Tyler and Riary’s faces went cold. Wasn’t… that the name of…

“...was he gray skinned?”

“Hmm? Oh why, yes! He was in fact. Oh?! Do you young ones know of each other? Why, what a coincidence that’s-”

“Did he head up the mountain?” Riary said quickly.

“Oh, I’m sorry deary if you were hoping to meet up with your companion. We were talking, having a wonderful chat, and he just seemed to disappear! I’m sure he’s fine however, no need to worry. Why, he seemed to be starting to disappear even before we had our little chat!”

Riary breathed out a sigh of relief but it still seemed to raise her worries. It was the same for Tyler. That cult leader had dragged them all with the Gem and… he hadn’t seen Derek or Konohora at all. He was worried about them but… as long as they were together, he couldn’t imagine anything bad happening. But it became even more important to get that Gem. Who knows when that guy would be back?

But he had to know…

“So…” Tyler started. “When did you turn into a Yeti?”

Mama, for the first time blinked, while Riary had a look of horror on her face, staring at him.

“A yeti?”

“Yeah you’re-”

“Tyler. Stop.”

Tyler turned to her, a bit stunned. What did he do? He was just curious!

“No no dear. Let him speak. What is a yeti and why did you believe I turned into one?”

“Well… you’re… uh… you’ve got four arms and… fur.” Tyler lamely answered. He hadn’t expected he’d need to describe what a Yeti is…

“Oh? Oh!” Mama’s face immediately turned stern but with a hint of… amusement in her eyes. “From the mouth of babes. Truly, manners must be taught and not learned. Deary, I’ll answer your question first since it was asked in innocence. I’ve always been a ‘Yeti’ as you say. The same as those rabble rousers out there. Though I’ve never heard any of us call each other that.” Mama chuckled.

Tyler was stunned.

“B-But you can talk and think!”

Now mama’s face got very, very stern. Anger entered her eyes. Riary looked ready to fight if need be but also… extremely reluctant.

“Yes, and? Why, my child, does that fact surprise you?”

“We… ran into a Ye-... one of your kind while climbing. It attacked us.”

Mama shook her head.

“The young these days! Why, I should beat you with a spoon for that but Mama is nice. The ‘Yeti’ and ‘my kind’ can all think. Talking is something I learned from nice travelers such as yourselves. And the rabble who attacked you is not an ‘it’, they are a he or a she. Oh well, unless they want to be something else, of course.”

Tyler frowned.

“But he attacked us!”

Mama’s face immediately softened.

“Deary… just because you can think, doesn’t make you nice. Don’t be assuming all the evil in this world is dumb, why, that’s a horrible mistake. And as for manners,” Mama snorted. “Thinking I had to be a human at one point to be a thinking creature is very rude young man!”

Tyler gulped.

“Come and help me clean up in the kitchen, I could use an extra pair of hands.”

Riary just watched him, sighing in relief as she wouldn’t need to attack Mama. Then she began to glare at him. H-How was he suppose to know?! Come on!

****

Tyler cleaned up with Mama but the house was… very small. He was practically pressed up against Mama while cleaning the dishes and he tried his best to hide how… uncomfortable that made him. Especially when she patted him on the shoulder and told him ‘Good job!’ while looking down at him.

This… this whole situation was really really weird.

“Thank you… Mama. But we should really be going soon.” He said after it was all done.

“Going?” She answered.

“Yeah we’re-” Riary elbowed him in the side.

“We’re hoping to go back where we came from and find our friends.” Riary said instead. Ah, right. Maybe not a good idea to tell Mama how they were going to do that…

“Oh dears. You can’t leave.”

Tyler blinked. Riary’s eyes also widened. Was she… was she going to try and keep them here?! If that happened…

“Not without some good rest and better clothes than that! Why, you’ll freeze to death out there. Honestly, not even a scrap of food or drink on you! And where exactly were you going to get food? Children these days, always so gung-go but never thinking! Why, back in my day…”

Tyler stared on in shock… before he felt a smile begin to grow on his face and his heart began to grow warm.

This whole situation was weird and crazy. The cult, teleportation, the ice stuff, a talking Yeti… but… weird didn’t always mean crazy. Mama was a good person.

He felt Riary slip her hand into his own, while also looking at Mama begin to prepare them blankets to sleep on.

“Oh and don’t mind old Mama here. Feel free to, as the young ones say ‘get it on.’ I’ll be asleep in my rocking chair. Don’t even worry about me!”

Tyler’s smile became slightly strained.