In the Land of Fae ♔ (gxg)

11. warmth

"I'll set your clothes down here."

Nyx watched as Catori bent down and set one of her new folded dresses, along with a clean smock, down on a root right at the edge of the water. The fae's bathing pond was actually a place where a river once ran hundreds of years before but had since dried up (which Caspian said was due to Alastair's teenage years when the forest was more like a fiery desert), leaving a deep crevice in the earth. Catori had to help the girl slide down a less steep area where the very last piece of the ancient river still remained—a little pond that stretched for about a quarter of a mile, deepest at its very middle, which was where the fae bathed themselves.

The pond was nestled deep in the only crevice that remained of the long-gone river that was deep enough to leave the remaining pond about twenty feet down. The rest of the earth where the river once ran had closed up long ago.

Nyx arched her head around to look at the tall walls of dirt and rock surrounding them. Trees lined the very edges of the two cliffs, their petrified roots poking out from the divided ground, meaning that the trees were even older than the river had been. Patches of snow covered uneven bits of the rocky cliffs and big boulders that sat in the middle of the pond, but the shores between the water and the cliffs had no snow. It was made of fine bits of rock that were a bluish black, some of them a muddy orange color. Encompassing all edges of the water was a line of lit torches that provided for light.

"This is a cozy place," Nyx whispered as she glanced upwards, feeling completely nestled in and protected by the hole in the ground that they were in.

"It is," Catori chuckled. "I've told Caspian that he should start on reviving the river, but he says he likes it this way better."

Nyx turned towards the fae whose rainbow wings clutched around herself from the cold air. Nyx was also cold, but thankful it was not snowing again. "Could Caspian do that? Use his powers to fill a whole river back up?"

"It would take time," Catori answered her, nodding with a small smile. Her eyes that rested above the blue painted line over her nose and cheeks twinkled. "Months, maybe years. But he very well could."

The girl nodded, turning her head back to the water that looked clear, even under the dark sky. She knew the water was going to be cold from how blue and crisp it looked.

"Well, I'll let you get to it." Catori leaned down and rested a white cloth towel next to the girl's fresh clothes. "Call for me when you're done, I'll be making dinner."

The fae began to walk away, sprigs of her raven hair bouncing out of her loose braids. She was about to jump and fly away until Nyx quickly blurted, "Wait! What about soap?"

Catori turned around slowly to her, an amused look crossing her face. She laughed softly, lips pressing in a smile before she answered, "The water's clean." With that, she jumped and flapped her bright, colorful wings, soaring up out of the hole and over the trees, disappearing out of sight within seconds. 

Nyx listened to the sound of her wings flapping away until she could no longer hear them. She could no longer hear anything, really—just the trickling of some water pouring from a hole in the middle of one of the cliffs and into the pond below. An owl's hoo frightened her, causing her to jump as her heart picked up speed. She was quite frankly all alone, and the thought began to creep in her mind that none of the fae were around to protect her if Eira were to attack again. She remembered the dreadful feeling of ice freezing her blood from the inside out, and she gulped with fear.

Her cold fingers fumbled with the button on her tan cloak until it came undone, and she let it slip from her shoulders and fall to the ground in front of the water. Next, she leaned down and pulled off her boots, struggling to peel her dress off by herself.