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Fate had a funny way of reuniting familiar faces when it was least expected. And truly, Caedwyn wasn’t expecting to see anyone he knew today. Had he been, he might have moved a little more swiftly, a little more energetically. But instead he moved at a leisurely pace, letting the sound of the wind and brustling of grass fill his ears. A chirping of birds called in the distance, causing him to pause and raise his head to look out over the distance in the direction of the sound. A bird sounded tasty right about now, but it was far off and birds were difficult things to catch. Too much effort for so little meat. His momentary hope fleeted away and with a little sigh he turned back toward the direction he’d been traveling. But fate had other ideas. As he turned, the breeze caught him with a sudden chill and he wondered if a storm was blowing in. It caught him off guard and he squinted his eyes, letting a shiver ripple through his body as it passed over him. And in that moment, his ears caught a noise both equally familiar and strange to him. In an instant he stopped, his eyes opening and head lifting once more. Like a shockwave passing over him, his body reacted, turning toward the sound. It was faint but he swore he had heard it. Or was it just the wind playing tricks on him? He knew the sound. He knew it. There was no way he could mistake Enya’s voice, and yet it was so foreign to him. The happiness in that sound. The pure childlike joy that he had never heard from her before. Surely this must have been his imagination. The shiver turned into a tremble at the thought. It couldn’t be… The tremble turned into motion, one foot in front of the other as he darted up and over a hill. He just had to reach the top. He had to. He must. Maybe, just maybe from there he’d be able to see. Coming to the peak, he stopped, his eyes darting back and forth across the fields and trees in the distance, searching. Where was she? Had he truly heard her? Had she moved along too fast and he’d miss her? Or was this strange realm betraying his sanity? Playing a cruel joke on his heart. Then finally, he heard it once more - the sound of laughter. His eyes flashed over to the source. It was her. Enya. His heart pounded heavily in his chest with anticipation. He’d found her. There was something inside him now that felt relieved, like he’d found something he didn’t know he’d been searching for all along. He could tell now this was no mirage. He couldn’t mistake her form or the sense of her ice magic floating in the air. As the thudding of his heart began to calm (though only a little), a smile came to his face. Not a mischievous, trickster smile but one of happiness. He had found her. Locking his eyes to her, as if she would disappear if he looked away, he focused on the energy of her magic and used his will to redirect it. The snowflakes began to flurry in a playful way around her, swirling through the air before gathering in front of her. Ice began to form on the ground and a frozen crystal began to form, growing up out of the ground in front of her. It grew quickly, taking the shape not of a simple fractal shard, but instead formed into a pair of ice sculptures: two small crystalline wolves stood facing one another in front of her, one bearing the likeness of Enya and one of Caedwyn (as much as a frozen sculpture could anyway). And when the ice had formed, he let out a breath, releasing his control of the snow once more to let the snowflakes blow away and he stood quietly gazing down at her from on the hill. |
A Mysterious Place