Yuletide: Night Eleven
Frost curled around the edges of the windows peering inside
where the fire burned bright. The
kitsune padded along the back of a couch sneaking up on the elf woman with the
bright red hair. Silently, he pounced! Without turning the elegant lady reached
behind her head and plucked him from the air.
With a smile on her face she settled him on her lap. The bemused kitsune cooperated fluffing his
two tails over her skirts. He was where
he intended to be anyways. The black
dragon’s scales glinted as if he was smirking.
The light playing on his scales settled down and he spoke. “Without knowing what she had in mind the Ice
Basilisk followed Lyra whilst fear and hope warred in his heart. The Plane she led him to was a curious
conundrum: the Plane of Frost and Flame.”
The Plane of Frost and Flame
Icy chills battle with scorching drafts
Light gives meaning to crystalline creations
Trees of frost bear petals of flame
In an unlikely, dazzling, Plane.
Ice raises the ground
With pillars of crystal
Fire razes the earth
Leaving ash in its wake,
Frost etches patterns on stone
Fire peels them off
Contorting in the air
Lighting up ice crystals,
Strange the frost that does not melt
Strange the fire that does not die
Where cold and heat exist entwined
Where frost and flame exist in harmony.
Here the phoenix leads the Ice Basilisk
Here they linger for a month and a day
Here they create and dream and laugh
In a Plane where both their powers hold sway.
They weave fire and frost
Entwine flame and ice
Forging that which can exist
Only here, until now,
Now a phoenix and an Ice Basilisk
In tandem create in hope and joy
Forging baubles, forging guides
That can survive in Planes inimical,
When that month and day have passed
The Ice Basilisk lingers sleepless and longing
The phoenix gathers up their creations
Carrying them off to other Planes,
Baubles she hung on the limbs of trees
By the dwellings of sentients across the Planes
Fire and frost entwined in beauty
Inspiring hope and sparking joy,
The guides were larger, stranger, and complex
Globes of interwoven frost and flame
Keyed to seek out the lost
Keyed to lead them home again,
Lyra left them in the dark and deep
In smoke, in fog, in caverns, in night
She strewed them about the Ice Basilisk’s trail
That those in need would be found by light.
Behind the black dragon a globe appeared in the mirror, a
globe woven of frost and flame. For a
moment the kitsune thought it was coming for someone in the room, and then it
turned and drifted away. The mirror was
just a mirror again, reflecting the room.
The black dragon picked up his tale.
“Thus, from an unlikely friendship were born the guides of frost and
flame. Even today we hear rumors of the
guides leading beings home to their loved ones, or leading them to the home
they never knew could be.” The kitsune
wondered about the guide he had seen in the mirror, and who it had been coming
for before it turned away.
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