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There’s a brief moment where Ingo thinks that he’s dreaming—he’s airborne, flying high above the mountains in a foreign land. The sky ripples behind him, a jagged fissure, and snow piles high on the ground beneath him. In the distance, the light plays tricks and it seems as though the mountains themselves heave slightly, as if they were breathing.
The dream ends abruptly, a high-speed crash into the side of a mountain. His eyes hardly have time to adjust as he clatters down cliffs, soaring past startled gligar and rufflet. He comes to a halt in a thick snowdrift; powder shoots into the air around him and every bone and muscle in his body groans softly, frost seeping through his skin.
He closes his eyes and rolls onto his side; he’ll wake up soon, surely.
When Ingo wakes, it isn’t the prickling cold and alien landscape that injects him with panic. It’s the red, beady eyes and narrow, curved claws that hover over his frigid body. The beast draws up to its full height, and whatever it is, there has never been one aboard the Battle Subway’s many cars. Battle Sub-way? It snorts, breath turning to mist, then sprints off into the distance, clambering up the same cliffs he plummeted from.
Each breath he takes feels like a sword unsheathed. Thick clouds roll in overhead while his vision blurs, hands trembling as he takes up fistfuls of snow in an attempt to stand.
The breeze is but a light whistle, the calm before the storm lulling him back to sleep.
A calloused set of hands heft him from the snowdrift and onto a broad, muscular shoulder. The ice encroaching on his eyelashes makes it difficult to see beyond, but as his rescuer huffs and puffs, he can make out a thin frame of a girl following behind them. Her strides are quick and short, pink skirt fluttering out behind her like a parachute. Their voices are bathed in concern, jawing back and forth about a settlement and a legacy.
Before long, the inviting warmth of wooden braziers coat his shivering skin. He’s finally put down on the sturdy porch of a longhouse, left to his own devices whether or not to stand. His legs make that decision for him, leaving Ingo to not do much more but stare upwards lifelessly. Both people that stand before him are hardly clothed for cooler climates, let alone the savage snowstorm that surrounds them. The man crosses his arms, countenance awash with confidence and poise, a misused jacket twisted around his waist. The girl leans forwards, acutely analyzing each wrinkle and pore on Ingo’s body. Their eyes meet; there is no tension, no animosity, merely the hope to understand. He aches to understand anything about what’s happened to him. A haze further envelops his mind with each passing moment, drawing the blinds between what had been and what is.
She breaks the silence. “I’m Irida, leader of the Pearl Clan. This is Gaeric. You’re new to the Icelands, aren’t you, stranger?”
Ingo does what he can to nod.
“Figured as much. Where are you from?”
Ingo’s train of thought runs trackless, gears clicking and squealing with no direction. His mouth opens, but with no reply. “I… I’m not quite sure, to be honest,” he answers after a moment. “There was a bright light… at the end of some tunnel.”
Gaeric snaps his fingers. “He likely fell prey to the phantom foxes that burrow beneath the icy heart of the Icelands. A spell of amnesia is hardly uncommon.”
The hollowed gaze in Ingo’s eyes makes Irida think differently. “Then we shall care for him, at least until he’s fit to go home.” She stares at the gashes in his striped jacket, then looks east, towards Sinnoh’s coastlands that sprawl out just over the ridge. “Wherever that may be.”
A week has passed since Ingo’s impromptu arrival to the Alabaster Icelands. He’s yet to find comfort in the collection of clan leaders sharing a meal with him. Gaeric hardly looks up from the bowl before him, scarfing down spoonfuls of a mushroom and herb stew. Irida looks away in an unsuccessful attempt to veil the disgust on her face. He’s come to know the two of them the most, though Gaeric spends the majority of his time honing his mind and body at Icepeak Arena.
He’s a warden, Irida explained. They all are—Lian and Palina and Calaba—selected by traditional rites and coincidence in equal measure, duty-bound to watch over noble lords revered by the clan for generations. Ingo had questioned further, but there was either not enough time or Irida did not have the patience. Or perhaps, though she assured him it was not the case, an outsider infringing on the history of the clan with such fervor would surely bring calamity.
In any case, any knowledge he may have acquired sits lonely in his mind in a snowy enclave.
Palina and Calaba are nice enough, making the effort to include him in conversation he doesn’t understand. They discuss the galaxy and some burgeoning village, while they dip rolls of bread into broth.
Meanwhile, through no fault of his own, Lian is the one warden that torments Ingo. His posture, his euphemisms, and his hat that sits askew gnaws at him—like a pickaxe or shovel, chipping away at the depths of a mountain.
He rises without further comment from the dinner table, eyes awash with confusion and frustration beneath a thin film of whiskey, his memories behind a leaden fog. Irida and the wardens watch on as Ingo shuffles to the door, fumbling in his jacket pockets with a free hand as the other pushes against almighty Sinnoh’s furious blizzard.
Flurries pile on his shoulders, arms, boots as he slumps down onto a wooden bench just outside the tavern. A half-smoked cigar hangs limply between the fingers of his right hand as he stares out onto the bone-chilling Icelands. In his left hand, a metal lighter sits open in his weak grasp. Ingo flicks at it with his thumb, watching metal grind and spark until a flame finally catches and holds.
The sour stench of butane is whipped away by the bluster, but the flickering fire entrances him. Its hue seems wrong, almost unnatural, the way the gold and crimson dances in the wind. What is it that’s missing? What is it that he’s expecting?
It’s silent on the tavern’s patio—until the gusts die down for a brief moment, as thick rings of smoke pour from Ingo’s mouth. His ears perk up at the sound of his name, spilling awkwardly from a stranger’s mouth like a dense molasses.
“Ingo, or whatever his name is? Irida said they found him in a snowdrift, that he’s lost his mind.”
A soft chiding voice replies, “Or perhaps too much found his mind. Now please treat our guest with the dignity and respect he deserves, and pitch him a tepee.”
The strangers dance around their replies, instead choosing to trip over each other and out the door as the winds conveniently regain their aim. Almighty Sinnoh and their machinations.
Ingo inhales deeply, lungs saturated with cinder and smoke, a rather familiar and comforting fragrance. He watches as members of the Pearl Clan stumble through the snow, past curious snorunt and bergmite, towards a small clearing between Irida’s comparably majestic lodgings and the looming cliff face.
Calaba draws near soundlessly, betrayed only by the heaving weight of her bibarel’s steps and a soft cough. “Ingo, was it?” She sits beside him without anticipating invitation.
“Indeed, ma’am. Apologies about the smoke.” He ashes the cigar on the bench and dips the tip in the snowbank forming around his ankles.
She waves him off, in sync with the broad leaf swaying above her head. “I smoked plenty in my day. Gave it up when I took up the mantle as Ursaluna’s warden.” Her laugh is thin, as though it were passing through a filter. “No time for wickedness after that.”
They watch the barren beeches bowl over in the winter squall. The rift crowning Mount Coronet crackles and whines, snapping with light like a thunderstorm. It’s the first company he’s had that doesn’t put him on edge—her stern but soft presence is a comfort in the cold. She gets back to her feet and eyes him curiously.
“For as long as you need it, you have a home amongst the Pearl Clan.” A chittering yowl from somewhere high above the mountains draws her attention. “Who knows? Perhaps you’ll be of use to us yet.”