Crystal Folly

His Recovery and Return

Arthur looked around, forgetting that he had been brought to Sonui's home late the previous night. As he got out of bed, narrowly missing the bookcase that was near his left wing, she walked in to check on him.

"Oh, you're awake," she said upon seeing him. "I made some breakfast if you're hungry. Not sure if you'll enjoy my cooking, though, I'm not as good as your friend Luna." To Arthur, it sounded as if she was calling herself worse than she probably is.

"Y'know, when you put it like that," he began, "it'd make more people want to not try your food. Of course, there's only a select few dedicated to best Luna in cooking anyway, so you shouldn't be too worried about that." Once he stood up, Sonui began leading him to the kitchen, which was almost entirely made of ice. "How do you manage to keep all of this from melting?" he asked, very intrigued by it.

"We have our own special kind of fire, but it's very low heat. Hot enough to cook food to suitable means, but still too cold to melt the ice," Sonui replied. After she put what seemed to be pancake batter into a mixing bowl, there was a knock on the door. What's Stella doing here? Is there something wrong?

"I feel like she'll be upset that I slept in her room," was Arthur's first comment. Shortly afterwards, Stella walked in, going straight to their dining room, seemingly waiting on one of them to come out to her. She seems very annoyed. Or worried about my injury. It's very hard to tell with her, he thought.

"I'll go check on her," Sonui told him aloud. "You might as well come, too." She seemed to tense up when she heard a ball of ice being created. When they both came out, Sonui gave her a hug to try calming her down after she saw the huge bandage on Arthur's wing.

"What happened, Arthur?!" Stella nearly screamed. "You shouldn't have tried to fly there! You knew there was a chance that the storm would be how it was!" She was glaring at him with tears in her eyes the entire time she spoke.

"Stella, it's okay," Sonui calmly told her. "We can help him fly again when his wing heals enough to allow that, but for now, yelling isn't gonna help him." She let go of Stella's arms when she felt the first tears touch her shoulder.

"Sorry, it's just..." Stella stuttered. "There's been... a lot of information I've had to process today. Just seeing you like this kinda... I don't know, broke my limit, I guess." She wiped her eyes and got out of the chair she was sitting in and blew the tears on her hand to dry it off.

"I get the feeling it involves that Plane," Arthur replied. Sonui looked at him in confusion, and Stella was surprised that he knew about it. "I've only heard about it from Milo, and I'm assuming he told those two when he came back."

"Have you ever been there? Like in a dream?" Stella asked, hoping to find out if he knew more than she already thought he did.

"Last summer, yeah. There were a lot of camps there, and I met someone there," he answered. "She had the same magic and forms that I had, and something else that felt like Ender's presence. Sarah tried to make me forget it even happened, but that obviously didn't work."

"Who's Sarah? What plane? Can you please explain all of this?" Sonui interrupted, very much confused.

"I'm not the best person for this job. Maybe Milo can help explain it," he offered. "We can follow Stella back to the hotel and I'll explain as much as I can." Sonui stared hard at him for a few seconds before leaving to get the keys to her truck and his briefcase.

"Before we do go, friendly reminder, don't use too much fire in the car to finish cooking your food," Stella told them. "We should probably go now anyway before there's much more ice out there, so I'll wait outside."

"Of the house?" Sonui asked.

"Of the cave. C'mon, we've been through this, sis, I can handle myself!" Stella flew out the door and left no trace of her scent in the village when Arthur and Sonui left. On her way out, she stopped at a patch of moss and froze it, which would let them know that she at least made it halfway through the cave.

By the time the two had made it to Sonui's truck, the village had spurred to life with activity. Children were running up to the car and back for races, and some were making random patches of ice as they tried to master the power they had. Hardly any of their parents were outside, and the ones that were glared suspiciously at Arthur.

"Don't pay attention to them, it'll only make it worse," Sonui whispered to him. "They hate the conflict just as much as I do, but they're extra suspicious of every fire dragon or wyvern."

Can't say I blame them, Arthur thought as he got in, not when our own Prince decided to steal one of the Ancient Frost Scrolls. He's not even entirely safe in his own kingdom. "I don't think that's the worst of our problems. According to many, he's trying to learn the language of the scroll so that we'll be 'closer than we've ever been'." He shuddered at the thought of him using it to freeze the rest of the royal family and anyone else who rejected his order.

After a minute of conversation about what the prince might do once he learned the near dead tongue, Sonui suggested, "How about we listen to the radio instead of talking about this?" Arthur, who was mid-sentence, listened and tried to lie down without hurting his wing while she began searching for a station they'd both agree to. Eventually, they settled on an old school station.

"These songs were all I used to listen to when I was younger," Arthur replied, reminiscing when he had nothing to worry about except for food and school. "I still think some EDM or techno couldn't hurt, though."

"I was thinking the same thing! Who's your favorite EDM artist?" Sonui asked excitedly.

"Does it have to be strictly dance music? If it's not, I'd have to go with... Snail's House," he answered. "He's really good with what he does on most of his tracks."

"Such an odd ball name though. Meganeko's my favorite. They've got some serious stuff going on in the music half the time," Sonui replied. "Oh, speaking of which, I do have some tracks burned on a CD. You wanna listen to them?" she asked, holding a white disk.

"It'll help pass the time, sure," Arthur answered. She put it in and turned up the volume as the first track began to play.

"I forgot I had Stasis playing last time! Let me just go back and start from Nova," she muttered.

"No, it's fine. I like this track, it feels like a hybrid of different kinds of music," Arthur replied. She let it play to the end and they had a conversation about the song, lasting them the entirety of the rest of the drive.