"P-Paula? Are you okay?" Was that Cort?
Paula opened her eyes to see that they were still underwater. The only difference was that the strong current was gone, making it seem more serene. What a beautiful blue.
It took her a while to realize that she was once again within Cort's arms. Blushing, she gently pushed him away, "What's going on?" where was the nameless girl?
Cort gulped, trying to hide the small sting he got in his heart when Paula rejected his embrace, "I don't really know... I just woke up myself." He looked up to see a small light shining above the calm waters, and started to swim upwards. It was probably the moon.
Noticing his movements, Paula decided to follow after him, "Do you think we're still in Limni Lake?"
With a hard take in of breath, Cort emerged from the body of water and shook his head to get rid of the remaining water. When he finally was able to get a good look of his surroundings, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped, "Well Toto, we certainly aren't on Earth anymore."
"What do you mean...?" Paula's hair was stuck on her face; the cons of having long hair. When she opened her eyes, her reaction was exactly like Cort's, "I-It's beautiful..."
Beautiful? It was gorgeous! It was a floating kingdom of ice and water. Sparkling falls fell from it's river all the way down to the endless freshwater that they swam in, and at the very top of the kingdom was what they supposed to be the castle. The small light that they had saw on their way to the top came from the tip of its tower. Although it's shimmering shine was beautiful, the place seemed empty as if it lacked brightness.
"Awake now, are we?" Cort and Paula turned to see the nameless girl walking above the water. How was she doing that!? With her usual annoying smirk on her lips, she gestured for them to come closer, "Follow me." with that, she started her sprint towards one of the falls.
"Ack! Wait!" Cort fumed, "She knows that we don't have the speed to keep up with her and yet she still does that! Who does she think she is!?"
With a nervous laugh, Paula placed her hand on his shoulder and said, "Well at least we know where she is heading. All she has to do is wait for us to get there." she started her swim towards the waterfall.
His face turned pink from the small contact and buried her face half underwater, thinking, maybe I should stay here so that weird chick would get ticked waiting for me to get there... this what he thought until he saw that Paula was getting further and further away. Or maybe not.
Struggling to swim faster, Cort yelled, "Paula, wait for me!"
When they arrived, nameless was glaring at them with her arms crossed, "About time. You floating water snails got me waiting far long than I waited for your births just to swim across this small distance!"
"You know that's over exaggerating, right?" Cort said with a dull face.
"Tch! Don't try to challenge my patience, infant." with a sigh she pointed at the waterfall, "Just get in there. It'll take you up into the kingdom."
Inside the waterfall, Paula was staring out in wonder, "This is like riding an elevator, but wetter!" she laughed and did a back flip underwater.
Cort admired her from his area. Still the usual stalker, it seemed.
Curious, the ice haired girl looked at the view, "Nameless, is there nothing else out here other than this kingdom?"
"Who are you calling NAMELESS, you bratty lil princess!?" huffing, she twirled and looked away, "You are correct. There is no other place in this realm than this ice kingdom."
Groaning, Cort covered his ears, "Are you going to lecture us again!? I don't want to hear it!"
The nameless girl decided to ignore the less intelligent of the two, and started her lesson, "This is the realm of which you would rule. The Ice Demon Realm. In this small dimension is only this area. Even if you try to explore further away, you will just end up back in this kingdom."
Curious, Paula pointed at the top of the towers, "What is that?"
"It is the source of power in all of this realm. Every realm has one something like that. Right now it's weakening... Your absence and Tanin's runaway caused it to become like this. With your arrival we would be able to reach back to their former strength."
They arrived at the top of the waterfall where they were able to see just how large the kingdom was. It was more beautiful in the inside than it was in the outside.
As the nameless wanderer led them to the castle, Cort and Paula observed their surroundings in awe. The design was just like what they saw in their vision when their city was still at its start, but more pure and more ice.
"I'm taking you to the council." said nameless.
It was quite surprising. When Cort and Paula were told to meet the council they had expected to see a bunch of wise old men and women, but before them on top of their circle fancy chairs was a group of... teenagers.
"So this Queen Tanin's descendant and her betrothed?" said a plain faced teen.
Scoffing, nameless waved her left hand, "Do you really think that I would bring some random children in here?" she didn't really show respect for anyone, did she?
It seemed that they were used to her antics, and instead of bursting in anger they just stared at the two, "Hmph... they don't look like much at all."
Nameless shrugged and began to leave the room, "Whatever... I have to go find the Fire Realm's king now, whatever you do to them is up to you guys."
The King of the Fire Realm!? Nameless wasn't just working for the Ice Kingdom? Who was she...?
"We will now begin the test."
Cort jumped, "What do you mean test!?" he didn't study for anything related to Ice Demons, "Is this a written exam!? I'm no good with those, really!"
"Don't be foolish... You have been living in the human world for far too long. This is an exam to test your strength as a leader."
Paula looked around nervously and moved closer next to Cort, something that he didn't really notice, "What...? Does that mean that you're going to make us fight someone?"
"Of course. Two of our best warriors. You will face them one on one."
That wasn't fair! They had just discovered that they had powers, "Wait! How are me supposed to fight when we don't even know how to use our powers yet!?"
"You will see. The first match will be with the betrothed one. BEGIN!"
One of the council members jumped down from their chair and smirked, "Shall we?"
Cold sweat started to slide down Cort's forehead. This... this wasn't going to end very well, was it?
ns 15.158.61.12da2
