::: Previously, so you won't have to re-read the last nine chapters: Lyla and her younger sister, (Y/n) = (Your Name) lived a simple life alone, just outside a small town. One day, not too long ago, (Y/n) was stolen by the king of the Nether, Herobrine! Determined to save her sister, Lyla demanded she go with a stranger who goes by the name of Steve, to save (Y/n) and maybe even put an end to Herobrine's reign. Their trip so far has been far from easy. What was supposed to be a simple night in a town they were passing through -- doubling as a place to buy coats -- turned into the two barely being able to escape, closely chased by the Trudgers. The Trudgers are known by only a few, due to their secrecy. Their specialty as a large force of assassins is to finish their targets with disasters designed to look natural. This attack team was hired by Raethe, a crazed woman, obsessed with finally achieving the amulet her ancestors before her so desperately wanted, which just so happened to be the one Lyla brought with her; the last gift from her parents... Wow, quite a bit, actually! :::
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Slowly, Lyla followed Steve through the forest as the two were both still waking up. Lyla was fever free, thankfully. She hummed a gentle tune as her mind wandered from place to place, not yet anxious about reaching her little sister in time.
"Hurry up." Steve spoke sternly. "-h- I mean, if you can." He quickly corrected his tone and slowed his own pace a little. Lyla dug into her pockets and pulled out the amulet Steve hadn't let her trade for some reason. She wondered why. If she had just traded it, the Trudgers wouldn't even be after them in the first place.
"Um, Steve, exactly why were you so against me trading this amulet?" At the mention of the item, Steve spun around and gestured his hands, signaling for Lyla to lower something.
"Shh, put that back away. Who knows if they are hiding behind the trees, just waiting for you to pull it out?" He spoke sharply.
"Hah, no person could ever move around so stealthily!"
"Wanna bet?" Steve smirked, earning silence from his traveling companion.
"Well, why didn't you let me just trade it for gold or something. Looks like we ended up in even more danger because of your silly decision." Lyla mumbled the last bit, huffing.
"-O- it was not some silly decision! That thing is precious, mind you!" Steve stood up for his choice.
"Exactly!~ Even a little of that treasure the lady offered would have been more than enough to send (Y/n) off to college!. One of the best even!.."
"Okay, I get it! You don't see the value in it, I can see that.. just, no need to argue over it. There is nothing that can be done anyways. Even if we gave it to them, they would only kill us for being witnesses.. Let's just drop it and go." Steve sighed. Lyla lowered her head and looked at the little amulet thing. A Soul of The Sky, hu? Probably something similar to the Hearts of The Sea, maybe even rarer than them.
With silence haunting her thoughts, Lyla dropped it, literally. The amulet fell down on the floor like a deserted pebble, holding no worth.. No worth to it's owner at least. Lyla stared down blankly at the stone as she thought things over in her head. She thought back to her parents whispering in the kitchen, and how they vanished the next day, never to return. A last gift, hu? They probably just forgot it even existed as they left. She also thought of her old friends, who had all moved away without mailing a single letter, asking how she was doing. She thought of her younger sister, so full of hope and life she so desperately wished to preserve. She even thought of her own self, deciding at a young age that she would become tough. That she would block all that out by not giving up on her sister, the only family she had left. She thought back to all those jobs, chores, work, she did, hoping she would be so tough, that no one could see through the exterior; the exterior only there to hide what she least wanted anyone to see... 'I am nothing.. nothing but a.. useless, pebble...' Lyla thought in her head, looking back to the little impact she had made on anyone. The only one being her sister, (Y/n), who she would die for. She knew her younger sister would never truly understand, even if she did tell her, just how much she cared for her. She, was her life.. basically. Without her little sister, Lyla didn't know what she would do, where she would go, what her worth would be. She knew she could never really express to her sister how much she depended on (Y/n), just as (Y/n) had depended on her. It was just one of those things a tough girl can't tell. Besides, she didn't want to put that kind of stress on her, and make her worry or anything. Knowing (Y/n), she would most likely refuse a life in a new world, far away, if she knew how much her older sister depended on her. The relationship was, a strange one for sure. So, Lyla walked away from the pebble she left in the wet mud, dragging her feet as she went.
She needed to save her sister. She HAD to.
After a few minutes of walking, Steve halted the sulking Lyla behind him, having not even noticed her drop in mood, probably mistaking it for tiredness. Lyla snapped her head up to look at what Steve was eyeing. From the grey clouds fogging up the sky, fell a small flake of crystallized water. Lyla looked up at it in awe. It was the first snowflake she had seen all year.
"Looks like we are close." Steve smiled down at Lyla. She smiled convincingly back up at him. "Anything you want to say?" He asked her, noticing she wasn't speaking like usual.
"No, I can't really think of anything... So.. is the portal just on the other side of that slope?"
"Yep, and a little to the right. It shouldn't be too hard to find since almost every single portal that leads to the Nether Kingdom has a little fortress around it... Unguarded though, so pretty pointless." Steve mumbled.
"Oh. Well, let's go then." And, Lyla began leading the way, now knowing where they were headed, because just about another two small hills away, was a massive mountain range, coated in fresh snow, and behind that.. was her sister.
A couple hills passed and Steve and Lyla were trekking the through the slope in the mountain range, which was still pretty high up. By the time they were high enough to start walking through what seemed like a blank, white valley, with even more white on either side rising above the thick clouds, it had begun to snow. A LOT. It was as if a blizzard came up out of nowhere. Steve buried his ice-cold hands into his pockets as he walked through the now thick snow, and Lyla pulled her arms out of their sleeves completely to hug herself as her everything was freezing.
"I think this storm might have something to do with the Trudgers! It never snows this bad so early!" Steve shouted over his shoulder at Lyla, who was managing to keep up with him at a close pace.
"How can they make storms like this?!" She shouted back.
"Years of studying weather, that's for sure!.. They heat up air further west, so it pushes the clouds together. Then it is just a game of making sure those clouds build up enough so that by the time they reach the mountains, they can't take the pressure anymore!" Steve at first made an obvious answer, but then went into detail for some reason.
"West?! Do you think those fires were what they-"
"Yep! They must have known where we were going from the very beginning; that, or they made a lucky guess!" Steve answered before Lyla could finish her question. Going back to silence in order to preserve the warm breath in their bodies, the two trudged on, through the snow. The wind only blew harder as the two marched on. Some grey in the edge of the mountain was visible. It was stone; a good place to walk beside to stay out of the majority of the wind.
"S- Steve! How about we walk along the cliff?! It is p- pretty c- cold!" Lyla suggested.
"That's probably where the Trudgers want us to go! We need to keep moving! We are halfway there!" Steve said. Only halfway there?! Lyla sunk a little in the snow with the miserable feeling that she will have to suffer through this cold for another half hour or so, maybe even more, who knows?! Nevertheless, she continued on, marching ahead of Steve. The quickened pace seemed to help, so she continued her quick pace, forcing Steve to speed up a little just to keep up. The two walked quite a bit longer, gradually slowing down. After several minutes of solid shivering, as she walked, Lyla's feet began feeling much heavier and almost, hard. She stumbled a few steps as if she were suddenly on a rocking boat. Her breath grew more rapid and no longer in a steady pattern. Her jaw shook violently, almost making her bite her own tongue a couple times.
"Steve. Steve, Steve.. Steve?" Lyla began looking around in front of her for her traveling companion. Steve leapt over to her and pulled himself before her, taking notice of her confused and almost sad expression. Her face alone told him something was really wrong. Lyla smiled the best she could with her face almost frozen in place as he showed himself to her. "Th- there, you are.. worried me you were gone.." Lyla breathed, her jaw clanking her teeth together harshly.
"..Oh no. I forgot your coat was so thin compared to mine." Steve mumbled as he stood right in front of her. Lyla tripped over her own foot and fell for the snow, her traveling companion catching her just in time. Not taking time for thought, determined to save the young lady, Steve set Lyla down carefully, who was having a hard time keeping her eyes open, and knelt down beside her sitting form. Quickly, he opened up his own coat and pulled her into it, the coat suddenly tight with two taking it's warmth. Steve couldn't even zip up the coat he used more to protect Lyla from anymore wind. He quickly stood and headed right, for the rock edge where there would be good protection from the wind. Not too long later and the two were right at the small cliff face. In the stone face there was a small crevice just large enough for one person to fit and be safe from the winds entirely. Steve pulled out Lyla's sleeping bag from his inventory and slid the half asleep, half awake girl inside. She shivered as she attempted to heat it up with her own body heat, and Steve placed her all curled up into the pocket in the stone. All he could do was hope the wind would stop already as Steve zipped his own coat back up.
K'trok..
The distant sound of a rock hitting another echoed almost ghost-like through the valley of snow. Steve shivered, hoping that had nothing to do with the Trudgers. To his disliking, it did. Snow! Steve's eyes widened in fear as he watched a wave of ice powder rumble it's way down the opposite hill, bursting through the storm clouds. The ground began to shake as Steve looked up, hoping the same amount was not falling his way. Fearing the possible truth, Steve frantically looked for another pocket in the stone, only to find none. His lungs gasped for air as his heart raced, the man desperate for an escape. That much snow would be like having an entire hill of dirt fall on top of you. Steve finally gave up looking for a new cave, and ran to the one Lyla was in. Maybe, just maybe, he could squeeze in there as well. As Steve ran her way, Lyla opened her eyes a little. She watched his face curiously as he ran to her desperately. When she looked behind him, seeing the wave of snow, and too felt the rumbling ground, her own expression shifted to fear-filled.
"S- Steve!!!" She screamed, outstretching her hand. He thrust his own hand forward, desperately reaching for her and the possible safety. Lyla watched with a racing heart as Steve ran closer and closer. He finally made it an inch away from her, their fingertips touching- but.. The snow got to him first. The tiny white crystallized forms of death slammed down on her companion's back. His hand fell under the snow in one instant as it poured down the cliff right onto him. Lyla's eyes shot wide open as she saw all hope vanish with his hand. With him. Tears formed in her eyes, which hardened on the way down her cheeks. Lyla, who had thought she could never feel worse than she already did, proved herself wrong right then. There, Lyla was stuck; in more ways than one...