A Snow Story

A Blizzard Underground (5)

My brief moment of confidence vanished as we entered a new room from the dark hallway. Well, it wasn't so much a room, but a gaping gigantic pit.

I shrieked when I realized I was close to the edge of firm ice. There wasn't much to walk on so all four of us were squished together on the small area of ice, barely giving us any room to move around. I was frozen still and noticed that even Sasha, in her little bird body was not moving either. Tobi and Pintry seemed only a little surprised. How do they get used to this? I thought.

"So h-how are we getting across this?" Sasha peeped, keeping herself far as possible from the edge. "P-please tell me we took the wrong way."

"No, this is defiantly the right way." Tobi said, deep in thought. "We just have to figure out a way to get across."

"And how exactly are we going to do that?!" Sasha yelled angrily. She shook with either rage or fright or possibly even both.

Pintry spoke up with a low cool voice. " Well that's obvious, isn't it?"

Sasha gave him a skeptical look and waited for his answer.

"You fly over! Your a bird! You have wings!" He said fiercely.

Sasha seemed to shrink back as the words sunk in. "There is NO way I am flying over a endless dark pit of nothingness! AND I don't even know how to fly with these wings yet!"

"Well, who said you can't start learning now." Pintry replied, his beak in the air. "Your lucky you even have the right wings to fly." He said softly, turning away.

I felt sorry for Pintry. It was true that penguins couldn't fly. It must be hard to be a bird, knowing you can't fly, even when you have wings.

"Pintry" I said gently. "Are you sure there isn't another way to get across?"

"Does it look like there is?" he said bitterly.

"But even if Sasha does fly over, how would that help the rest of us?" I asked, now realizing the flaw in Pintry's plan.

"We get her to touch that." Tobi interrupted. He pointed at a icy blue jewel on the other side of the room, far up on the wall. I hadn't noticed it before because it was so small and far away. If you looked closer you could just make out some sort of carvings around it.

"What is it" I asked.

Not looking up from where he had spotted the jewel he answered. "The Ice Queen's crown jewel. At least, it's one of them. They contain very powerful magic that the Ice Queen casts on them." he paused, looking away from it and turned to us. "I'm not exactly sure what it will do, but that's our best bet if we want to get out of here."

"W-will it hurt me if i touch it?" Sasha asked in a quavering voice.

"I don't think so, well as long as you have this with you." Tobi held out what seemed to be another larger jewel. There was an ingraving of a white tiger on the smooth top. It was attached to a piece of string, making it resemble a necklace of some sort. We all looked at it, with interest.

"Is it another one of the Queen's jewels?" I asked.

"Yeah, sort of. This one gives others a special power. If you know how to use it, that is.The Ice Queen gave it to me." Tobi stroked the jewel with his thumb and I noticed that the colour of his eyes matched the colour of the jewel.

"What type of power?" Sasha asked curiously.

"Not a power that is useful in our situation." He was good at avoiding questions, wasn't he." Do you think you could fly over there with this jewel?" He asked, changing the subject. "I can tell you exactly what to do."