Icicle Isle Quest: Round 2

[Leilan]

Prancing and pacing, he figures he had arrived perhaps earlier than some. At the very least, the capillary effect of horse hair is enough that they don’t all remain entirely drenched and soaked the whole time, though it takes all their body heat to dry. Moving around, pacing, he registers a few names, but it seems as though nobody pays attention to him as he circles a ways apart from the group. He knows Briella and Nalia by name but doesn’t feel like a slightly-larger-than-they stallion like himself should just go up ahead to them and cuddle them to keep warm. Such a weird view that would be - besides, not something their parents and partner would appreciate no doubt, even if he does indeed have no other intentions than to protect everybody (self included) from freezing to death.

But surely this can’t be the end, the fairies need something from them - and it turns out that it isn’t, indeed. A warm wind accompanies them all, and his coat (not so dense since because of his previous scales, he hadn’t grown a winter coat) gets dried fully. He suspects a winter coat might still be damp, but when the wind changes into the familiar ice, he still regrets not having one.

The weather change disrupts his senses - can’t see much, secretly wishing for the heat vision again; can’t hear much above the wind though a familiar voice might be whinnying somewhere on the left; he tries not to even think of smelling out anything or anyone, nostrils so very numb. His eyes are narrowed, his breath is shallow, ears get tucked away in his silvery-and-black mane for some sort of warmth.

Two paths appear, and going straight through the middle is certain death, in this kind of magical storm. Staying behind however, also isn’t an option. Shit. It was the worst timing in the world to go to the Mountain. He wonders if the fairies had done it on purpose perhaps, could they have known? Not sure.

Triple shit. Familiar and unfamiliar figures pick their trails, and he hears the voice of Ard’s mate going left, as well as Briella’s tiny questioning voice soon after. He nears the choice - and decides then. It doesn’t matter which way he goes; there will be a chance that someone doesn’t make it. That the path they pick loops back or ends in endless white nothingness - he thinks that the right path might be right or turn him to the sea; he thinks the left path might be right as some kind of joke the fairies would make, see, left is right, haha, or that it could loop back in circles or lead to the other side of the island. It could be that because of that thought they had purposefully not made the left path right, double trickery. Or triple. None. There’s no way of knowing.

But he knows that some Nerinians are going left. So he goes right.

There’s a small chance he might not make it back to his family perhaps, but at least, he’s spreading their chances, and he’s quite sure they’ll get the message that he’d made it to here - albeit they might or might not have recognized him, bare as he is now.

He hurries after the forms of those ahead of him on the path, broad feathered hooves shoving through the snow as quickly as he can muster, and hopes the fairies will have enough mercy to not let half the group simply freeze to death.

Surely, even if they were that andry and rude, that would mean they’d have less followers to run any other errands, right? Hmm.

In this moment, he might be better of not thinking everything through a million times.