The White Mountain

Rio shivers, his teeth chattering.

"Y-yeah. Much better here."

He looks nervously over the edge of the cliff, at the long, long drop down to the rocks below. One stiff breeze could knock him clean over. Shaking his head, he moves closer to Neia.

"What will you do here, Lady Neia? There's nobody here. Your children have gone."

With another worried glance at the cliff, he scoots a little further away from the edge.

"Is there even any food here?"

Rio follows her inside, relieved to be further away from the cliff. To be honest, he's glad that her children are gone. They worried him. He takes the proffered fruit, admiring the trees.

"Thank you, Lady Neia."

Lifting the plum, he takes a generous bite. It smells sweet.

"Hmm? Lady Neia?"

Rio continues to eat the sugar plums, as they're delicious and he's starving.

"Mistress of winter? Huh? What else would you be called besides Lady Neia? That is your name, after all. And it is a beautiful one indeed, my lady. It suits you."

"Oh?"

Rio blows on his hands, trying to warm them.

"You want me to go to the city, my lady? How would I contact you? How would I let you know what's happening?"

Of course, he thinks, it would be nice. It's warm down there, and his uncle is there. Of course, he can't run. Lady Neia would hunt him down if he ran. But wouldn't it be nice to be warm for a little while?

Rio stares at the pendant dubiously. It's probably enchanted to kill him if he takes it off. But no matter, it's not like she couldn't track him anyway. He's long since resigned himself to his fate as her plaything.

"Yes, my lady. You will see the wonders of the city, and hear all the music and gossip of the streets. I'll spread the remorse, just as you ask."

He takes a deep breath and dons the necklace, shivering as the freezing metal touches his skin.

"This necklace, my lady. It won't melt, Will it's? Because I'd hate to take a bath and have your gift melt away. That would be awful."

Neia laughed beautifully, charmingly. "Oh, my dear Rio Fletcher. It will not melt. Go, then. And report to me," she smiled at Rio, reclining in her throne with the pleasure of a cat with a belly full of cream.

. . . . . . . . .

Unfortunately, fluttering was not an option when it came to the White Mountain.

It was only too obvious that the blizzards surrounding this mountain top were unlike the blizzards on the others. There was something else in the force-wind gales that whipped and ripped around the mountain side, even making the mighty trees bend to their strength. It almost seemed as if there was a magical pulse, meant to expel any unwanted visitors, whoever they may be. The snow whipped and turned, nothing but white all around whatever being ventured into its depths, meant to confuse and turn around. When one was surrounded by white, how did one know to go forward or backward, West or East, around or straight?

It was not easy. It was not simple. Perhaps, to an untrained mind, this would simply be the most horrible of storms. To those that new better, they could sense immediately that there was something more. Whoever was on top of that mountain did not want visitors. Yet.

Neia lifted herself from her throne once Rio Fletcher had left. She was humming to herself, and then frowned. Why should she have to hum? She stepped down the stairs of her icy throne and waved her hand.

ice drifted and form until they were fae musicians. "Well, go on," she said to her creations, and music began to pour from their stringed instruments. She waved another hand, and the frozen statues of men and women began to dance in the large great hall, and with a smile, she moved through a door into another room.

A large icy orb was in the middle, a veranda of her lovely storm visible to the eye. Yet her magic stirred, like a thread in her web being plucked and she smoothed her hand over the floating orb on the ground.

She saw the black crow coming, saw how it stayed in the air, heedless of the storms that surrounded the White Mountain. And then it seemed to find its way through, as if it had realized the trick. She watched as the dark crow turned into a dark boy and approached the large doors of the crystalline castle, nestled in the Eye of the Storm.

"Hm," Neia said. Was she amused? Was she annoyed? She hadn't decided yet. Her dress sparkling around her body, her starlight hair flowing as she stepped, she let her fingers dance in the air and little snow sprites formed.

"My darlings, please greet our guest," she said to them. They twittered and then buzzed away from her as she turned back to the orb. She tapped it...

... and before the dark boy, the thick, gargantuan ice doors slid open, with a rumble quite like thunder. The sunshine from the day outside poured into the dark blue of the inside of the castle, and a gentle wind almost seemed to coax Xel'Rath further inside.

Once inside, he'd find hallways and staircases and beautiful ice architecture that made a labyrinth, a mish-mash of corridors and steps that lead all at once no place and every place.

Neia had been slowly circling the orb in her ante-chamber, the music of the ball going on with the ice figurines echoing off the walls of the grandiose castle. Her glacial blue eyes sharpened as she looked through her orb and out into the blizzard beyond.

"You," she said beneath her breath, and it did not sound as if she was happy to see Krypt trying to make his way through the snow. Without magic to guide him, it was going to be impossible. He would freeze to death before he found his way to the castle.

"What... are you doing here?" she asked herself, her head tilting to the side as her shimmering hair flowed. A thoughtful expression stole over her beautiful face, and then she reached out and let a fingertip slide down the surface of the globe.

And in front of Krypt, a tunnel seemed to form, a tunnel through the storm where the winds did not batter or howl, where the snow did not blur and freeze, where the ice did not cut and slice. A tunnel of calm through the storm that ultimately let to the White Castle.

They were indeed open, open like the great mouth of a beast that just waited for its prey to walk inside. There was no warmth to be had here, no crackling fire, no carpets on the floors. It was all just ice, hard, cold, ice, but beautiful in how delicate it could be, how it sparkled, to how strong and dark and piercing.

Just like Xel'rath, he could walk inside and into the labyrinth of corridors and staircases, where ice chandeliers and delicate ice-fairy chains hung from the ceiling, a marvel to steal the imagination.... Dare he step inside?