The Finding of the Ice Princess

Chapter Three - Immortal Protector

The Princess is maturing more quickly than is natural for her kind. Is her mother human?

"Hey, what are you doing?" A familiar voice grated on Ophelia's nerves, jerking her back into the here and now.

Ophelia sucked in breath, blinked, and looked into her twin sister's beautiful blue eyes. "Oh. Headache."

"Oh, dog, I know!" Bianca slumped against the wall and rubbed her forehead. "Is school noisier this year or is it just me?"

"It's noisier." Ophelia glanced around the empty halls. The din of a hundred voices and feelings clamored inside her head.

"Huh?" Katelyn suddenly stood before them. "Everyone is in class. It's completely quiet. What the hell is with you two?" She rolled her eyes and walked away.

"Do you ever hear words in the noise?" Ophelia watched the bimbo around the corner.

"No. You?"

"Yeah." Ophelia hugged her books to her chest. "How's dad?"

"Haven't heard since this morning." Bianca checked her cell phone for text messages.

"He's dying."

"What?"

Ophelia held her pained gaze. "Dad's dying."

"But Mom said..." Bianca stopped talking for a second, which was a huge deal for her. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know. You got a smudge." Ophelia licked her thumb and cleaned her sister's face. "Poor Mom, she's so worried. She acts tough, but she's scared to death."

"I know. Guess I just want to believe her, that everything's going to be okay."

"Maybe we should call Grandma."

"Hell, no! She's nuts." Bianca trudged off, still hugging her books.

"And we're not?" Ophelia glanced out of the corner of her eye and lowered her chin and her voice. "We hear noise when it's quiet."

Her sister growled and disappeared into the 'bonehead math' class.

Ophelia rushed to the back of the Honors English class and dropped her pack on the floor. She dropped into a desk chair and caught her face in her hands. I can't believe what a day I'm already having.

A paper drifted to the floor and landed partly on her foot. She picked it up and found a familiar name scrawled upon it, a name she seemed to be saying a lot. "Adrian?" All the tension exhaled from her body and she faced him.

He was slumped over his notebook, pen gripped in white knuckles as he wrote.

"Hey?" She wasn't used to boys not sitting up and paying attention when she spoke to them.

Adrian didn't look up. He was very tense.

Maybe he's hard of hearing, too. Ophelia slid the paper under his nose. "This one got away from you, Adrian."

He glanced, still quite red. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." She wanted to give him a big hug and make it all better.

"I know you've all seen the movie, The Princess Bride." Mrs. Cox walked up the next aisle to her desk. Her peasant skirt swayed with her ample hips. "It's based upon the 1973 novel by William Goldman." She leaned back against her desk. Her short, salt-and-pepper curls framed her face. "However, did you know this tale and many others are based upon the myth of St. George and the Dragon? Even older is the ancient Greek myth of Andromeda offered up to a sea monster and rescued by Perseus."