"Can we not do this right now?" Lettuce asked, looking up at her with his big, sad fawn eyes. It was a dirty trick.
"I'm not doing anything," replied Ivy, frustrated. "I just can't shake the feeling that those two are up to something. I get a bad vibe."
"Bad vibe? Do you mean like a… like a 'bad vibe' vibe?"
Ivy pressed her lips into a thin line. She shouldn't have said that. Now he was going to worry. He didn't like when she talked about vibes, or feelings, or sensations. Not this kind anyway.
All throughout her life, she had felt something. It wasn't frequent. Sometimes she went years without feeling it at all, but then she'd meet a certain person, or she'd go to a certain place on tour with Lettuce and suddenly she'd feel weird.
Currently, she was backstage with Lettuce, having just come in from the outside to warm up. She wished it wasn't so crowded in Chilltopia. The mixed crowd of fans and general mountain goers made her feel uneasy. Like something could happen at any moment. He was getting his instrument ready- a lute he had had since childhood. Though, his real musical gift was his voice.
"Did I tell you that I saw him sneaking around last night?" Ivy asked, snagging a tiny sausage off the catering table. "I was watching him when the race started. It doesn't look like he skied a day in his life. Suspicious."
"You told me, and I still your evidence ain't all that compelling, Ive. Toss me a couple of those shrimps, girl."
"It's shrimp, that's already plural." Still, she threw him a couple. One smacked into the mirror beside him. He was dressed in his bard outfit. The bright makeup looked ridiculous, but that was the way his manager liked it.
"I've heard both ways," he said, mouth full the way he knew annoyed her. She turned away from him with disgust.
"Either way I don't trust Grel or his girlfriend. I'll just leave it at that. Do you remember all of that nonsense about a statue contest in Spice Rack? How do they have time for a ski contest in the middle of all of that?"
"You know better than anyone bizarre scheduling can be."
"I know that you're too forgiving. Look, I'm gonna go make another round while the show is starting, make sure that everyone stays in line."
"You do that," said Lettuce in a low, only slightly annoyed voice. They had been getting steadily more tired of each other's company during the tour, but thankfully they more than halfway done. Then they could both go home.
Ivy thought about her home, as she headed back out into the cold, and how much she missed it. She missed her parents, their farm, and the little town of TK, where she knew everyone's face and schedule by heart. The one place where it felt like she belonged, just a little at least.
Lettuce had found Ivy a long time ago, in the forest outside of what would become her home. His family, a kind-hearted clan of satyrs, had adopted her. They named her Ivy, after the plant Lettuce had found her tangled in.
She knew nothing about her life before the farm; her only memory was the sound of the ocean. She didn't even know what kind of creature she was. She was not an elf, for no elves had horns like her or bled golden blood. Nor were they nearly as strong.
It made her extremely efficient with her chores on the farm, and able to solve problems around town that would arise and require her strength. When she showed an aptitude for being athletic, her father found an old warrior in town to train her. She took the sword fighting rather quickly, able to wield blades that should have been too large for her with ease, and rarely getting tired.
She hated those classes. Hated the attention and the expectations that came with them. But they made her father happy, and she loved him so she did as he asked. It also kept any would-be bullies far away from the family.
Things began to change when Lettuce became famous. It hadn't been a question in anyone's mind that she would follow her brother on tour and be his bodyguard. He was her best friend, and she had never gotten over a sense of owing him for finding her. Lettuce's manager was thrilled to not have to spend as much on security with her around.
As the paroled the ski resort, she wanted to let go of her suspicion, because it would make her brother feel better, but when she saw the pink haired human again among the crowd, she couldn't drop it. This time she didn't feel the vibe- which was even more suspicious than feeling it again.
Ivy yanked the hood of her cloak up, hiding herself among the shadows as she watched Maple. Then she realized that Maple was probably looking for the bathroom. The bathroom situation had been nothing but a nightmare since yesterday, and it was all anyone seemed to talk about.
Then Ivy had brilliant, wicked idea. She took a shortcut, coming out of the path before Maple. She quickly found the sign pointing toward the bathroom and swapped it with the out of order sign. She had mistakenly followed this same circuit yesterday and wound up almost at the top of the mountain. She'd send the human on a little wild goose chase, and laugh from the shadows.
Lettuce would be fine; the ski mountain had its own security force that had been out in numbers today. She just liked to be nearby in case anyone got too rowdy.
The longer she watched the pink haired human, however, the more uninterested she became. There was nothing significant about the woman. A small part of Ivy almost felt guilty, like she should've just listened to Lettuce. Yet, there was an undeniable part of her that enjoyed watching the human grow steadily more frustrated. Her frustration reached a climax when she came across the out of order washroom.
Ivy had had her fun and was about to turn and leave when she suddenly felt the vibe. A really, really big one. It reminded her of a punch to the gut, and nearly took her breath away. Turning instinctively toward the direction that she sensed it coming from she heard a sound.
Someone was yelling.
Keeping to the trees, she peered out onto slope. It took a moment for her brain to understand just what she was seeing. There were two monsters fighting each other on the otherwise empty slope. Well, that wasn't quite right.
There was definitely one monster, a towering white mass that seemed to be the source of the overwhelming vibe. The other was like a lizard man, but she had met beast men before, but he didn't look like any of them. It didn't help that he was wearing an audacious ski suit.
Ivy was still considering the situation, and the threat it posed to her brother, when a blur rushed past her, kicking up snow. It was Maple. The human came barreling out of the tree line hollering, but Ivy couldn't make out the words over the roaring of the monster. The bespectacled woman struggled in the deep snow, but kept driving on.
What on Salt was she thinking?
The quasi-lizard man scooped Maple up when he saw her, pulling her out of the way of the incoming hand of the white monster. The massive hand crashed down, just missing her, and sent up a wave of snow knocking them back.
Ivy felt the weight of her sword at her hip as she watched the two bumble out of the snow. They probably needed help. She could just hear Lettuce's voice."That's what you get for being nasty, man. A little justice from the universe."
She sighed deeply, unsheathed her saber, then made her own dash out into the snow. Her hood was still covering her face, and her body enveloped in her cloak save her hand. On the slope, the snow was packed more densely, and her steps were light and fast, just like she had studied during training. In a matter of moments, she was under the beast and slashing upward.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" came the startled, ungrateful, oddly familiar voice from the lizard man. "Don't trust me, huh? I don't need backup!"
"Clearly you can't be trusted!" Maple shouted back. "I have no idea who that is."
Ivy nimbly dodged out of the way of another oncoming attack from the monster. Her sword cut into its arm, deeper than she expect, until she hit something and the creature howled. The monster looked like it was made from snow, so she just hacked away and hoped for the best.
"Stop it!" Cried the lizard man as he scrambled out in front of Ivy and blocked her next swing. "You're going to ruin everything!"
The snow monster leapt back, gearing up for another vicious attack. Ivy chose to ignore the lizard man move to dart around him. She didn't anticipate him to warp his long, scaley arms around her.
Nor did he anticipate the creature's moves as she did, and a monster arm came crashing down once again. In an attempt to hit all three targets, its massive hand managed only to slightly damage each of them. Ivy felt cold rake down her body as Grel held her steadfast.
The sensation, the vibe, was so overwhelming it blurred her vision.
"Grel!" Maple called. She was covered in snow, and looked paler than usual. The human was digging in her satchel, looking for something.
"Grel?" Ivy croaked. Wasn't Grel a human too? She blinked, her vision only slightly improving. She could hear Maple still speaking, but couldn't make out the words. Nothing the girl was saying made sense. Something about a book?
Suddenly the lizard man, possibly Grel, released her, and Ivy fell face first into the snow. It shocked her senses and she bolted upright, more muscle memory than senses. Squinting to try and improve her vision she could make out the monster, its towering body blocking out the sunlight. It bellowed, and launched into a frenzy.
Working on instinct, Ivy threw herself blind into the fray. She sought out the intense power that radiated off of the creature, using it to hone in and aiming her attacks there. She could hear, Maple and the lizard man talking, but tried to narrow her attention down to just attacking.
The power radiating off the monster was starting to give her a headache. She hacked and slashed, feeling only some connect. Then, suddenly, the arm of the beast knocked into her and sent her sailing. She cracked hard against a tree and sank into to the snow.
Her vision began to fade and the last thing she could make out was Maple and Grel being grabbed by the monster and lifted high into the air, one in each fist.
Then she closed her eyes, feeling exhausted.
Then she heard a great explosion, and felt it in her gut.
There was a scream, maybe two.
Then Ivy passed out.