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The driftwood figurines felt too heavy in Nuvua's hands—too alive. She had smoothed their curves for hours, carving Arien's fierce, sun-warmed limbs and Tilion's slender, moon-pale frame until her fingers ached. The grain of the wood still smelled like salt and distant storms. It was stupid. Mandla probably had shelves full of better things.
Bare feet sank into the damp sand as she followed the winding path to his cottage, where the jungle thinned into a sunlit clearing. Somewhere beyond the palms, waves crashed in slow, hungry rolls. She rehearsed her words, "I thought you'd like these," but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
The driftwood figures were slick in her palms, their edges catching on her calluses. She'd carved Tilion's bowstring taut, Arien's hair wild as a burning tide. Ridiculous. Mandla had handled real artifacts, Zulu iklwas, Norse runestones, what were these but a girl's sigh given shape?
The path narrowed. A gecko skittered across her boot. She halted at the treeline, where sunlight pooled like melted gold around Mandla's cottage. He lay sprawled in a hammock, spine a dark curve against the linen, one bare foot dangling. The book in his hands was old, its binding cracked, The Silmarillion, probably. Of course. She inhaled, tasted mango rot and his sweat in the air.
Her mind races in all directions. Her pulse was hammering like a snared rabbit's. "She should call out ... Should she step forward ... Maybe she shouldn't be here at all". Her anxiety overwhelming. Mandla turned a page with a rustle. She saw the exact moment his shoulders tensed, a hunter's awareness, and her body moved before her mind could follow.
Nuvua bolted back up the path. Her feet slapped against wet earth. Twigs snapped underfoot. She crashed through the underbrush, breath sawing sharp between her teeth, the figurines clutched tight as stolen treasure. A thorn ripped her sleeve. She didn't stop. Didn't think. Behind her, the hammock creaked, too late. She was already gone, diving into the emerald choke of the jungle.
The door of her hut banged against the wall as she flung herself onto the cot, face-first into sun-warmed cotton. She didn't cry so much as implode, a silent, shuddering collapse where her ribs pressed too close against her lungs. The figurines rolled from her grip, Arien's wooden thigh thumping softly against her knee.
Three centuries. Three centuries of watching the shift of his shoulders beneath linen tunics, the way his thumb traced the rim of his coffee cup during strategy meetings. Three centuries of stolen glances across the workshop, where sawdust hung golden in the air between them like suspended confessions. And still, her throat closed like a vise when he glanced her way.
She rolled onto her back, pressing her wrists to her wet eyelids. The hut's thatched roof blurred above her. Shame prickled hot down her spine, not for running, but for carving those damned figures in the first place. She'd poured the shape of her longing into the wood grain, whittled Tilion's bowstring tight as the tension in her belly whenever Mandla's bootsteps echoed in the corridor. What had she expected? That he'd take one look at her clumsy offering and see her?
A knock, light as a moth's wing against bamboo. "Nuvua?" Pete's southern draw thick with concern. "May we come in?" She swallowed. The North Pole's etiquette was clear. No one refused Pete and Nadine when their hands were outstretched. They were the gentle prybars of the soul, slipping into cracks before you felt them widen. The door creaked open before she could answer, sunlight pooling at Nadine's bare feet.
Nadine's silver-streaked braid was heavy over one shoulder. She lowered herself gently onto the cot and laid a comforting arm across the distraught artist's shoulders. Nuvua leaned into the warmth, her tears slowly ending. Pete knelt on her other side, his calloused palm warm against her spine. "You left footprints deeper than a mammoth's, and you sprinted past our hut. You would have left Usain Bolt in the dust."
Pete noticed the fallen figurines. "Ah," he murmured, "So another
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