We called the world’s natives the Frozen since they were trapped in the secret places beyond our light. I know not how long they existed inside the glacier’s cold shadow, but I do know that my people were the first to give them fire songs.
My first fire song after our landing lit the night sky with a vision of our ship’s travel through the black void between our rotting world and this sea-blue jewel. The hardship of the journey was still evident in the char streaks along the ship’s dented orange hull. The fire song was full of golden high notes symbolizing hope and I believe it was these notes in particular that woke Naia.
I heard her discordant plea inside my mind. “Come! Come! Recover me,” it shrieked.
So I left the safety of our campfire with only my own kindled soul for warmth and sought the cold cave beyond our camp’s radiant circles of light. It was there in the womb of the ice that I made my first memory of Naia’s ethereal face.
She was the Frozen bound closest to the surface. Her blue-black countenance was caught in eternal terror, her six limbs were pushed up to protect her from the icy waves now solidly encasing her. She stared blankly until my fire-laced fingers touched the ice before her oval face. The heat of my song’s passion melted the cold separating us and her green gaze met my glowing red eyes. Awareness awakened after many millennia and she seemed to recognize me.
“Oft have I craved the warmth of your touch, Ryad,” her voice echoed in my mind while her look told me we would be lovers if I could free her.
Naia’s and my combined songs sparked a kinship stronger than her bonds and her spirit’s kindling soon awakened all of her people. The Frozens’ spirit songs cast visions across the blue stars of my people’s bright coming. In sleep they had waited for us, the Fire Singers, to leave our own scorched planet and melt theirs.
Now their spirits sing constantly in our minds. “Burn away our cold aloofness,” they keen. “Your blazes, dear Embers, fuel our passion and thaw our icy abode.”
“We two are equal parts, Ryad. Together we become balance,” Naia’s thoughts whisper inside me even as I continue to melt my way toward her freedom under the setting blue sun.
Each sundown renders our daily progress futile as the twilight temperatures refreeze our fire songs’ work. Others of my people have given up and will not leave the radiant security of the campfires. They say there is no hope of ever freeing our destined lovers without ourselves being frozen to death in the process, but I say I must try even though I might die in the attempt. Many frostbitten Ember corpses have been consumed in our campfires as their Frozen partners’ spirit songs die with them.
For Naia’s sake I must succeed. As I was her hope in the beginning, now she is my hope to the end. Naia’s love strengthens me and my fiery determination flares through the frost. Each cold dawn I give in to my passion and my flame melts more of Naia’s icy prison. Yesterday I managed to free four of her limbs before my fire finally died. I know night’s shadow will refreeze her inside the cliff, but the planet is warming and so is my strength. Unlike the others, I do not seek the refuge of the campfires at nightfall. Instead, I sleep in Naia’s arms with a wall of ice at my back. This sacrifice of security is the only way I can sing through more ice each day. Though I risk death with each renewed night frost, Naia’s calm song has kept me conscious and her body’s peculiar process of convection has kept me from freezing. Forty days ago, I could barely free a hand. Yesterday, I liberated four beautiful limbs!
Maybe tomorrow I will free her, maybe then I will have my bride and she will have her groom. For now, I rest my spent form in her languid arms as night comes to freeze us in song’s sleep once again.
