Mercedes Lackey - Snow Queen

With care, and one eye out for trouble, Aleksia moved her focus out and out, finally finding a bit of ice at the top of a tree, until she had a good idea where the trio was. Swiftly she moved back to another viewpoint of a bit of brass on Urho's harness. I found the older men, but not the younger one. The older men are both spellbound, and although I think I know how to free them, I would rather have some help along before I try. If you keep going straight on your current course, I can intercept you before you reach them.

Then I will do that , Urho replied. Now you must be silent. Too much talk, too much magic, is dangerous. Be careful, Godmother. That warning came just as Aleksia detected a faint stirring that indicated something might have noticed her use of magic. Quickly, she severed the connection between them and went very quiet, magically speaking. She put her head down and thought Bearish thoughts; mostly about the dream she'd had that night, concentrating on how good the dream-food had been, licking the sticky honey from her paws, feeling the sweet juice slipping down her throat.

The uneasy feeling passed. She waited for some time longer, just to be sure. Now was not the time to ruin everything by being impatient. Instead, she used the time to think, to analyze everything she knew about Traditional tales, to try to passively sense what was going on in the currents of Traditional power.

The first thing that came to mind was this: there was no Traditional path for what was happening now. No one had ever impersonated a Godmother before. There were tales of beautiful, cold, seductive Sorceresses, of course. The Tradition was probably reinforcing everything about this woman that followed that path. But as for the rest…Aleksia herself was only following bits and pieces. Godmothers did not openly lead the opposition. Godmothers always worked behind the scenes. It was up to the Heroes and Heroines, the Knights, the Champions, the Wise Fools and the Brave Goosegirls and the like to be the ones to bring the Villains down.

Yet, that was exactly what could not happen here. There was no time to bring a Champion this far North, and even if one could be brought, it would not be someone perfectly suited to the job and the enemy. And Aleksia knew very well what The Tradition did to “any old” would-be Hero or Champion that turned up under circumstances like those. The Tradition destroyed them. Or, more to the point, The Tradition strengthened the Villain so that he or she could do the destruction.

No, the one thing that Aleksia could see was that the perfect Hero to oppose this Villain was — herself. The trick would be to get The Tradition to steer that course as well. Meanwhile, Traditional magic was eddying around the situation in a state of partial chaos, “looking” for patterns it “recognized,” and not finding them.

All the more reason to put together a Questing Party. The Tradition recognized that. The more she could get The Tradition to recognize, the better off they all would be.

Finally, it felt like enough time had passed since that tentative probe to be safe. She stood up on her hind legs, and willed herself back into human form just long enough to put the mirror away and loosely buckle on her pack. Then she transformed back to the Swan for the sake of speed and endurance and waddled out into the snow again, leaving behind the last embers of the fire to warm the cave for whatever else might seek its shelter.

The air was as clear as crystal, the sun shining down out of a sky marked only by the thinnest wisps of cloud. The cold air struck her like a blow. Whatever else was afoot, the false Snow Queen was indeed extending her reach. By the sun, Winter had only just begun, but by the weather it was as cold as the day after the MidWinter Solstice.

It was possible she was being strengthened by drawing on Veikko's magic, either inadvertently or by deliberate draining. As Aleksia ran clumsily across the snow, wings pumping hard to get airborne, she considered that possibility, and decided rather grimly that things were progressing faster than she liked. She needed to meet with the Sammi women, win their confidence and formulate a plan, and she had to do so very soon. She could only hope that the women were as open to getting help from her.

She actually passed over the trio laboring across the face of a slope below her as her powerful wings drove her forward; the four brown reindeer, the dark brown sledge laden with bundles, and the huge white Bear straining against the harness. They didn't look up as she passed over their heads, but she sensed Urho's attention. The Great Bear had his own mysterious powers, and they brushed against her magics like a friendly hand.

She drove on, looking for two things: a place where she could get something to eat, and a good place to meet with Urho and the two women. Those would probably be exclusive, since she intended to eat as the Bear, and that was…messy. Not that Aleksia thought either woman was squeamish, but she also did not want them to think they might be on the menu.

She found the first far sooner than she had expected.

Something had brought down a deer and left it to die in the snow and Ravens were feasting on it. Aleksia was not at all averse to some opportunistic scavenging, and proceeded to land nearby, again making the transformation into the Bear form. Once in that familiar shape, she left her little pack lying in the snow and lumbered toward the carcass.

The Ravens were loathe to surrender their prize, but there were only three of them, and Aleksia was willing to share. With the Bear's massive claws she made short work of some crude butchery, and shortly she was feasting on the hindquarters that she had dragged some little distance off, while they were back to enjoying the rest of the deer.

She tried not to think about what she was doing when the Bear ate, because to be honest, it was pretty horrific, even when it was something like a fish. When it was something like this — well, it was better to take a little absence from reality. She just sat back and thought about other things while the Bear instinct took over the body. When her stomach was full, she cleaned herself off in the snow, put her head down and headed off at the Bear's best pace to find the place she had seen from the air where she would intercept Urho and the two women. It was a stroke of luck that it was only a few furlongs away; she could easily reach it before they did.

This would have to be set up carefully, because although she knew that the two Sammi women needed her as much as she needed them, all that they would know, when they first saw her, was that here was a woman appearing in the middle of the wilderness — when, in fact, the North Wind had told them that the terrible creature that had stolen their son and beloved was a powerful Sorceress — who could, of course, appear out of nowhere in the middle of the wilderness. Even her appearance would tell against her; at this point she looked every inch the Snow Queen, and so…

She would have to set things up so that there was enough doubt for her to convince them that she was not the enemy. With luck all The Traditional forces now moving sluggishly in favor of her putting together a Questing Party would work to keep the women from rejecting her and her overtures outright.

She arrived at the site not even winded. Really she was fortunate in the lay of the land here. It was perhaps the most perfect place for a secluded campsite; another cave, where they would be able to get away from possible watchers. This one was more than big enough to hold all of them and the reindeer. Once again, she used the Bear's enormous strength to drag some wood inside, and break it apart. She transformed to human again to clean out the rubbish, make a fire pit in the middle of the sandy floor and start the fire. Unfortunately, she had nothing with her to make things more inviting than that — not without using magic, and that, she was not going to do. Not only might that draw attention from the false Snow Queen, it might well make the women more wary. She needed to appear as ordinary as possible until they were convinced. When she was certain she could do all that was possible with the little that she had, she took out her mirror to watch for the trio to approach. And then she waited.