Storybook Chapter 2, Stage 1 (Unsteady Foundation)

After accepting the task from Fenrir, Kiri and Styx packed a few pouches for the trip and set out from the camp. Kiri was more enthusiastic about seeing more of this land versus risking this “Neebo” not existing. Her ears perked and twitched at every sound as the pair made their way in the direction of the Weeping Oasis, expecting at any moment for the ground beneath their paws to split and one of them to be swallowed by the crumbling land.

Styx on the other hand wholly believed that Neebo existed. She was making a mental list of all the questions she wanted to ask him. About Helvalla and how it came to be and how the Hellhounds arrived here and how they have survived for so long here unnoticed. She wondered what he looked like and if he was nice. Maybe hes a dragon, or a unicorn! She could feel her heart race faster in excitement at the thoughts rushing through her head.

“I wonder what hes like.” Mused Styx as they walked.

Kiri rolled her eyes. “He can’t be like anything, he doesn’t exist.”

“We don’t know that! According to the legends, he only shows himself to those he deems worthy, so maybe anyone else who has sought him out wasn’t worthy in his eyes.”

“And what makes you think we will be?” Kiri asked, her voice tinged with slight annoyance. “What happens if we go all this way and he doesn’t deem us ‘worthy’? Then what? We gotta go all the way back to camp and tell Fenrir that he wasn’t there and that we still don’t have any answers.”

Styx shrank a little at the smaller felvarg’s words before picking her head back up and sniffing in indigence. “We helped fight off Loki and stopped him from taking the Throne. Theres no way we can’t be ‘unworthy’.” she said confidently.

Kiri simply looked at the Titan with a raised eyebrow. “Did we?” She said before looking around them for any of the landmarks they were told to follow. The fresh, still healing gashes above her eye pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat as she remembered the night that Loki attacked the camp.

Styx hesitated only briefly at Kiri’s question before the rumble reached her ears. She stepped around Kiri and braced against her, helping the scarred felvarg keep her balance during the quakes. Even though Kiri has been missing a paw since before Styx knew her, she still has seen the maroon pelted felvarg stumble during the more fierce of the quakes.

Once the tremor had passed, the pair continued their trek. Kiri's question hung in Styx's mind as she looked up towards Lethe, her raven. Did they actually beat Loki? She recalled there at the end that he was fighting on their side to protect Aurora. Did that count as a win for them? Especially since since then hes disappeared. Lethe swooped down and out of sight for a brief moment before coming back into view and circling above where he dove.

"I think Lethe has found our next landmark." Styx says, taking the lead to show Kiri where her raven was circling.

As the journey continued onward in silence, the winds picked up, joining the erratic rumbles and quakes coming from the land's core. Kiri wanted this done and over with already. She and Fenrir had never really seen eye to eye, ever since this whole thing started, but this mission in particular to her was simply a waste of time. Something to keep everyone busy while we awaited the inevitable return of Loki and his army, or, at least, whatever was left of it.

The closer they got to the location marked on their map, the more severe the weather. The sun was beginning to set now, though you could hardly tell through the dark clouds spitting sharp stinging ice crystals at them. The wind became more furious as they went, threatening to sweep Kiri off of her feet several times. The biting cold had stilled their conversations a short while back, the only sounds as they continued onward being the howling wind, the plinking of ice onto ice and their chattering teeth.

Lethe cawed from Styx's back moment's before the ground shook beneath their feet. The pair ducked their heads against the storm and ran, but the quake seemed to follow them, the ground cracking and splitting behind them. Before long, the rift caught up to them and darted between their paws. Styx nearly doing the splits before recovering herself on one side of the fresh chasm. Kiri slid to a halt on the opposite side from Styx, barely saving herself from toppling into the abyss that now separated them.

"Gods damn this fool's errand!" Snarled Kiri over the howling winds. This was the final straw. If Fenrir wanted to find this mythical 'Neebo', let him make this journey himself.

"Are you ok?" Called Styx while scanning the area. It seemed the tremor had stopped for the time being. "I see a spot where the crack is narrower, you can jump across from there!"

"I'm not jumping across anything! I'm going back to camp! I will fight anyone but I am not risking my life on a pointless adventure to find a being who doesn't exist!" She snapped.

Styx took a breath to tell Kiri she was wrong, but then paused. Kiri was one of Styx's few friends and she trusted the smaller felvarg's judgment. Was this really a fruitless venture? She thought about all they knew about Neebo and couldn't help but agree that the evidence was inconclusive. Finally she nodded.

"Go back and tell everyone that I am still continuing to the Oasis! I just can't believe that Fenrir would send us to our deaths if it was that low of a chance to be true!" She said, turning to continue on the path they had been walking. This wasn't a suicide mission, it couldn't be.

Kiri rolled her eyes and turned around, scoping out the path they had came from and looking for any new hazards. Some smaller cracks here and there, ankle twisters if she wasn't careful. The snow flurries had already mostly filled in their paw tracks already, so following those back would prove to be challenging if not impossible. She took a deep breath, looking back over her shoulder at the shrinking form of the black and white pelted titan before steeling herself and carefully picking her way back they way they had came. The cold wind burned her lungs and nose, a heavy sadness in her heart. She didn't want to abandon Styx, she would die for the Titan in a fight if it was necessary, but this trip to find a being that no one even knew for sure really existed felt all kinds of wrong to her. She hoped that Styx would forgive her once everything was done.

The storm didn't seem like it was going to let up at all as she walked, squinting to try to see against the driving snow. She wondered if she was even still headed the right way. Blinking away some snow that had gotten into her eyes, she frowned. She could have sworn that she saw movement in the distance. Was that Styx? She opened her mouth to call out but the words froze in her throat from the biting cold and harsh winds. Unable to speak, she tried to pick up the pace to catch up to the figure. At the very least, maybe it was someone who knew of someplace to shelter out of the storm.

Pressing further onward, Kiri could feel her paws freezing. More scars, though these would have the lamest story ever to them. She thought she saw the person again, this time slightly to the right of where she was walking. She dug deeper to find more speed. How this person was moving so quickly in this weather was beyond her. She followed the figure into a snow blurred copse of trees and then blinked.

Warmth brushed over her like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. As she stepped past the trees it was almost as if she had crossed into a separate world all together. The clearing she had stepped into was, in a word, beautiful. Hot springs scattered around her, though all merged in shallow pools, had a soft blue green glow. Where there was no water, small flowers grew of all different colors. Butterflies flitted from flower to flower, glowing a soothing gold. Gingerly, Kiri stepped fully into the clearing, awestruck at the drastic change from the storm raging just beyond the tree line. Was this the Weeping Oasis? How had she gotten here when she was trying to head back to camp? Surely she hadn't gotten lost, had she?

"Kiri! You came after all! I'm so glad you made it safely! Isn't it lovely? Its just like the stories described it!" Called Styx from the opposite side of the clearing, soaking her paws in the waters.

Kiri frowned at Styx. "I mean, I didn't intend to come. I was trying to get back to camp. I guess... Wait. Did you see someone else out in the flurries?"

Styx shook her head. "No one else is out here, Kiri. Its just us."

Kiri sat in the spring next to Styx, appreciating the soothing heat on her frost nipped paws.

"Are you saying you saw someone?" Styx asked.

"I thought I did. I followed them here." Kiri said, more confused now than anything.

Suddenly, Styx gasped. "What if it was Neebo!"

Kiri almost snapped that it couldn't have been this fake person, but paused and thought about it. If she had in fact gotten turned around in the flurries and driving winds, she could have been stuck there until she died. But instead she saw a figure who brought her here. A figure Styx didn't see. She couldn't deny that that is odd, and, if real, whoever it was, saved her. If it was Neebo, the least she could do was to thank him.

"Maybe it was." She said, standing up and looking at Styx. "If it was, he saved me. I couldn't tell my tail from my nose out there. And whatever, or whoever, I followed, brought me here. As much as I hate to say it, I didn't come here by chance alone." She said, looking towards the shrine at the center of the spring.

Paying attention to it now, Kiri walked over to the shrine slowly. It looked as if it had been left forgotten and abandoned long ago, over grown with moss and plants. She stopped at the base of it and took it all in. Stone carved and stacked into the shape of a tablet on a pillar, worn over from the days when it was taken care of. Barely legible runes etched on each face. Old empty pots where flowers and offering used to be placed. If there was anyplace to find a legendary being like Neebo, this would be it.

Kiri nodded to Styx, who had stepped up alongside her. "So, ready to possibly meet a Legend?" She asked the titan.

Styx nodded and Lethe cawed. "Let's hopefully get some answers and not more questions."

One final nod between the pair and they stepped up to the shrine, hearts racing.