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The aurora borealis was in full swing.
A bright cloud had been dragged through the night sky like a dust cropper had lost his way, tracing meandering lines of green and red against a background of stars.
Jessica never tired of nature’s fireworks. Something so grand and vibrant and celebratory as that reminded her that all of life was worth living.
Even in her darkest nights.
The distortion field that hid her and the elven from the world had turned the stars into dull points of illumination. Elven scientists were tending instruments and taking measurements. Despite the cold, many wore simple lab coats. Several thousand years had adapted them to the brutal temperatures of the Arctic.
They moved precisely, efficient with every thought and action. It was their job to watch the ice, to monitor the planet, and evaluate their exposure. It was so difficult to stay secret on the North Pole. Satellites were watching and occasional expeditions trekked nearby. Explorers would stay in tents to write blogs and send back pictures to prove they had touched the top of the world. Jessica and her family had been the first ones to ever do so.
Although the history books would never know.
To remain secret was the elven’s mission. Jessica questioned this way of life. A century ago, she believed their secret utopia beneath the ice was valid. Their technology and wisdom could only cause problems with the human race. It was better to help behind the scenes.
And give the people a present or two as a reminder.
But the human race was catching up. They were growing too fast. If they discovered all the elven secrets, something very bad could happen.
Today proves it.
Jessica had waited on the ice that morning. Every elven was with her. They were watching the sky and waiting for the crack of the timesnapper to break the sound barrier. When it did, the elven would jump into a celebration. There would be snowball fights and dances, the occasional nude elven indulging in the courage and naiveté of youth as they plunged into the frigid water of the open leads. All of this for a practice run.
On Christmas, they would do it again.
Now it was just Jessica on the ice with all the brilliant elven minds with bodies too old for such foolishness. The reindeer crowded nearby. Their snouts were buried in feedbags. Exhausted from the long trip, they would usually have returned to the mainland by now to graze and rest.
No one spoke to Jessica.
They had offered kind words on the morning the sleigh landed on one rail and slid to a crooked stop, but since then they had left her to her thoughts. They had been through troubling times before. This was not a time to panic or be hasty but an opportunity.
Opportunity, they call it.
Jessica had been through loss. She knew how to be strong, knew how to weather the worst of a tragedy. But she did not call it opportunity. Then again, she was only a few hundred years old. An elven lived much, much longer. She listened to them and heeded their advice.
But this is not an opportunity.
Dancer looked up. The reindeer’s chin moved sideways as she ground the special blend to soothe overworked muscles and fatigued joints. She walked with her head down and antlers swinging. Jessica took her snout—soft and damp and littered with grain. Dancer snorted grassy breath into her hands.
Jessica kissed her snout. “We’ll find him.”
A long moan bellowed from below the ice as if a mammoth whale was about to surface. The elven scientists picked up their pace, sliding on paths that exposed the ice for their wide scaly feet to glide on. They were fat and hairy, the men with bushy beards and the women with braided hair, scurrying to finish before the call to come below the ice was heeded. The distortion field that hid them from satellite eyes would evaporate and leave them exposed if they were not below the ice.
Sometimes Jessica yearned to remain above for just a second, long enough for the distortion field to collapse, to see the stars glitter and the Northern Lights gleam. But to do so would jeopardize everything the elven lived to be. She was not one to do so for a glimpse.
Even on this day.
“Go on.” Jessica patted Dancer’s nose. “There’s more to eat.”
She dodged the rack of antlers. Once fully human but not quite elven, Jessica and Nicholas were still full-sized people. Their quarters in the ice were sometimes tight. And on occasion they took a thwap from a reindeer turning too quickly.
Dancer returned to the others for one final feed, one that would energize their ability to leap. A decision had been made. They would return to the mainland and Dancer didn’t like it. Neither did the other reindeer. Jessica didn’t need to be one of the caretakers who communicated with them to know that.
She didn’t like it, either.
A rack of antlers greater than all of the rest rose above the pack. The last of the elven scientists had fallen into a hole cut from the ice. The last entrance was larger than the rest. It waited for Jessica. She remained to watch the reindeer slowly inflate. One by one, their bellies expanded like balloons as their bladders trapped helium from their special feed.
Dasher was the first to go.
He bent at the knees. The ice crackled beneath his hooves. Through the warped distortion field he soared until he was a brown smudge that disappeared into the night.
Vixen was next then Comet, then Prancer and Cupid, Dunder and Blixem. Dancer, the smallest of the herd but still towering over Jessica, looked back before she bent at the knees. Jessica nodded once and whispered an encouraging word. And then she too was a smudge soaring toward the mainland.
The white landscape was almost empty.
The largest of the reindeer remained on the ice, his jaw working to finish the last of his leaping feed. His eyes were dark and serious. His nostrils flaring. He snorted and pawed at the snow. Jessica shaded her eyes and he did it again.
She needed to get below.
Her shadow, long and sharp, disappeared from the snow. She paused a moment with her fingers on the ice. The hole would not collapse until she was all the way below. Shadows passed her opening.
Jessica popped up like a sea lion scouting for danger. She had to see for herself. Her heart couldn’t take the weather of unknowing if she didn’t. The lead reindeer was bending at the knees when she finally looked, muscles bulging on his haunches. He launched like the others, but this time in the other direction.
A streak marred the night sky.
She dropped down and the hole sealed her inside. She would return to the elven and discuss what would happen next. They were honorable and wise and would never lie to her. But she just had to see it for herself. Just before Ronin leaped, she’d seen the silhouettes of three elven upon his back.
“We’ll find him,” she whispered.