Some time later a pair were huddled before a roaring fire, the taproom of the tavern was unusually boisterous as the city was celebrating the army's victory over a handful of elemental behemoths that just so happened to attack the city hours earlier. The citizens were in great spirits, lifting tankards to the returning heroes and fallen comrades making sure all knew the glorious, and often gory, details of the wide swept battle. Xing Lei listened with amusement as he fed Osilliaice some soup, where the contents of the food had come from in this inhospitable land, he did not ask, he only cared that it was hot and nonpoisonous as he helped to stir his mate back from the icy brink.
She still shivered beneath the multiple blankets draped over her shoulders, drinking the questionable soup with gusto. Each mouthful was warming her belly and sending heat into her chilled limbs. The icy stare of death was no longer prevalent so much in her mind, for the longest time, even with the warmth of her mates back against her chest, she had felt death's cold fingers slowly wrapping around her heart every moment that they had lingered beyond Rime's walls.
"How does anything live here Lei? The icy wastes seem to stretch forever and that storm was roaring from the moment we arrived. Even now, despite the cold being negated I still hear that wind in the distance..." She asked, glancing at him from the side, Xing Lei looked no worse for wear, be it a sweltering desert or a chilling tundra, nothing seemed to phase him.
The kobold in question shrugged helplessly, "I know not, when last I visited this place I spent longer in the wastes and saw nothing that could be considered life, be it animal or plant, neither could be seen out there. Yet here we sit in a building of wood and stone, before a fire very much of wood and coal. There are beings of flesh and blood here, though they are well adapted to the cold they still need to eat and drink. Likely they ship in stock, or grow it much as the drow we've seen did in great underground farms. Survival is possible all the same... just harder than our home land." Xing Lei poked at the fire letting the warmth wash across their faces some more, "When you feel up to it, we'll set out for the keep. It's a few hours further in."
Osilliaice shivered pulling at the blankets all the more tightly, "I don't know if I'll ever feel warm again. Even before this fire that storms chill feels like its dug into my bones."
Xing Lei set aside the bowl and took her hands, warming them in his grip, "This land is magical, even my own tempered body would eventually succumb to that storm, but Rime seems to dispel it somewhat. Make no mistake, the trek will be uncomfortable but it should not be as lethal for you as the outside was."
Osilliaice nodded softly, taking shaky grip of a near by tankard and took a pull of the spiced ale, feeling the drink burning through her throat to her belly she exhaled softly. Xing Lei watched with a wry stare, "Only the one, don't forget Ottar's bar... or your nap under it!"
The dragoness grimaced at the memory as she was about to take another mouthful of ale, "My tolerance for ale HAS improved you know."
Xing Lei laughed lightly and protested no more, the pair sat in silence before the fire letting the heat seep into their scaled bodies just that much more before Osilliaice quietly spoke again, "Can we really get Alustriea back?"
Xing Lei silently looked into the fire mulling over the answer. He was much aware as she was, it was their spears that had pierced the elf woman's body through and through, while her former personality had shone through at the end the wounds were ultimately fatal. What Stavros had stolen was her spirit, surely that could be stolen back but restore her body? In all truth this was more to be a shallow victory. He did not fear the monstrous bird's ability, he'd pluck that wretch without question... but restore his wife? He wasn't a seasoned alchemist in this life, he had no life saving pills. There were no immortal relics to regrow her body while the spirit lived in some object.
He'd naturally heard that there was spells that could resurrect the dead but he was loathe to try and vie for a favor from those supposedly higher beings to earn such a boon. Hells, from what he had learned over the years elves were exempt from such spells! Once dead, no elf could be brought back from the spirit realm. As much as he continued to give his mate hope, all roads ultimately seemed to lead towards the same destination, they would rescue Alustriea's soul... only to watch it seek the cycle of reincarnation.
Thus Xing Lei could only nod wordlessly at his mate's question. They would save Alustriea from the bird beast, what came after was immaterial!
"Come on, we best head out. I'm not sure there's a day and night cycle but I'd like to avoid the woods we need to traverse if it does get darker."
The pair paid their bill and headed out into Rime, the icy city was much as Xing Lei had claimed, while Osilliaice was still uncomfortable, the chill did not attack her body as viciously as the storm beyond the walls had. Trudging along icy roads and paths the leafless trees stood like haunting soldiers around them as the kobold took the lead. Xing Lei knew the way easy enough, the trek was unpleasant but met with no further obstacles, it would seem the army had only been stationed beyond the walls, which made a sick sense. Out there half the danger was the storm, in here the bite of the cold was still there but was not as invasive.
The silent forest was still eerie though, Osilliaice had asked about vegetation and Xing Lei claimed he had saw none but such were true. These forests were hardly living woods. The barren trees were harder than stone, frozen and dead for who knows how long. It was hard to picture foresters cutting down these natural tombstones lest the land be struck clear and barren in ages long past. No, the source of grown food and heat providing wood was not these things!
He laid a hand against the dead bark trying to sense any vitality at all in it but there was none, he thought he sensed a weak flicker, the dying blink of a firefly, but it was elusive and gone before he could be sure. Shaking his head, he instead claimed his mate's hand, the reassuring warmth and vitality there stirred his spirits as they walked deeper into the graveyard of trees. Osilliaice at one point gestured to the distance. a lonely tower pierced the canopy of dagger like branches, standing as a mute giant over this devastated wood...
Stavros' keep was a tombstone amongst the graveyard of trees, like last time there were no lights in any windows nor did any guards patrol the walls and outer bailey. Thick sheets of ice coated the dark stone walls, the drifts of snow nearly reclaiming the structure that stood like a lonely beacon in the dead silent forest. While Osilliaice was ever wary of trouble, Xing Lei strode in through the main gates unconcerned, while the Rime army had been a bit of a surprise he felt comfortable in the expectation that the ice phoenix would never allow such a thing as guards or assassins anywhere near its nesting ground.
As Osilliaice kept circling, every whistle of the wind making her start at shadows Xing Lei guided her towards the main structure, even kicking in the large doors that shattered like the sheets of ice that coated their surface. The splinters of wood clattered noisily across the entry floor as kobold and dragoness stepped into the darkened entry chamber. Stavros reclining on the decrepit, frozen throne, frowned watching the doors burst inward. His vile glare fell upon the kobold as if to ask, 'Really?'
Xing Lei paid that gaze no mind, instead his gaze fell upon the sad looking silhouette that stood behind the beast in human form. Alustriea shivered under her former husband's gaze, her form shrinking away from his intense look, unable to meet Xing Lei's gaze. Transparent tears rolled down her pale spectral cheeks as her body shook all the more at what she had been made to do and say and even worse what they had lost in their last meeting.
Stavros chuckled darkly lifting a hand to grasp the elven spirit's chin and forced her to look up at the seething kobold, whose almost feral gaze was now locked on the ice phoenix, "Oh don't be shy my dear, I'm sure you two have so much to discuss don't you? Don't let it be said that I'd keep lovers apart, especially when death has done that job for me!"
His cackle became an inhuman screech as the kobold launched himself at Stavros. The phoenix was quick to release Alustriea's chin and darted out of harms way almost as if he were a specter himself. The kobolds strike landed firmly upon that ancient throne reducing the seat to splinters much as his kick had done the thick entry door. Those yellow eyes snapped on Stavros' retreating figure, his slender booted feet skating across the frosty stone floor almost casually, "Really the chair too? You simply have no manners."
Stavros ducked as a kobold shaped missile lunged from the dais, Osilliaice watched from nearby rather shocked as her mate, for the first time since she met him, he had finally succumbed to the draconic blood coursing through his veins. Up until this moment Xing Lei had maintained complete control, an foreign intellect guiding a form that could be so much more than a humans that it had been, frankly, somewhat wasted on his rigid cultivator mind.
She, much like Destorianaxe, had always wondered how he kept so detached from everything. There was no doubting his love, his passions and desires were there but something had always struck them as off about him. He was always thinking, often overly so, when what he was simply needed room to spread its own wings. While how he lunged at Stavros was frankly sad and unworthy of his ability she could see both mind and body slowly reconnecting. There was no denying Xing Lei had been powerful before... but he had a distinct undraconic air to him.
The anger that had been stewing just beneath his flesh however was distinctly draconic. Most dragons had a reverse scale that even discussed would send a dragon into a rage that would shatter mountain peaks. Xing Lei's reverse scale had not just been discussed, looking to Alustriea, the dragoness felt Stavros had walked right up and, for lack of a better description, had defecated all over it. With Stavros poking it even further she saw Xing Lei actually lose his composure for the first time.
Each punch missed the mocking bird-beast man, the kobold was lunging wildly after all lost in his first, true, draconic rage. What Stavros simply didn't recognize was that most dragon blooded creatures experienced this in their hatchling or wyrmling stages. Osilliaice's was replaying faintly in her own mind as she recalled her own reckless rage so similar to what her mate was going through. Still, she took the opportunity to rush to Alustriea, guiding the spectral elven woman away from the conflict, consoling her distraught friend as best she could.
The big thing Stavros didn't get was that this blind rage didn't last long, by mocking her mate he was in fact, helping the kobold steadily reclaim his mind. Those wild punches were tearing the keep apart with each strike, the stones shuddering as phoenix and kobold played a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Pushing at the spectral elf, Osilliaice was rather shocked to find Alustriea's ghostly self rather tangible as she ushered the elven spirit out the broken doors right before another of their loves strikes made the tall structure shake and finally collapse under the earthquake like punches. A miserable cry screeched out as the keep began collapsed in on itself with a loud rumble, "MY CASTLE, YOU DESTROYED MY CASTLE YOU STUPID LITTLE REPTILE!"