AMACon 4: Serendipitous

Day 3: Fire and Ice

"And how will I find him?"

Her voice echoes in the marble chamber as she speaks to The Seer. Old and frail, his eyes are as white as the gossamer strands of his hair, and it seems as though he is sparkling under the light of the oculus above him.

"I'm afraid you will not, Chosen."

Her eyebrows draw together beneath the dangling silver ornaments peering from underneath her fur cap. She was told she should wear fur here, no matter if she's warm or cold.

"Pardon me for my words, and I do not mean to question your wisdom, but surely the Gods cannot send me on this path only for the world to end."

"I cannot speak of the Gods and their desires," his aged voice cracks, "but your journey is the very thread keeping the fabric of life from unravelling."

"But what is a journey without direction? Without destination? Without -"

"You will not find him, Chosen. He will find you."

---

Maine - a name once reserved for farmer's daughters and tavern whores - has never grown so popular in Safikesh. Little ladies cry for their lord fathers in gilded cots with her name engraved, and variations to make it masculine are spreading like wildfire across towns.

Oh, Maine, my lovely Maine. May the Gods be with you, love . The last words she heard from her mother as she looked back for the last time at their little patch of green amidst the sandy hills. But her father was silent. Perhaps dread has stolen his tongue. Dread for his daughter's perilous destiny - the daughter he raised to run swiftly with the lambs and berated for chasing after the wolves. He kept to his hoe and did not even wave goodbye as she closed the wooden gate behind her.

"We can only take you as far as the skirts of Oxway," the man in ashen robes leads her to the caravan. "From there, you travel north to Alesund, to the temple at the foot of mountains capped with snow."

"Snow?"

"Ice, dear Chosen. Like tiny crystals cold to the touch, colder than the coldest nights. A shower of gems from the Gods above, but wary the death they bring, for white is the enemy of life's fertile green."

"I see." She had no sense of which he speaks, as is the rest of the prophecy laid heavily on her slender shoulders. But the Order has travelled all the way to their humble abode, and wise men must be wise enough to know that the harsh winds of the desert are not for travellers who only seek to pass the time. "And what am I to do there?"

"There, you will find The Seer. He will tell you what we can not."

"And what about this, this Man of White you speak of..." she curiously asks as she steps onto the wagon, "will he be there as well?"

"Perhaps The Seer can answer that, dear Chosen. We are merely men reading scrolls; we do not have the sight of the Gods. We do not know where the Man of White dwells or what countenance he beholds; we only know that it is his lifeblood that must burn for the world survive. We only know that it is your fire, and your fire alone, that can burn through his frost."

"But I did not bring flints, or any of the sort, for you said that I must not bring anything but what you will give me."

All this time she was unsure but compliant; she did not resist donning the tight wine-colored bodice that flowed into a skirt. Her mother said it made her look like her servant, despite the same olive of their skins.

She looks down at her feet, where the pack they prepared for her lay wobbling on the wagon floor. "Or are they in here?"

"No, dear Chosen. Those are all for the cold. Your fire," the man in robes points to her chest, "your fire will come from within."

"But I do not -" she lets her shoulders fall in frustration. "I am not of dragon blood. I do not have this fire you speak of. Perhaps it is not me but another Maine, one who lives in Isseria, among the mountains that spit fire."

"Fret not, dear Chosen," he holds her hand firmly and with a solemn smile assures her, "for the journey will light the flame. The Gods have so written, and so shall it befall."

---

"Fancy a cone, milady?" The rotund shopkeeper asks her with his equally fluffy fur coat and hat. She is sitting by the frozen fountain - the very center of Alesund, she is told, where all travellers pass through wherever they may be headed from here on out. He must be quite desperate to come and walk over to her, though to be fair, the fountain is not too far from where the cluster of shops are.

"A cone of what?" She asks with more annoyance than is typical of her. Perhaps the months of waiting - waiting to be found, worst of all, when she has a world to save - have already taken their toll.

"Why, a cone of snow, of course! The sun has never shone so brightly in Alesund for... oh I don't know - millenia, I'd say! It is quite warm don't you think..." his words drill down to a halt. "Ah! I knew it! I knew those ornaments aren't simply the folly of you youngins. Ey, Martha!" he shouts to his wife left manning the storefront, "I was right! She's a visitor!"

"Would not it be better you come over here, Bertrand," shouts his wife back, "rather than flap your greasy wings about a wildflower? This young man here has been standing in line for minutes now and I cannot serve five at a time!"

"Oh, no, it is quite alright, milady. I would gladly wait for something so sweet."

Even from where she sat amid the passing crowd, Maine cannot help but be entranced by the young man's smile. It would not be too farfetched to say that the sun is him, and by that right he does not belong here, but in Safikesh, where the sun is always bright. And what is that on his cheek? She has not seen a chasm so deep anywhere but the ridges at the Forbidden Sands.

"You are quite the charmer, aren't you, lad?" Martha stifles her smile. "I may look like a lady but I certainly am not," she cackles. "Bertrand!!!" she shouts again.

"Yes, my lovely!" Martha had crooked, tar-stained teeth, but Bertrand loved her all the same. "I shall come to your rescue and bring you flowers even!"

Bertrand grabs Maine's hand and she is pulled up on her feet, almost tripping over the fur coat clearly too big for her. "Come, Wildflower, a welcome gift for a faraway visitor is most favorable for business."

Step after step, her sandals land on the icy stone blocks of the bustling town center of Alesund. Closer and closer, she is a dragon flying past men towards the sun in his smile. Faster and faster, her heart drums and stirs, like flint that strikes and strikes again, and by the time she has come close enough to see the blue in his eyes shining against his blinding ivory skin, the ember in her chest has turned to a blaze.

"Pleasant morning, my lady, " the young man greets her, and she notices a hand outstretched from beneath a coat that is too thin to be made of fur. "Alden. I too am a guest of Alesund."

"Go on," Bertrand coaxes her, "Two visitors! What a blessed day!"

She rests her hand onto his palm and he raises it up to meet his lips.

"M-Maine."

"A blessed day, indeed," Alden concurs with a charming grin, "to have met a lady lovelier than her lovely name."

Maine has never touched the sun, nor had she planned she would, but she had imagined it to be hotter than the hottest Safikesh days - not cold as the corpses she had to bury to get here. But perhaps his hand, his lips are cold only because the sky has suddenly changed its mood. The town center of Alesund is still basking in light, but something is falling. Something cold.

Maine looks up.

So this is what they call snow.