Breaking the Ice (Book 1)

Chapter Fourteen

LUNA

"Oh! We forgot to introduce ourselves!" Luna realized, slapping her forehead. Standing beside her, Sleet hissed curses shenever even heard of.

"I don't care what your names are." the Heatling snapped, putting his hands behind his head. Luna ignored this, and told him anyway. "Feet and Tuna, got it." Flare grumbled.

Sleet took a deep breath, giving Luna an exasperated glare. They continued walking in silence for some time. How long, Luna did not know. A while back, she picked up a stick and tossed it from one hand to another.

Flare took the lead. No one actually knew where they were going.

That was when the stick flicked from Luna's hand and went flying...towards Flare. It slapped him in the head, and he stopped walking.

Luna could hear him growl, fire engulfed his clenched left hand. He whirled around and charged at the little Nightling, burning her arm.

The coverings around her tattoos burned away, but her pale skin was unharmed. She tucked her arm behind her back but Flare snatched it and pulled it toward him to examine. "How are you not burned?!" he lashed at her, his grip getting tighter around her arm.

"Let go of me!" Luna yelled.

Beside them, Sleet's intense eyes glared at Flare, ready to strike if he thought of snapping the girl's arm. (Luna prayed that the Heatling wasn't thinking about doing that).

"Let me go right now or it won't be only your nose bleeding!" the words slipped out of her before she could stop them. This made Flare smirk, he scoffed amusedly as he released his grip on her.

"I may have difficulty controlling my anger." he said, although both his tone and expression lacked regret or apology.

Luna sped up ahead of them, where were they even going?

Luna froze. Before her was a desert, she never saw one herself and was surprised to see all of the sand. She put a foot on it and yelped. HOT!

"No." Sleet winced. "No, no, no. We are NOT going there!" Flare already pulled off his shoes and stood in the sand. Sleet put his foot in too, seeing how it sank in the sand, he pulled it back. "No thanks."

Sleet's body was always as cold as an icicle, which could cancel out the heat from the sand. Flare, on the other hand, was used to the heat and didn't give a shoe about it. Luna, sadly, had nothing to protect her from the burning sand, for the cloth she wrapped around her feet back in the Flake Mountains were the same ones she wrapped on her arms. IN WHICH FLARE SET FIRE UPON!

"Wow," Flare cackled, "I didn't know you ice pops were such cowards. That explains how you lost to the Scorpians during your battle."

Sleet growled. "That does it!" He marched in barefooted as well.

Luna sat on the dry grass before the sand. "You go, I'm afraid my feet will start bleeding before I take seven steps."

"You didn't get burned by my fire." Flare pointed out.

"This is different!" Luna objected. "You guys can go, I'll just sit here and die."

"Yeaaaaaah no." Sleet lifted her off the ground.

"Oy! Put me down! Put me down!" Luna yelled. "What? No! Don't kidnap me!"

"Shut up, Nightling." Flare hissed.

"I have a name, you know!" Luna said.

"Do you think I care?" he rolled his eyes.

Sleet made sure she was secured on his back before they began to move. "I'm guessing you've been here before?" Sleet asked Flare, who stopped in his tracks.

"The Saber-tooth Vipers always hunt the littlest." he grinned at Luna.

"Ha ha, so funny I forgot to laugh." she grumbled.

"You'll soon find out if I'm lying or not." Flare shrugged, still smiling evilly. "They come out at night, you don't want to be around when they do."

"What's so dangerous about 'em?" Sleet narrowed his eyes.

Flare was silent for a moment. "They feast on anything alive on the sand. They have teeth that drill into your skin, traveling underneath it as they climb up to feast on the eyes and intestines. They eat you, like, really slowly." he explained nonchalantly.

Luna could feel Sleet shiver. "So why the snow caps are we here?!" the Icee bellowed. But he already knew the answer. None of them had been to the Sihn Akkah Desert, making their curiosity uncontrollable.

That's what brought them together, what they all have in common, they were too curious for their own good.

"Noted." Luna said.

They walked and walked for hours. No people, buildings, or pretty much anything in sight. Only sand, rocks, and spiky things Flare called cactus. The sun began to set, and it got really cold. Luna slowly climbed off Sleet, the sand wasn't as warm anymore. "If the Heatling is really telling the truth, we should find shelter." Sleet declared. The sand felt weird in Luna's toes, it felt rough yet loose.

"There should be an oasis here, if I remember correctly." Flare muttered, not quite to himself. Perhaps he was nice deep, deep, deep down.

Then Luna heard a faint hissssssssss sound. "Do you guys hear that?" the Nightling whispered. "The hissing sound?"

Both Heatling and Icee's eyes widened. "How far is it?" Sleet asked.

"It's faint, but it ain't too far. It's getting louder." she explained.

"Forget the oasis! Let's go!" Sleet yelled.

"This way!" Luna ran in a direction away from the sound.

Then Luna opened her eyes. "'Bout time." Sleet smiled. Had she fallen asleep on his back? It was still day time.

"How long have I dozed off?" the little Nightling yawned, readjusting her grip around his shoulders.

"A while," the wolf chuckled.

Flare, who was walking ahead of them again, acted like he wasn't paying attention to their existence. Although Luna could tell he was listening in on every word.