ADRIEN, MARINETTE ET LA REINE DES NEIGES

VI. Les sages du Grand Nord

A slender red-headed woman who seemed to be a healer, seeing all three shivering with cold on the outskirts of the port village in the Far North, welcomed them into her warm and humble home. After landing and asking for directions, they had reached the herbalist's tiny cabin. There, the pirate siblings told her the story of their quest, and she listened to them with eager ears; while an exhausted Marinette, who had staggered into the cabin with Luka and Juleka for crutches, slumped down into a bed of deer-furs and dried lichen in the corner.
"Poor little friends of mine! First you three have to eat and drink something warm, and put on more warm layers. There is still a long way to go!" Mademoiselle Bustier told them after listening to their story. "There are about one hundred leagues left to reach the Snow Queen's palace! But near its esplanade lives a friend of mine, a wise old sage who will surely explain what you three have to do far better than I. So I will write Master Fu a message, and send it with you as messengers, right? Give this letter to Master Fu, for he surely knows how to give you good advice."
For living in such a quaint place, the healer was rather fond of literature, and thus she had a well-stocked library and blank paper to spare. Tearing the last blank page from Book the Fifth by Rabelais, she wrote the message with brush and ink and with utmost care in strange characters, paying heed to the stroke order.
Once Marinette had fully recovered from the exhaustion of the journey, and after some warm bowls of soup and mulled wine for everyone, she and the two young pirates got on Mademoiselle Bustier's reindeer-pulled sled, donning the shapka hats and coats of white fur she had given them, as, wishing bon voyage, the healer said a fond farewell.
Once more, they got their show on the road, as Luka said, whipping the reins to urge the deer forwards. Wolves howled and snowy owls hooted, and the air hissed with cold. Strange emerald and blue lights flashed across the sky above them. The air grew so cold it felt as if it might crack, and soon all they could see around them was sparking snow. They shared the loaf, and carried on and on through the snow, until their whole bodies were numb with cold. The three young people travelled for hours across the frozen tundra, well-wrapped in the deer furs that Mademoiselle Bustier had put on their sleigh seat, before they spotted the column of smoke from the wise master's dwelling; until at last they reached a hut that looked like a little Shinto shrine half-buried in the snow, and tapped at the door. Marinette handed over the message, which she had kept safe from the sleet inside her raincoat, to the owner of the cozy place, a short old man with a thin moustache and Asian features, as he let them inside. Within the shrine, it was burning hot with the sacred fireplace on which a dark pot was hanging; and thus, the first thing that Master Fu did was to help Marinette and the siblings out of their winter clothing. Then she handed the message written on the blank page to the old master and told her all of her story.
Thrice he read the message, until he had learned it all by heart; and, after reading it carefully for the third time, Master Fu tucked the writing into the flame, for he never let good kindling go to waste, and put some algae in the cast-iron pot above, for boiling soup stock.
Then he gave the three youngsters some warm algae soup, and, while they were drinking it, he unfurled an ancient scroll which he kept in a lacquered octogonal box, and studied the strange characters, as similar as they were different to those Mademoiselle Bustier had written, that had been written with brush and ink on the yellowed fibre-paper.
"If you are as wise as Mademoiselle Bustier says," Juleka tried not to flatter the wise old sage, "please help Marinette save her Adrien."
"How would I help her?" said the master, his almond eyes bright but telling nothing.
"You could make her swallow a draught that turned her as strong as ten tigers," Luka suggested, "so that she can defeat the Snow Queen."
And thus, hobbling on his cane, Master Fu led Marinette aside to a corner of the shrine and told her:
"Little Adrien is indeed at the Snow Queen's palace, and he considers it the best of all possible places. But that is only because there is crystal glass dust from the Mirror of Truth in his eyes, and, furthermore, he breathed some of it in and it lodged in his heart. It is necessary that these crystals should be taken out of him... Otherwise, he will never break free from the grasp of the Snow Queen, and he will remain frozenhearted for evermore."
"Please... cannot you give me anything that could break the enchantment?" the maiden herself pleaded. "You could make me as strong as ten tigers, so that I can defeat the Snow Queen..."
Master Fu sighed in response, and shook his head.
"Ten tigers could not defeat the Snow Queen as well as this little ladybug can, just as she is. Have you not realised that your greatest power lies within your own heart? Royalty obey your commands; even pirates help you. You have walked through fire and ice, making it so far across the wide world on your own two feet. You are the only one who can make it to the palace of the Snow Queen and set Adrien free. Now tell your pirate friends to take you two miles further north, to the edge of the Snow Queen's garden, but not one step beyond. The final stand is a battle you have to fight on your own. And remember, your power is in your goodness; not even the direst of winters can defeat that."
"I must try," she replied.
In eager haste, Marinette stormed out of the shrine towards the Snow Queen's fortelesque ice palace. Once more, she set off in the sleigh pulled by their faithful reindeer, while Luka whipped the reins the fastest he could. They had been given instructions to carry on for two miles further north, and to leave her there. "The rest she will have to do herself."
When they had already sledded for a good while, Marinette realised that she had left her shapka and her coat in Master Fu's shrine, but then Juleka gladly offered the maiden her own winter coat, and her brother hatted Marinette with his own fur hat.
And thus they led her to the edge of the palace gardens, where a single gnarled holly bush, its leaves all frosted, marked the boundary of the Snow Queen's lands. The edge of the Snow Queen's garden was marked with a wall of huge, jagged blocks of ice. Nothing but that single holly grew in it, but the snow fell so thickly that there was scarcely any air between the flakes.
Lots of sobs had to be choked back when the siblings took their leave of our heroine.
"I hope we will see one another again. But now I must hurry to save Adrien."
Marinette slid to the ground and began to walk, watching the sleigh return at full speed over the tundra, but then, as soon as she was left of her own, a terrible blizzard came down upon her.
The snowflakes, which, as they fell, formed monstrous icy blue butterflies with jagged wings, were actually the vanguards of the Snow Queen's army. They surrounded Marinette, who, in a fright, searched inside her pockets, while humming a nursery rhyme for reassurance... and found her lucky charm yo-yo. Her breath not only condensed, but even gasped, as she flicked the right wrist with the yo-yo held in her right hand, trying to hit her enemies and thinking anything would do as a weapon, but the lucky charm began to shine with a burning hot ruby light, lunging at the ice butterflies and dissolving them into liquid as it struck them.
And thus, Marinette, crossing the field of battle, was able to carry on her way without being attacked.