Road to Ruisea

❆ ❆ XLVII. KUMARI ❆ ❆

Kumari genuinely could not believe her eyes.

What she'd slipped on wasn't super smooth or slightly wet rock, but rather...

A thin sheet of ice encasing it.

Kumari's giddy — she really wants to slip and slide and play on it, the ghosts she'd been hearing all but forgotten.

"We must be close," Jae's voice sounds just as excited as Kumari feels. "We must be really close."

"N-no wonder," Chiro's teeth are chattering. "I can't stop f-freezing. Should've worn three sweaters."

"You don't have three sweaters."

"S-still."

Kumari's sliding up ahead, following the path of ice, is a little unlike previous mountain paths they've been walking on earlier today, in one way and one way only: it's completely frozen over.

So Kumari does what any of the characters in her books would do, and allows the icy roadway to take her where she needs to go, skidding across it as if she's skating with those fancy shoes that have metal attachments at the bottom, whooping and cheering and calling out for Jae and Chiro to follow behind her. Her skirt whips around and she shivers a shiver not unlike Chiro's shivers as the cold air hits her legs, but it's alright because she's having way too much fun to care.

"Oh, oh, oh!" She skids to a stop at the base of the mountain — she's pretty proud that they've managed to climb up and down two mountains today, that's pretty impressive for a couple of teenagers on a time limit.

She skids to a stop, however, both physically and in thought, as she's faced with a giant wall. Not of stone, but of ice. She reaches out to it, putting her hand against the sparkling and smooth surface, only to yelp and pull away — it's really cold, so cold it hurts.

The other boys are laughing as they come to a sliding stop behind her, except they don't manage to put the brake on their bodies in time and end up sliding into Kumari, knocking them all down to the icy ground.

It's painful, but they're all laughing anyways. It's hard to feel bad when you're having fun with your friends — especially after all the emotional distress. It's good to feel a little relief and laughter, even if it's just for no real reason.

They help each other up, but barely, still slipping and sliding on the ice, unable to keep their balance on terrain so unfamiliar. Finally, they manage to stay still long enough to look at the ice wall.

"It's a dead end," Jae frowns. "That's it. It's either back up the mountain, or up this wall of ice. No forward, only back..."

Chiro frowns as well, not liking it. "Check the map, maybe?"

Jae does so, reaching for the paper in his vest pocket with shaking hands and reddened fingertips. He takes it out gingerly, unfolding it.

"We're in the right spot," he points to a drawing of Qiluca's silhouette and then something vaguely shaped like Qiluca next to it, what they now realize is the second mountain...

And next to it's Ruisea. Where the second mountain ends, Ruisea begins.

Kumari looks between the map and the wall of ice, "You're telling me that's Ruisea?"

"I think it's blocking Ruisea off," Chiro taps his chin. "Like, a fence or a gate."

"If it's a gate, how do we open it?" Kumari asks.

"We could..." Jae scratches his head. "I could climb it."

"Iiii seriously doubt it," Chiro shakes his head. "You're a good climber—"