Frozen Fragile Fragments

Chapter 3: Return to the Martagdsan

Unexpectedly the woman clenching Khachi by the neck disposes of him as she tosses him to the side. As he falls, he lands hard on the table that they were eating on earlier, utterly destroying it into pieces.

Horrendous cackling fills their ears as the woman slings herself onto the bed Khachi was once under. She rips through the thin mattress and creates a crater in it only to pull out a lava rock that appears to be encased in a thin layer of ice.

As the eerie two-tone laughing continues and the woman is momentarily distracted, Khachi pulls Okin out from under the bed and carries him toward the door. He catches a glimpse of the two bags the two had when they entered, sitting just within reach, and he tosses them to Okin. But, just as Khachi throws the backpack and satchel in Okin's direction, the masked woman whips around and grabs Khachi by the arm.

Her long, sharp nails dig into his arm as she pulls his face to hers. Horror shakes his fleeting heart as his eyes land on endless black ones. The woman's eyes are dark and not just in the color of the iris, but as in they lack in white. Almost like a black marble being used instead of a pair of eyes.

Through the thin slits of the mask, the eyes seem to reflect light, moving as if she is trying to annalize Khachi's facial features. Finding them unusually familiar to her.

Just as Okin considers separating the two, Lin Hui comes into view. Her expression, as always, is emotionless and unchanging.

"Put it back!" Lin Hui sternly yells.

The woman's mask-covered face snaps in her direction. Her laughing only evolves into a mocking one.

"You want this?" The two voices sneer through the horror-stricken mask as they proudly hold up the lava rock and, with her other one releasing Khachi from her grasp. "No!" This time the high-pitched voice snaps. "I've put too much time into collecting this,"

As the words leave her mouth, Khaliun rounds the yurt to stand at its threshold. "So, it was you that turned the dead into oreks."

Khachi takes his chance to escape and runs to the door where the others stood.

"Hahahahahaha! Did you like the show? Was it fun? Yes? No?" The woman asks. Khaliun's typically graceful face holds a severe expression. "Huh... It was to me," A hissing laugh echoes through the yurt.

Lin Hui dashes toward the woman before another exchange of words can occur. Her speed is so fast that it takes Khachi a moment to realize she has moved.

A flash of light explodes through the yurt, knocking the two back. Yet, to both of the boys' surprise, they fall onto a soft bed of snow.

"Hurry! Move!" Khaliun urges them. She helps them up, pulling them further back from the fight between the other two. When at a safe enough distance, a glare of bright light blue light blinds them as she builds a sheet of ice around them. "Stay here. Out of the way,"

Once the last words leave her mouth, she runs back to Lin Hui to help.

The ice distorts the fighting scene between the three making it hard to follow. At most, the two can only make out the women's silhouettes by the power they produce. Lin Hui seems to carry most of the fights as red, green, or sometimes white flashes of light rattle the ground as she goes all out. Not much of the white and arctic blue the two observed from Khaliun seems to take play during the battle. Even more shocking to the two is that neither of them could guess which attacks were the woman's or if she had any.

It is almost like she is purposely avoiding the fight entirely.

On the other side of the ice, Lin Hui proceeds to aim rapped fire on the unknown woman. Her blasts create small earthquakes as prickly saltwart darts from the ground and reach out, providing aid in the fight with its long roots extending it further beyond average length. The saltwort turns into large bullets of tumbleweeds hurling after their target.