Freezing Wings

Chapter 27

As I dug through the heaps and heaps of gems in my storeroom, I came to a revelation. 'I might want to organize this at some point...'

There were enough precious jewels, metals, crystals, and shiny stuff to make a billionaire jealous, and they were collectively bright enough to make a human go blind. Usually, this was all well and good, especially when I wanted something to really pop. However, when it came to finding something, it became a real hinderance.

All that shiny stuff distracted me from what I was doing, and it was all mixed together, so I had to just dig in one general direction and hope I would find it. The extra glitter made it hard for me to concentrate on just one thing, and finding the one specific gem I was looking for was near impossible.

I was currently looking for a small diamond sculpture I had done five years prior. It wasn't in my gallery, so I had probably accidentally thrown it in with the growing pile of leftover gems for later use. It was carved into the shape of a heart, and would be the center of the tree sculpture I had done that morning. However, it had been five years after all, and the sculpture would probably be somewhere near the bottom of the pile. I didn't want to just carve out another heart because the one I was looking for, I had gone all out with it.

It wasn't made purely of diamond, instead being chunks of diamond that had ben cut and carved into pieces that would fit like a puzzle around a specialized ruby I had also done expressly for this reason. Not only that, I had also taken nearly a week to outfit the entire thing with streaks of obsidian, taking slivers of the stone and fitting them into tiny grooves I had carved out on the surface of the diamond so it made a sort of cracked pattern. Bits of pure gold decorated the outside, alongside the obsidian, and the entire thing was about the size of a dresser. Overall, it looked pretty cool.

I wanted to put it as the centerpiece of my sculpture, but had to find it first.

*

After nearly two hours on digging around, throwing enough gems and jewels away to make hades cry I finally found it. The sculpture was at the literal bottom of the pile, in the last place that I looked. 'Of course..'

From what I could tell, it looked the exact same, despite about half a ton of jewels on top of it. There wasn't so much as a scratch on the surface, smooth as still water and one of the shiniest sculptures I had ever made. 'I don't know why I ever threw this away...'

I picked it up, walked up the stairs, into my storeroom and in front of the tree I had constructed earlier. I set it down next to the tree and left it there, moving out onto my balcony and taking off. It was already sunset, and I was almost late. It had been pulling me for the past twenty minutes, and I was rushing to get out while still finishing what I wanted to do.

As I touched down on the third peak, I glanced up at the sky. It was colored a deep purple, completely clear of clouds, but I knew otherwise. I sniffed the air, the faint smell of fresh snow wafting from the south, from the lake.

There would be a snowstorm, not uncommon around here. However, I predicted that it would start out within a week. It would probably occur within the next few days, and be violent. From how strong the scent was, it would easily put out thirty feet of snow, something that happened once or twice a year. Usually, it was only ten to fifteen.

Worried glances came from every adult, all of us mentally preparing to board up for the next week. Although we could survive with no problem in sub-zero temperatures, we had our limits. If we got caught outside, and were buried under enough snow, we would be trapped and asphyxiate under the ice. We had lost Johnny that way, may he rest in peace.

I sighed and glanced around, rubbing my face. A few Kymari were watching me from the side. I was at the edge of the group, the closest to them. They were behind a row of boulders, right next to the cliff. One female in particular was only ten feet away from me, close enough that, if I really wanted to, I could pick her up with my tail.

I didn't, of course, but I'm just saying this to put into context how close I was to them when I almost died.