Gifted Pelt

Chapter 46

She feels Kōri frown behind her. "Is it a prophecy?" he moves over to the side, quickly scanning the rest of the markings. "There is nothing about the curse anywhere else. It hasn't been broken yet."

They exchange a fearful glance before Astrila speaks. "Could this be what the wind was warning about?"

"I don't know, but we won't find the answers here. Look at the bottom of the section about the curse, it says to wait for the blue flower."

There is another marking that he sees, but he covers it with his hand before Astrila can look. He shakes his head at her quizzical expression, he won't tell her what he saw.

Astrila voices another question. "But what does the flower mean, what does it refer to?"

"I don't know. But come, let's leave the history room and explore elsewhere."

Astrila frowns. Why doesn't Kōri want to know? Then she looks at his face, to see it full of panicked fear. This isn't just fear of the curse, it's something deeper. But what is scaring him? Nevertheless, she lets him lead her away from the room and back into the main tunnel. She almost jolts when they step outside the tunnel, the layout of the cave has changed. They are now in a massive chamber with small tunnels branching off of it, not in the larger tunnel they were in before.

"Kōri . . ."

He places a hand on her shoulder and murmurs. "It's alright. The caves are just leading us somewhere we want to go."

Astrila's frown deepens. "But where would we want to go? I've never been here before, so we're just exploring."

"It picks up our subconscious thoughts. If we desired to see an ice cavern, I'm sure the tunnels would lead us to one."

Despite herself, Astrila's lips quirk up into a smile. "Ice caverns are lovely, but dangerous too."

"Yes, they are."

"Where do you think the tunnels are leading us?"

He smirks. "Why don't we go find out?"

Astrila grins then spins, trying to figure out which tunnel to head into. Kōri laughs and tugs on her arm, pulling her towards the closest tunnel. It leads down, deep into the ground. As it begins to level off, the surface beneath them shifts. It becomes smoother, slippery, causing their steps to slow to a shuffle. When they reach the end of the tunnel, they are entirely encased in a bubble of ice. Astrila's gasp echoes around them, bouncing around the bubble.

"Wha- How?"

Kōri shrugs and grins. "Magic, Astrila. We live in a world of magic."

Astrila steps over to an ice wall and carefully touches it, prepared to snap her hand back in an instant. Beneath her touch, the ice clears, grows less foggy. When the transformation is complete, the ice is so clear that she almost can't tell that it is there at all. Beyond it is the rippling, eerie world that lies beneath the ice. A selkie slips past the ice in seal form and barks in shock when it sees them. She can't hear the words, so she doesn't know what the selkie was saying. Then a thought trickles into her head. How did she know they were a selkie?

She looks up at Kōri, only for him to laugh. "I told you that you would be able to tell a selkie apart from a normal seal."

"I didn't think it would be that easy to do so! I didn't have to think about it, I just knew!"

Kōri laughs again. "Come on, let's go find somewhere else."

Astrila follows him wordlessly out of the ice bubble, too enraptured by her own curiosity to bemoan how little time they had to see through the ice bubble. The cavern of tunnels is still there when they return to it, and Astrila is surprised when Kōri doesn't immediately move towards the next closest tunnel. Instead, he looks to her.

"It's your pick this time. Choose whichever tunnel you like."

Astrila spins slowly, looking at all of them in turn. Each of the tunnels looks identical, only their position in the room differentiates them. Her attention keeps being pulled to the one in the center of her vision, so she chooses that one. Kōri is the one following her now as they walk through the tunnel. It is shorter than the one that led them to the ice bubble, but it also seems to go down. At the end of the tunnel is a small chamber, almost entirely filled by a small, bubbling pool. There is barely enough space to walk around the pool, except in the very back. At the back of the chamber is an incline as the bottom of the pool rises towards the air, and it creates a sort of beach at the back.

Kōri frowns thoughtfully to himself and murmurs to Astrila, "Interesting place we were led to."

"Is the water warm?"

He doesn't respond verbally. Instead, he touches the water with a finger. "Very warm, it's like there is a hot spring right here."

"Could we go swimming?"

Kōri smiles. "I don't see why not."

He leads her over to the small beach and drapes his pelt on the floor, spreading it out. Astrila just stares at it as he begins to remove his clothing, not wanting to get them soaked with water, even if they are mostly waterproof. He removed his pelt, his pelt. He told her that you never do that, not unless you trust the people around you completely. She has to blink back tears. To pull herself away from her thoughts, she shakes her head and does the same with her own pelt. She trusts him enough for that, she loves him.

He is in the water by the time she removes her own clothes and carefully places them in a bundle at the top of her pelt. The water is delightfully warm as she steps into it, cradling her in heat. She swims over to Kōri and stands at his side, the water almost up to her chin. The water is only up to his shoulders, lapping against his neck. They stand there staring at each other for a long moment, neither saying a word.

Then Kōri breathes out, "Can I . . ."

She doesn't need him to finish the sentence to understand what he is asking, and she only nods in answer. He carefully reaches a hand toward her to cradle her cheek. She sidles closer and his eyes drop to her mouth. Then he surges forward and kisses her, but it's soft, tentative, careful. Astrila smiles and pulls away slightly.

"You don't have to be afraid of my reaction, Kōri. I'm choosing the Siqiniq bond, and you."

A tear of joy slips from his eye before he surges forward again. This kiss is stronger, full of emotion. She kisses him back and twines her hands around his neck.
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Again, what do you think of the prophecy? Do you think it is what the wind was referring to? What do you think the blue flower is? What scared Kōri about the prophecy?

Also, what do you think about the ending scene? It's been a long time coming and it's pretty clear what's about to happen, but I'm not writing it for several reasons.
1. I don't want to write a sex scene.
2. I don't want this story to be labeled mature/ or for my younger readers to be reading something like that.
3. I don't really have a reference point nor do I want to ask for one.
4. I don't think it's necessary to the story. It happening, yes. An actual description of it, no.
So there we go, those are my reasons.

Tell me your thoughts on everything!

Happy reading and I'll see you next chapter!

~Goddess of Fate, signing out.