The Lesser Gods

Chapter Two: Night Classes

Chapter Two

Nona awoke to a push on the shoulder by one of the guards. "We're here." Nona pulled apart the curtain at the back of the carriage. There were herds of others behind them. Some in large convoys, other by themselves on unicorns or horses. It was almost an army of people, to the side, and in front, all moving in the same direction. She'd been fast asleep the few days it took to get close to Marillie. Nona climbed up to the front, as the two royal guards made space. In front of them was a lake the unicorns entered without hesitation. Their hooves moving like fins in the water. Nona looked to the guards, they didn't move, and then to the people behind her as they all entered the water as well. None of them looked back like she did. Nona shook her head and sighed. Not everyone behind her had the same pointed ears the royal guards men did, so some of them were mortals, yet not even the mortals flinched. Nona looked back to the lake in front of her as the carriage fell from the waterfall.

Nona closed her eyes as the carriage plummeted down, the currents fluttering as she screamed. They slammed through a cloud, and splashed in something new. As she opened her eyes she saw, through the mist of the clouds, a stream of water leading upwards in a spiral, hundreds of carriages, horses, and unicorns following it upwards, far off into the sky. She held her hand out in hopes to catch a cloud. Just this alone she could write a song about. Only when she retreated her cold bitten fingers from the clouds did she see the guards laughing. "They always do this." The one on the left told her.

"You can't pocket a cloud Mortal." The one on the right said.

"You don't have to be rude" Nona huffed, settling back into her seat, arms crossed. The right guard sighed, and pulled a piece of chalk from his plate armor.

"No don't. Not again." Said the left.

"I know, and it's worth it every time." Said the right as he drew a circle on the wood of the carriage. In the circle he drew three symbols. In a smaller circle, he drew two more symbols that fit inside it. The lines of the chalk glowed, and just before they left the cloud, a ball of ice appeared in the magic circle. Something cold and clumpy appeared in the circle, much like a rock. "There you go, a cloud you can touch." The right guard looked at Nona satisfied as she beamed at him.

"Can I keep it?" She asked him. The left snorted at right.

"Ha! Now what are you gonna do genius, how are you gonna stop it from melting?" Left taunted. Nona shot him a fierce glare, and he focused back on the reins of the paddling unicorns.

"I can figure it out." Right rubbed out the chalk on the wood, and started again. He drew another circle, and then his hand hovered above the wood, thinking. "What's the symbol for ice again?" Right asked Left.

"Are you serious? Basically everything's made out of ice. How do you not know?"

"We haven't got to that part in the course yet!" Right shouted back.

"It's an ice pick." Left grumbled. Right snapped his fingers and drew a large, simplified ice pick in the circle, two more symbols Nona didn't know, that stood for heat, and friendship, and finally one more circle and an intricate motif. He set the ball of cloud in the center, and the lines of the circle glowed again. Nona clapped as the cloud chunk glowed purple, and then settled again. Right picked up the chunk, and held it in his hands, before passing it to Nona. "There, now hopefully, it should never melt."

"Thank you so much!" She held it close, and indeed, despite how cold it made her fingers, it never melted. Left scoffed at right, who gave him a thin smile.

"I told you those night classes were worth it."

"Whatever." Drawled Left as he pulled the rains to his side, and the waterway seemed to widen. They pushed though one more cloud, and out of the grey and the white emerged huge stone structures held together by ice.