Love and Other Magical Adventures

five

I felt pretty good the next day and we resumed our journey. The air was definitely colder, enough so that I enclosed us in a warm invisible bubble. Sylvie hadn't asked where we were going, or if we could take her home. So we continued on our way, Feebur in my pack.

We were drawn to the Northeast and late in the day saw the big cat trapped in the desolate tundra below us. The landscape had lost most of its greenery the day before, and we'd entered the more glacial tundra of low scrub brush and stunted, bare trees.

Grim circled around to see what creature was stuck in the tar pit and Sylvie clutched me tighter. We kept forgetting she wasn't in on our mental link. "Sorry," I said. "Checking that pit back there."

We grew closer and hovered while we assessed. A mammoth had become mired up to it's head and died, drawing the cat that was almost half as big as Grimmer. The cat had one curved, yellow tooth as long as my arm, the end broken off. The other tooth was long gone. It was visible from the ankles up and hopelessly stuck.

"That's a terrible way to die," I mused as we landed near it.

"Will we be bringing this one with us too?" Sylvie's voice had just enough amusement in it to be noticeable.

"Did you just make a joke?" I teased her gently. "Nah, we'll just throw it a rope and drag it out."

It was a bit stickier than that, but in the end the cat was freed and I magicked the tar off its paws as well as all the parts of us that needed it. We decided to camp there, and I formed a bubble of warmth for us while Grimmer in his human form passed out jerky before leaving to hunt.

It was winter in the land but it cost me little power to divert the frigid air away from us and draw warmth down from thermals high above, as such weather was easy to manipulate. Mostly because it was happy to oblige, as long as I didn't ask too much of it.

She settled against a tree, her favorite way of sitting, and adjusted the black cloth that served as headband to keep flyaways out of her face while in the air. Her hair was braided and pinned in circles on her head. "Is this just what you do, then? Fly around and rescue those in need?" She had a chunk of dark wood in her hand and a small knife I'd given her, and she set about carving paper-thin pieces off it after taking a bite of her dried meat. The sword she'd requested lay next to her, within arm's reach.

"Mostly. We're... sort of drawn to where we need to be. It's hard to explain, and we don't fully understand it ourselves." I arranged the sticks and small logs we'd collected into a pyramid, crumbling old moss and snapping twigs here and there as tinder. "It's always been that way for us." I took a bite of the salty dried meat, wondering what I'd done with my lighter.

She caught the implication. "But not for others?"

I finished chewing and swallowed. "Not so much, no. They mostly go on specific quests, whereas we just do our own thing." And they returned home frequently, which we hadn't done in nearly two years. And might not ever do.

Anything's possible, and nothing is certain, said Grimmer in my head since he wasn't far. 

She blew a shaving away and watched as it floated to land with the others near her bare feet. I'd offered her boots and sandals but this was what she preferred. "Did you come to that castle to rescue me?"

I drank some water to wash the dry food down and felt through the easily accessible pockets in my bag. "Did we know you were there? No. Were we led there to free you?" I nodded. "Absolutely. That's just how it works."

She pondered that, her whole body more relaxed that I'd seen her yet. When she glanced at the place where Grim had disappeared into the tall grasses something clicked for me.