“What was that?” Addie asked nervously.
“Let’s not find out,” Nettal replied seriously.
“It sounds far off. We shouldn’t have to worry about it.” Squishy tried to sound reassuring, but Addie felt like he just said the worst thing he possibly could have in this situation.
“You aren’t supposed to say that!” Addie replied. “Now we will definitely have to worry about it!”
“What’d he say?” Nettal asked, turning to look at Addie.
“He said, ‘We shouldn’t have to worry about it.’” Addie repeated.
“Oh that’s bad,” Nettal cringed.
Squishy just glanced between the two girls, obliviousness pulsing through the bond.
Addie just sighed, not bothering to explain it to the serious creature.
At least for now, there wasn’t much to do but continue forward, the book guiding them along.
Despite the ominous roar from earlier, the girls walked for hours unaccosted. During the journey, they stopped one more time for lunch, and then again when the Binary moved behind the mountains again.
“Squishy, can you get us some dinner?”
He and Ember went out again to scavenge.
Today, Nettal hadn’t gotten nearly as cold as yesterday. Addie had tried to share her flames with Nettal as much as possible. Addie didn’t want her lips to turn blue again.
“The Binary is setting soon. That means we need to figure out shelter again. Let’s build a snow fort!” Addie suggested.
Nettal chuckled, “Can’t we just stay in Realmspace again tonight?”
Addie frowned. She had been looking forward to sleeping in a snow fort. “The hard ground in Realmspace hurts my neck. And it’s hard to keep us in there all night. I have to wake up over and over again.”
Without waiting to see if Nettal would respond, Addie started pushing and piling up a bunch of snow. Her bare hands quickly got frigid and wet. Addie tried packing some of the snow together, but it was harder than she’d thought it would be. The snow was rough and powdery, falling apart in her hands more than sticking together in clumps. If she held a pile in her hand for a little while, the snow would melt some and stick together more easily.
“Huh. How come the snow won’t stay together?”
“This is powder, Addie. It’s too cold to stick together right now.”
“Oh, so that’s why.” Addie dropped the snow in her hand.
She lit her hands on fire for a moment to flash dry them. As always, her flames didn’t hurt her one bit.
“I have an idea.”
“The last time you had an idea you tried to light a bunch of snow on fire. You aren’t planning on doing that again, are you?” Nettal asked with trepidation.
Addie smiled.
“You aren’t, right?” Nettal repeated.
“See the pile over here?” Addie pointed to the big pile of snow she had been making.
“I do.”
“Throw as much snow on it as you can!”
With a great deal of focus and intent, Addie summoned a big fireball. She made it hover right over the snow pile, and then she helped Nettal throw more and more snow onto the pile.
At first, the pile started shrinking as the snow melted and compacted from the heat. But soon, the girls were able to keep the pile growing with new snow faster than it could melt. After the pile was wide and tall as a tent, Addie dismissed her fireball.
Then they waited for it to cool down some more while they ate the food Ember and Squishy brought back.
What they were left with was more of a giant lumpy ice dome than a snow fort. But, it looked sturdy and that was the important part to Addie.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“How are we supposed to get inside of it?” Nettal asked.
“Well, I thought we could dig out its insides.”
Addie walked up to the uneven dome and tried digging at it with her fingernails. The walls were as hard as they looked— solid ice. Her nails just tapped against the ice, only digging away the barest of shards.
“I think I have an idea,” Addie said, pulling her hands away from the ice structure.
“Your idea is more fire, isn’t it,” Nettal said more than asked.
“Yep!” Addie finished the word with a pop.
In order to not melt the rest of the structure, Addie covered only her hands in white-hot flames. Then, she pressed her hands against a spot she thought would make for a good entrance.
Her hands were melting the ice, but it was a lot slower going than she would have thought. She changed approaches, this time making a small thin stream of flame come out from her pointer finger. That worked to carve out the ice quite a bit faster.
After a while of carving at the surface ice, Addie found that the interior of the dome wasn’t nearly as hard as the rest of the structure. Using her hands, Addie scooped out chunky-slushy ice. Nettal helped, too. Once there was enough room for all three of them, Squishy also jumped in to help.
Nettal didn’t help for nearly as long as Addie and Squishy. She had to take multiple breaks to let her hands warm up, and Addie noticed her eyes glowing green more than once. Addie didn’t have to worry about her hands getting too cold, she had soul flames for that— often covering her hands with it to warm them back up.
At the very end, the girls had a big igloo-like structure, wide enough for everyone to lay down completely inside. They had to crouch to get in, though. They also couldn’t stand up— it was only tall enough for sitting and lying down. Not that they would sit down, anyway.
The biggest problem was the muddy floor. All of the melted snow and ice revealed a grassy muddy ground. Addie’s shoes were already caked in the icky stuff just from crouching and working inside of the dome.
She exited the dome and noticed that the Binary had fully set. Night was coming, and the temperature had already started to drop. She noticed the wind biting against her cheeks and parts of her legs not protected by her poncho. At least the dome had done a good job of keeping the wind away.
“That was a lot of work just for one night. I don’t want to do that again tomorrow.” Nettal said.
Addie grimaced, Nettal was right. This had taken a couple of hours at the very least. And they couldn’t even sleep in it with the muddy ground.
“Hey, Nettal.”
“Yeah?”
“Guess what?” Addie smiled smugly.
“Do you have another idea?”
“Yep.” Addie’s smile grew.
“Is it more fire?”
“Yep!”
Nettal sighed.
Addie crouched down just at the entrance of the dome. With a focus of will, she spread flames all over the ground, without letting them touch any of the ice. It was difficult to control the flames so precisely, they wanted to move up and lick at the ice above.
Her soul book came out all on its own as she struggled to keep the heat away from the ice walls of the dome. Once the book finished manifesting, It helped guide Addie’s magic channeling. Unlike with the fire shield, her book didn’t completely take over. Instead, it guided Addie. In a sense, the book seemed to be holding Addie’s metaphorical hand and guiding the motions, rather than doing it for her.
With the book’s help, it was simple to increase the temperature of the flames to as hot as Addie could make them. Waves of heat brushed against her face, and she knew that if they hadn’t been her flames, she would have been burning herself. Because her flames were magic, she could control where the heat went. With her book’s help, she made sure all of the flames directed themselves down at the ground, with none of them moving up to the ice walls.
“Addie! I’m cold.” Nettal called from behind Addie.
“Squishy, can you bring Nettal to Realmspace to warm up?”
He gave her the mental equivalent of a nod. A moment later, Nettal yelped, only for the sound to get cut off mid-way through. Since they shared the magic, Addie knew Squishy had put her in Realmspace.
The distraction almost made her lose her focus on the flames drying out the ground, but her book managed to stabilize things for her.
Within a few minutes, the ground became a grassy carpet— the mud underneath completely dried and packed into hard earth. Addie smiled at her handiwork, the pride of a job well done resonating throughout her being. Now this would certainly be more comfortable than hard Realmstone.
Squishy and Nettal came back to reality together moments after Addie had finished, her bonded knowing when Addie had finished.
Everyone piled into the ice dome, Addie and Nettal lying side by side with Squishy and Lotty snuggled up on either side of them.
Nettal shivered a few times, “It’s still colder in here than in Realmspace.”
Addie smirked.
“Don’t say you have an idea,” Nettal said with warning in her tone.
“I have an idea,” Addie said anyway.
Nettal sighed overdramatically. “Alright, just make sure not to melt the walls.”
“I won’t.”
With a flick of her will, Addie summoned a thin layer of soul flames over her body, with an intent for them to be warm and not hot.
For some reason Addie couldn’t explain, the inside of the ice dome became incredibly warm within just a few minutes— to the point Addie got worried she might start sweating. She turned the flames off and closed her eyes.
“Sleep well, my lady. I shall keep an eye out for the night.”
“You get some sleep, too,” Addie whispered, already half asleep.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Amazingly, the ice dome stayed warm almost the entire night. Addie only had to wake up once to warm it up with more flames, and even then it only took a brief few moments to do so.
Once again the Binary began to rise, daylight filtering through the ice-dome and waking the girls up. Unlike yesterday, Addie woke up without any residual sleepiness eating away at her will to get up.
She could feel through the soul-bond that Squishy was still exhausted, though. “You silly cat!” Addie thought to him, “You need sleep too.”
“I felt concerned about the roar from yesterday, especially after you said I ‘jinxed it’.” His normally vibrant eyes drooped as he tried to stay awake.
Addie rolled her eyes. “Come here, I’ll carry you so you can sleep while we walk.”