ICE

chapter 8

Chapter 8

True love?

“What’s that?” I pointed towards a spread of smoke floating up above the trees.

“What?”  Drench quickly looked up.

“There’s smoke” Lightning said walking up to us.

“Were is it coming from?”

“I don’t know. I’ll climb this tree and check it out” Drench scrambled up the closest pine tree, he climbed carefully. To carefully but persistent. When Drench was high up in the tree lightning nudged me.

“You found yourself a good one.”

“A good what?” what in the world was she talking about.

“He sure is a keeper a little persistent for my taste, but a good catch.”

“Who?”

“Drench of Course aren’t you guys a couple?”

I hadn’t thought of that we’re not together are we?

“No we’re not.” I looked down at the ground. Why would lightning think that? Why would I think of that?

“Oh I just thought that…” the sound of rustling branches caught our focus.

“Hey you guys. This is not good.” Drench shouted down from up in the tree.

“What is it?”  Lighting shouted up into the tree.

Wow she has a loud voice.

“There is someone over there. That’s not good. It’s most likely fire warriors” his voice got louder as he climbed down the tree.

“Luckily there opposite where we’re trying to get to.” He jumped down and landed on his pack

“Stink!” he looked down when he landed there was a loud crack “well we need to get going”

We started up walking again. This time a little faster. How Lightning knew were to go made me curious.

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“Let’s stop here” Drench said dropping his pack on the ground.

We had been walking for a long time. And it was now dark. Letting my heavy bag fall to the ground felt wonderful. My back aced mostly in my right shoulder.

“So are we going to light a fire?” Lighting said as she dropped a pile of sticks into a pile.

“No! I mean no.” Drench lunged for the pile of sticks and grabbed them up.

“Why not?”

“It would be too hard” he nodded and I knew it would

“No it wouldn’t I can…” she stopped mid sentence.

I was wondering what she was going to say. I looked over at drench his face had a Strange mix of emotions covering it he was confused, surprised, and a hint of happiness. What was she going to say?

“Here let’s eat.”

I looked at him like he was crazy. What would we eat? All we had to eat today was lightning’s box of chocolate pop-tarts. We didn’t have any other food.

“Eat what?” lightning said looking at her empty card board box.

The pop-tart on the box looked good enough to eat. I hadn’t eaten for hours. None of us had.

“Wait here” drench said standing up and walking through the trees.

“Were do you think he is going?”

“I have no Idea” I said.

“Well he’s gone what do you think of him?”

We had talked about this earlier while he was up in a tree.

“I don’t know it’s complicated”

“I know love is complicated. Its hard but worth it.” She looked off into the distance.

A tear streaked down her face she quickly wiped it away.

“What Happened?”

“Well… it’s a long story that isn’t that happy.”

“Come on”

“Well he was the prince of the ice people, and my one true love." She giggled softly. "We were secretly meeting. Our parents didn’t really like each other.” She paused to wipe away a tear. “So we were secretly meeting. When my mom found out. She… she… she started a war. The biggest war ever.”

“Hey I’m back!” came Drenches voice.

Lightning quickly wiped the tears off her face. And put on a smile. She played it well.

“And I found something to eat. Some delicious berries. Well they look delicious I haven’t eaten one.” He came into view he had a handful of these berries that were half red half black.

“No!” lightning shouted and pushed the berries out of his hands.

“What did you do that for?” his face started to turn as red as the berries.

“Those were poisonous you fool. That’s the berries they use to silently kill prisoners in the jail when they get too annoying!”  She shouted at him!

“Oh sorry.” Drench looked down at his feet. “I didn’t know.”

“Don’t you go to school?”

“Not sense my dad died in the war”

“He died?” her voice was soft.

“Yes… well no… I don’t know.”

I just sat and watched. They both sat down. No one talked for the rest of the night. It wasn’t the first time I went to sleep hungry.