Dancing On Ice

White Diamonds

Dinner came and went.

Cole attended and Kazimir ignored him the whole time – so Cole just spoke at him rather than to him. Perry and Cynthia learnt more of Aeralie's sign language with Kazimir translating, Jazz joining in.

Dalton didn't attend dinner thus Aeralie was miserable, though she hid it.

Later that night is was Kazimir's turn to be miserable when Aeralie admitted to him everything his mother had told her. She was looking for a Heart of The Sea that was somewhere in the palace but she had no idea where to start looking, who might have it, how to get it back or even the colour.

As Kazimir put it, any idiot of a human could have crafted it into any old piece of junk jewellery and dumped it at the bottom of a box and forgotten.

The result was that Kazimir went to bed instead of try to figure out what to do. He was too tired that evening having transformed, argued with the sea to make sure it didn't wash him away from shore, got dragged up onto a ship, was carted up to the palace, played make-believe-shipwreck-victim, had another argument with the pirate captain, shook him off then dealt with him again at dinner while playing nice with all the others at the table. To have to try and form a plan of attack to find a mystery missing Heart was too much for him and he went to sleep and ignored the world.

The next day he stated that he felt unwell and couldn't leave his room.

If the pirate captain was going to fuss about the fact that he recovered too quickly, then he was going to have a fever – it meant he didn't have to talk to anyone but his servants, as everyone let him rest.

At least until Aeralie visited and complained that Dalton had skipped dinner again. He told her in no uncertain terms that he didn't care and instead focused on finding out what she could do in terms of language. First, in seeing if she could read and then if she could write.

She could.

His mother had been generous.

That distracted Aeralie for the first day of Dalton's absence.

But he was also absent the third day and the forth.

In fact, no one really saw much of him until the fifth day.

By that time, Kazimir could no longer pretend sickness to hide in his room, if for no other reason than he was failing as a translator by not being around to translate.

So he begrudgingly reappeared and found himself that afternoon going through the finer points of chess with Aeralie as she played a slow practice match with a very patient Princess Cynthia.

As much as he resented her for her very being, a small part of him was grateful to this princess, simply because she was so subtle. He knew from the way she watched Aeralie, she had figured out the princess was slightly... different. And yet she smoothly included her in everything and tactfully explained things without making it seem like she was teaching.

This meant the day was peaceful.

Aeralie enjoyed her new human friends, ignoring the task at hand. Kazimir ignored said human friends and concentrated solely on the task at hand.

How to find the Heart and get it back without arousing suspicion?

It would have to be in a damn palace, wouldn't it? It couldn't be in a one roomed cottage. That would be too simple.

His internal griping was interrupted when the door to the lounge they had retired too was opened and Cole walked in.

Kazimir set himself up ignore him until he noticed that captain's expression.