“Should we be worried? They should have sent us some sort of message by now, right?” Ingrid called up towards Natalia. Given the fact that she could literally fly, the group had decided it would be best for her to be the one taking the lead. Someone who didn’t have to worry about falling and with the ability to survey places that would normally be well out of sight certainly came in handy. Ingrid was quickly realizing that without that sort of advantage, she certainly would’ve been the one struggling. The taller woman had slipped and caught herself probably a dozen times over the past hour. With each one, she seemed to get more embarrassed.

“We’re getting close to a point where we can probably stop and rest. Would that make you happy?”

More irritable too.

“Well, um, it’s not really about that,” she said apologetically. “Though rest is nice, we had agreed on making sure that Colette and Malori would contact us before going too far. We’ve made quite a bit of progress. Maybe it would be a good idea to wait until they get back to us?”

She looked back at Alice, hoping she’d agree with her. Her lover seemed right at home working her way up the steep, slippery inclines and ridges. If anything, it looked like she was having fun with the excursion. “Think I made it pretty clear how much I don’t like her. If you really don’t wanna go further though, I can’t really force you,” she sighed. “I’m pretty confident we can deal with whatever it is we’re dealin’ with, if that helps anything.”

It did kind of help. Alice certainly made it clear when she didn’t think something was a good idea. If she was confident in their abilities, that was one of the best endorsements they could receive. Still, things felt… off. Alice normally would have jumped at the opportunity to know what they were getting into. In fact, she chewed out Kallen and Malori for explicitly not trying to do that before their attack on Berith’s camp. What changed? Why was she so against it? Was she really that confident in them, or was it something about Colette?

“If you’re sure,” she muttered. She’d keep going with this. Kallen and Natalia wanting to press forward was fairly in character for both of them, leaving her as the sole dissenting voice. Making the choice to have faith in her companions, she needed to see how far this would go. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that if there was something dangerous up there, Alice would normally have been furious with Kallen if she was the one who suggested rushing in. Not a thing had changed in the interactions of the two since the fight with Berith, as much as she wished they would. Maybe this really was just a matter of faith, and she was looking too far into it. That would likely be her confirmation that something really was wrong.

The group pulled themselves up over the ridge Natalia had pointed out, being greeted with the sight of a narrow pass that led further up. It was, however, flat enough that they could take a moment to rest. Ingrid slumped down against a rock, the hard verglas an afterthought to the comfort of simply sitting down. It might have been a little embarrassing, given the fact that Natalia and Kallen both seemed barely winded. Alice definitely noticed, if the sudden irritated blush on her face was anything to go off of.

“Actually how the hell are you two fine with that,” she panted, wiping sweat from her forehead.

“I mean, I fly using latent magical energy that takes very minimal actual stamina from me when combined with conditioning and muscle memory,” Natalia deadpanned, then gestured to Kallen. “This one is just built different,” she joked before taking a greedy drink from her waterskin.

“Are you certain you aren’t part giant?” Ingrid mused.

“Not to my knowledge!”

“So it’s anyone’s guess,” Alice muttered, before being whacked on the arm by Ingrid.

“Ignore her, she’s grumpy.”

“Oh don’t worry, I do most of the time!”

Natalia’s eyes went wide as she coughed up water, one of her wings drifting up to try and hide the smile on her face.

Alice glared at her for a moment, opening and closing her mouth like a fish as she looked for what to say. “You set her up for that one.”

“Not intentionally,” Ingrid chuckled, poking one of Alice’s cheeks. Seeing her ease up a little bit, she followed it up with a kiss on the same spot. “How many jabs have you taken at her? I think that was overdue. It might not have even been on purpose.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “Let’s just take a few minutes and then get going again. I want this to be over with. Ice is bullshit.”

“You know, maybe if Colette was able to find materials she could tell us a way to deal with it?” Ingrid offered.

Alice rolled her eyes. “You’re really still hung up on that? It’s been this long and she hasn’t messaged, she doesn’t know. She’s tryna save face and just ghost us.”

She was the one hung up on it? That was certainly one way to perceive things. Again, her lover went straight for the throat on Colette. Any time the Archmage had been brought up over the past few days, Alice took every opportunity to make a jab at her credibility or skill, despite her clear level of ability. Even in their brief meetings with Gertrud, she could tell that the King wasn’t one to hand someone a role simply because their family member had it. Colette had clearly earned that title, but ever since the meeting in Ivar’s study, Alice had decided that she wasn’t worthy of even the slightest bit of respect.

“If that’s what makes you happy,” Ingrid sighed. Pushing herself up, she looked up the pass. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about conditions being too unfavorable for a little while. “Shall we continue?”

Alice furrowed her brow, but gave a sigh of her own and rose to her feet. “Sooner we’re done the sooner we go home. Let’s get a move on,” she droned. Natalia and Kallen exchanged a knowing look before both taking the lead up the pass.

The pass may have had less debris and more even ground, but the downside to that was made quickly apparent: significantly more ice. Most of it was hidden under a soft, powdery layer of snow that wasn’t nearly thick enough to provide any sort of traction. Natalia tapped the ground in front of her like a blind person’s cane to avoid accidentally walking straight into a hidden crevasse. Falling off a cliff would have been fine, she could simply fly back up like nothing happened. With wings that big, however, space was certainly an issue. The thought of getting caught like that made Ingrid shudder. She had never been much of a fan of tight spaces. Being unable to move in one sounded like a nightmare.

They continued along the pass, finding themselves caught between two tall layers of stone as if the mountain itself had just heard Ingrid’s thoughts. Thankfully, it wasn’t for too long. Raising a hand to avoid being blinded by the snow’s sudden albedo, she realized where they were. To her right was the face of the mountain. To her left, a drop so far that mist shrouded the bottom. Reach certainly loved to be filled with the extremes of nature. That thought in mind, the view was gorgeous. She could clearly see the areas they had climbed past, and even the miniscule divot in the cliff face that they had hid the wyverns in. If it weren’t for her knowing exactly where it was, she was certain she wouldn’t have been able to pick it out. She wasn’t completely sure what they were hiding from, but it was never a bad thing to be out of sight in places like this. Getting to look out at the jagged lower peaks and ridges of the massif, the icy plateaus and valleys, it was breathtaking. It wasn’t as pretty as those in Caer Gaofar, the greenery there certainly gave it an edge, but to call it anything but gorgeous would have been tantamount to heresy for someone like her.

She was hardly paying attention as she walked, simply wanting to soak in all of the beautiful scenery she could. She didn’t even realize it as she didn’t put enough force into her step. The crampon on her boot skidded and scraped across the ice as her foot slipped off of the ledge. A yelp escaped her as she tried to catch herself, only succeeding in knocking the wind from her lungs as she slammed into the hard ice before her descent.

“Ingrid!” Alice shouted, diving forward to try and catch her, but their fingers slipped past each other.

Ingrid blinked, her brain processing the information in slow motion. She was about to fall into that void. She began to think she had been spending far too much time listening to Alice, as the only word that went through her mind was one that she’d certainly never said out loud.

Shit.

The world became a blur as she toppled down the cliff, slamming into the ice over and over until she couldn’t even tell which way was up. Frantically reaching for her ice pick, she tried to slam it into the face to at least slow her momentum. It was difficult enough to do that when she could actually see where she was swinging. The pick clattered harmlessly off the ice and slipped from her grasp, never to be seen again. It was hard to breathe as the wind was continuously knocked out of her over and over again with every slam. So many places hurt that she could barely tell what was injured and where. That was until one particular hit. She had almost no recognition of her surroundings, but the pain suddenly stopping was a very obvious sensation.

While she still couldn’t tell where she was, she could tell one thing. She was in the air. She must have hit something at an angle that sent her away from the cliff face, leaving her to free fall through the void. It felt strange, going from hitting the ground over and over again to suddenly just… nothing. Periodically, there were flashes of gold in her vision, though she couldn’t tell what that was either. She couldn’t even tell which direction the actual mountain was in, or how long she had even been falling or how far.

As the flashes of gold got closer, she felt something grab onto her. The world was stable again as Natalia grabbed her breastplate and pulled her in close. She had a moment to take one of the most desperate breaths of her life, filling her lungs with air after far too long, before it was immediately knocked away again as the sound of shattering ice filled her ears. Everything became far darker, save for Natalia’s general existence.

Once again she found herself tumbling down a hard surface, only slightly less painful with Natalia cradling her the way she was. Just as suddenly as it had started, she was on the ground, perfectly still. Did that really just happen? The pain in her… everywhere, told her that yes, it most certainly did. It just felt so surreal. She took the time to breathe deeply, greedily filling her lungs once more as she desperately prayed that the air would stay there this time.

She looked up at Natalia, whose coat and face were flecked with gashes and cuts, blood staining the snow caught in her hair. A weak smile formed on her face as she panted like she had just ran a marathon.

“See? Faster than her,” she gasped before slumping into the snow. “Give me a moment, everything hurts.”

Ingrid didn’t say anything, just happily accepted the moment of rest before they’d inevitably have to address whatever situation they were in. Managing to piece together which direction she had fallen from, she took in a few of her surroundings. They appeared to be in some sort of enormous system of caves. Tunnels ran in seemingly random directions from where the two women lay in a heap. Trailing behind them was a mess of shattered ice, rock, and scattered snow. Light from the gray sky shone through an enormous hole at the end of the tunnel they had apparently fallen through, having crashed through the massive sheet of ice that covered it.

She furrowed her brow. The way the remains of the ice was draped over the entrance was far from natural. It was less like ice covering a hole and more like a hatch. Minus the opening part. Gradually, she used her staff as support to rise to her feet, inspecting herself for any pressing damage. Nilin must have truly been smiling upon her today. There were some alarmingly deep gashes and parts of her where the skin had been completely scraped off, but some quick healing magic had her good as new. Minus the copious amount of pain her entire body was in, but that was beside the point. Pain she could deal with. If one of her limbs had been broken or there had been serious damage to her internal organs, things would be significantly worse.

Natalia didn’t look too bad, though it was easy to tell how much pain she was in as well. She appeared to have taken the brunt of the fall for Ingrid, an act that likely saved her from broken bones or worse. Even still, shards of ice jutted out from where they’d been embedded in her wings and back, the rest of her exposed skin looking as though she’d run into a storm of razors. Kneeling down, Ingrid began the process of gingerly removing the debris from her winged friend. Natalia tensed up, but quickly relaxed upon realizing what Ingrid was doing.

“So, are you as capable as Malori when it comes to this?” she asked, still breathing heavily.

“I don’t think I’m even close to what she can do,” Ingrid admitted, wincing as the removal of a particularly large shard caused the wings to spasm. “This doesn’t seem too bad though. It isn’t as dire as your injuries from Berith.”

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“Malori struggled to heal me after Berith,” she pointed out.

“She was also exhausted from a full day of being on the run, hiding with Kallen, healing Kallen, and trying to conserve enough energy to heal Alice, myself, and Kallen again. I can handle this much at least,” Ingrid tried to assure her. She really did wish Malori was here though. The little esper may not have had the most diverse set of skills, but this wouldn’t have been a problem for her in the slightest.

Once all of the shards had been removed and the wounds cleaned, Ingrid began magically treating them. As much as she would have liked to have been confident about her abilities, Natalia hadn’t been far off. She was struggling to provide enough magic. Healing always had taken far more energy than normal druidic magic, and being a month or two out of practice due to having Malori around certainly didn’t make things easier. She did what she could, but eventually she needed to throw in the towel to make sure she’d still have the energy to actually continue forward.

“Can you stand?” she asked hopefully, offering a hand to the taller woman.

Natalia looked up at her, then accepted the help. She grunted as she rose to her feet, the pain still obviously present. Nevertheless, she did manage to make it to her feet. Looking back, she tried stretching her wings, only to hiss in pain and retract them.

“Nope, no flying right now,” she grimaced, both of her wings twitching. “Looks like we’re not leaving the way we came in.”

Ingrid winced again as she glanced at the opening. Making her way over to the entrance, she tried to see how far they were from where she had fallen, or at least the bottom of the valley, but the actual opening was too high up for her to look out of. Even if she could see out of it, there was far too much glare to make out anything.

“Natalia, do you think you’d be able to see up there?” she asked, hoping to at least get some bit of information.

Staggering over, she looked up through the shattered ice, seemingly unphased by staring directly into the harsh glare. She squinted for a bit, then shook her head. “I don’t know why you even asked. Everything is far too blurry at that distance.”

“Blurry?” Ingrid tilted her head. “Is that how things that are far away look to you?”

Natalia stared at her for a moment. “Let’s get moving,” she grumbled, randomly selecting one of the paths to follow.

Blinking in surprise, Ingrid quickly followed along. “I didn’t mean that as an insult or something like that! I was just surprised. I suppose it never really came up in conversation.”

“It’s not something I felt the need to share,” she deadpanned.

“Wait, did we have you doing scouting for us with this? Natalia, you should have told us! We could have sent Alice or someone else with you to help!”

“This is why I didn’t mention it.”

“But you did now, I wanted to try and help,” Ingrid apologized.

“Right now, I’m tired, bloody, and in pain. It’s not exactly the best mindset for thinking carefully about what I say,” she groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “It’s not some deep underlying issue, Ingrid, though I… appreciate the concern,” the statement sounded like it caused almost as much pain as the ice. “It’s the same reason you’ll find Pyrokinesis bloods with burn scars or Cryokinesis bloods with remnants of frostbite. Learning magic leads to accidents sometimes, and I fucked up my eyes. Frequently. Can we drop it?”

Ingrid clicked her tongue. It was the first time she’d heard Natalia sound embarrassed about something. Traditionally, the two bloodlines that people believed wouldn’t be able to cause such side-effects were Lumikinesis and Umbrakinesis, though for different reasons. She shook her head. She could think more about this later. For now, they needed to keep track of where they were going. Hopefully, they could find a way out. All they had to do was follow the pathways leading up, didn’t they?

“Fuck, shit, shit,” Alice cursed frantically as the remaining two women watched their companions go careening into the empty air below. Kallen glanced over at Alice. She’d never seen the dark elf this distressed before, not even after picking up Natalia. There was still some level of calm to her then, some level of control. None of that was present now.

Ingrid’s slip caught everyone off guard. If Kallen hadn’t been more towards the front of their little column, maybe she would have been able to catch her in time. Instead, all she managed to do was reach out a fraction of a second later than Alice. Her and Natalia had made eye contact, an understanding quickly becoming apparent in both of their eyes. Kallen grabbed her, then threw her at Ingrid as hard as she could. She was pretty sure she saw Natalia managing to catch up with her before losing sight of them. With any luck, the exceedingly loud crashing noise wasn’t anything bad.

Needless to say, Alice was in a frenzy. It had only been a few seconds, barely enough time for Kallen to fully process everything. Ingrid and Natalia were gone, potentially dead. Hopefully not dead. There was only one way to get there though. Looking at her ice pick and glaive, she started making her way towards the edge.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Alice shouted, yanking her arm back.

“We need to go get them, right?” she tilted her head, confused.

“And your idea is to what, climb down the side of the mountain when we just fuckin’ saw our gear doesn’t work as well as it should on? Is something about this too complicated for your tiny fucking brain?” the dark elf snapped.

Kallen blinked, unphased by the anger she was so used to at this point. Granted, it was much more muted usually. Lots of passive aggressive remarks and disagreeing with her at every turn. The panic seemed to be forcing all of those unspoken emotions out at the moment though.

“You curse a lot when you're angry,” she observed, unsure of what else to say. “Don’t you want to check if they’re ali–”

“They’re fucking alive, you got that?”

The human wasn’t sure exactly when the knife found itself against her throat, but it was definitely not there before. She was not sure how to deal with this. Emotions as a whole were tough for her to wrap her head around most of the time, let alone ones this intense. It was even more difficult when those emotions were anger. Specifically directed at her. Much harder to deal with than Malori or Ingrid just being sad or something. Raising a hand, making sure it wasn’t too fast so Alice wouldn’t actually cut her throat, she moved the knife away.

“Okay, they’re alive,” she concurred, unsure of whether or not it was actually true. “Still, we don’t know where they are. Don’t you want to check?”

“Of course I do! Being stupid about it is gonna get us both killed though! We don’t have a big winged asshole to catch us if we fall!” she seethed. “Why is this always what you have to do! You were the one pushing us to save Natalia, and those two random ass half-elves! I don’t even remember their names at this point! Newsflash, I actually care about Ingrid! I’ve been in love with her for years! I’m not gonna go rushing in like a moron though, because that’s how I get us both killed! It’s not that complicated!”

“I care about Ingrid too,” it wasn’t entirely a lie. She enjoyed being around Ingrid. She wanted to continue being around Ingrid, and would be sad if she died. Natalia too. ‘Care’ had always felt like too strong a word though. People always made it seem like it carried more emotion than she felt comfortable with. Still, she wasn’t going to get anywhere with Alice like this. Both of them needed to step back and take a breath. Clearly, Alice wasn’t going to do that, which left her. “What do you suggest we do then?”

If there was anything Alice was good at, it was coming up with plans. Or backup plans, if one of theirs failed. She and Ingrid made a good team with that. They weren’t going to get anywhere unless Kallen swallowed her instincts and just listened to Alice, regardless of whether or not she wanted to. Their obstacle wasn’t people. People she could just fight, like with Zelzar or Berith. The land was far less of an accepting opponent.

Alice glared at her for a moment, scanning her face. Maybe she thought she was making fun of her? “Alright, first of all, you’re gonna listen. Got it?”

Kallen nodded, hoping that that wouldn’t be too hard of a task.

“You heard that shatter too. That was probably an ice cover. Some mountains like these have caves or tunnels or whatever that lead deep underground,” she explained, tapping her foot as she probably ran over different ideas in her head. “We need to keep moving, but if there are paths down, we take them. Gotta keep a lookout for other ice covers. If we can find one, we can look for Ingrid and Natalia. They’re probably in those tunnels.”

The human tilted her head. That definitely sounded a little far-fetched. “Can I ask a question?”

“Ugh, what,” Alice groaned.

“Do mountains usually have caves like that? And how do you know this stuff?”

“Not outside of Amalthea, and none of your goddamn business. That was two questions, next one I’m telling you to shut up,” she growled, continuing along the ledge with a renewed sense of caution.

Kallen chewed the inside of her cheek in contemplation. Alice wasn’t a particularly cooperative person with anyone except Ingrid at the best of times. Any issues between them weren’t going to be solved if she wouldn’t even hear her out on the simplest of things. How was she supposed to move forward with any of this? Not even Ingrid was here to keep her somewhat pacified. Even then the little elf didn’t make many attempts to reign in her lover, regardless of who she was being rude to. At least with Natalia it seemed to be some sort of mutual relationship of making friendly jabs at each other. She’d met plenty of people like that on the road.

Deciding to cut her losses, Kallen followed Alice along the trail, carefully taking each step to make sure she wouldn’t end up accidentally following her original plan. It wasn’t that hard to put extra strength into her steps, making sure to force the barbs of the crampon into the ice until she was sure they wouldn’t slide around. The extra effort was at least noticeable, given that usually she would barely need to put any sort of effort in. She glanced back at her shoulder, the shaft of her glaive pointing up and to the right of her head. Once again, she found herself having an idea. Taking the weapon off of her back, she twirled the weapon, making sure the axe-like blade was facing downward. Overwhelmed by curiosity, she pushed the blade downward, careful not to put too much force behind it, lest she defeat the entire purpose. Sure enough, the blade slipped into the ice, sending a spider web of cracks out from its point of entry with virtually no resistance. She might as well have placed it in a pool of water.

Her glaive had been a gift from Aurelia a few weeks before the angel left her behind. Being a gift from an angel, she knew it was unlikely to be an ordinary weapon, but she’d never really understood its properties. The blade was far bigger than a glaive normally was, but somehow the weapon still felt perfectly balanced, likely due to magical properties of the metal. Other than that, it was just really good at cutting through things. Even against the blazipedes–er, skolopen? Apparently they had a different name. Still, Alice struggled to cut through their armor, having to force her dagger into chinks and gaps in their armor. For some reason, her blade still had very little trouble cutting through even their thick armor. She did have to put a bit more force behind it than usual, otherwise it would simply bounce off. So far, the only thing she had found that it couldn’t cut through even with all of her strength was Berith’s gauntlets. Maybe at some point she’d get to find out what those were made of. Or what her glaive was made of. She’d be fine with either.

“Stop.”

She pulled herself out of her thoughts in time to prevent herself from bumping into Alice, who had stopped short, her brow furrowed.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, glancing at the wall where Alice was staring.

The dark elf didn’t say anything, just stepped towards the wall and gently placed a hand on it. She moved her hand around a few times, pressing against it like she was testing how solid it was. They hadn’t been walking for that long since Ingrid fell. At least she was pretty sure they hadn’t. Time tended to move faster when she got deep in thought. It could have been anywhere from forty-five minutes to two hours. Given the fact that Alice wasn’t fuming, it was probably on the lower end of that spectrum.

“Punch this,” she commanded. Her voice wasn’t as angry as Kallen expected it to be. It sounded more contemplative, like she wasn’t sure what she was looking at.

“You want me to punch it?”

“No I want you to eat it,” she rolled her eyes. “Yes I want you to punch it, you think I said that just ‘cause I like my own voice?”

Yeah, definitely still pissed off. Kallen sighed and walked next to where Alice gestured to. She tested it a couple times, trying to see if it had any give to it. It didn’t. Tilting her head, she turned to Alice. “Um, are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes,” the woman deadpanned, staring at her in annoyance.

“Well, how hard do you want me to punch it I guess?” she shrugged. She wasn’t sure entirely what the point of this was, but cooperating would at least make things easier. Besides, even if it was just a solid wall, it wouldn’t hurt that much. Not a lot did.

“Hard as you can.”

As hard as she could. That was simple enough. Spreading her feet, she dug the teeth of her crampons into the ice, making sure her grip was steady. Taking a deep breath, she reeled her arm back. The ice cracked and shattered as she took her first powerful step forward, her muscles tensing as she thrust her fist forward, punching with her entire body.

The wall had far more give than she was expecting. The sheet of thick ice shattered completely behind the weight of her punch, almost causing her to fall over for a moment. It was loud. Beyond the sound of the ice breaking, the pieces of it falling and breaking more against the rocky slope that had been hidden behind it. Bits of broken rock from the outer edges of the now gaping hole in the side of the mountain fell in as well, adding to the cacophony. The two stood there for a moment, staring into the mouth of the enormous tunnel as the sound of ice and stone tumbling into the cave finally faded.

The silence was broken by another sound. Laughter. Kallen glanced at Alice, who had a manic smile on her face as chuckles escalated into laughter. Soon, the dark elf was full on belly laughing, clutching her sides like she had just been told the funniest joke in the world.

“Oh my gods. Oh my gods! This is too good. This is phenomenal. Of course this would happen! Oh my gods, it makes sense. The ice, the mountain, the skolopen, how Feathers managed to get lucky enough to break into one of those puny-ass tunnels, it makes sense now!” she laughed hysterically. Kallen held out a hand to try and check on her, but it was smacked away. The laughing didn’t stop. “Yeah, yeah don’t put a fuckin’ hand on me. Oh my gods I’m about to go into a mountain and die with–of all people–you. This is rich!”

“Uh, why are you laughing like that?” Kallen asked hesitantly. It was probably the first time since sharing drinks in the room of that inn that she saw Alice smile at her.

“How can I not? Ingrid is in there, so I gotta go in, and we’re gonna die!” she gave a long sigh as she calmed down from a little bit of her laughter. “Oh we are so beyond fucked.”

“That’s… not really much of an explanation. No offense,” Kallen said awkwardly.

Alice turned to face the tunnel, putting her hands on her hips as she stared into the darkness. “Welp, hope you don’t have any unfinished business or life goals! Now, let’s go get eaten by a fucking dragon.”