Chapter 39: Chapter 39: There used to be a title here, but those dirty frogs stole it and now we have nothing!

It is an unusual time of day for Hineni to be outside, but here he is nonetheless. The man stares around himself, listening to the song of the winter-birds, as his gaze wanders around the forest clearing; this is the one he had met Obscura in, all those weeks ago. He adjusts the straps of his rucksack, hoisting his steel axe over his shoulder and continues marching through the deep layers of snow. He had said that he was going out to get some wood, but that was not entirely the truth in and of itself.

 

Hineni bends down, gently wiping the snow away and off of a small mound of dirt.

 

- No, there’s nothing here either.

 

He sighs, standing back upright and looking around himself. Where else could it be? By the river, perhaps? Rhine always has luck finding things by the river. But… hmm…

 

Hineni keeps walking, thinking about the page of the book that he had read in the library. It was a very specific book; a book on flowers. Coincidentally, the man had noticed that when he went by the ‘F’-section in the library, all of the books on ‘frogs’ had been returned to their spots on the shelves. He had never mentioned anything about the missing books to Rhine, but he makes a note to get something for the boy too, while he’s out of the house.

 

Snow crunches behind him.

 

Hineni quickly turns around, his hand gripping the axe’s handle. But there is nothing there. Maybe it was just a falling branch or a rabbit or something?

 

The man carefully scans the area and then, seeing that there really is nobody there, he shakes his head and keeps on searching.

 

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The ‘frog-hunting’ pond is frozen over.

 

The swampy, brackish muck of the enclosed body of water that is surrounded on all sides by thickly rooted, old trees has now taken on an unusually pristine beauty. Flakes of fresh snow fall from above, landing on the thick layer of ice, which is as vividly bright blue as the sky of a summer’s day. Any signs of the murky water, of the lily-pads, of the frogs, have been erased, as the winter has come to claim this pond for itself, at least for the duration of the season.

 

The man narrows his eyes, staring down through the ice. He bets that they’re still down there, sleeping, waiting…

 

- Frogs…

 

He looks around the area, walking along the edge of the pond. It’s supposed to grow in moist, fertile places like forests with a lot of water in them. So he had assumed this would be a good spot. But it doesn’t look like there’s anything here.

 

Something crunches.

 

Feeling a little paranoid, Hineni looks over his shoulder. But he is still alone.

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The man makes his way to the river.

 

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Now with the winter having come in its brunt, even the water of the usually fast river seems tepid and lazy. The flow of the surface currents is disturbed and hindered by the inwardly branching chunks of snow and ice that have tried to form a bridge, but had inevitably lost the battle against the flowing waters of the river.

 

Hineni leans down, staring at the water. This river is one of many which flows towards the city, where they then meet together on the side of the tower quarter. But he doesn’t like to go to that neighborhood. Waterfront property is pricey even by the standards of Avarice.

 

His fingers dig through the smaller banks of snow, trying to find what he’s looking for. There! He stops as his hand brushes against something soft.

 

Carefully pushing the snow to the side, he looks down, having found what it is that he was searching for. A winter-bell, a seasonal flower with three cupped heads, that can only grow while it’s buried beneath snow. Alchemists prize it for its medicinal effects, but he’s not after it for that. Carefully, Hineni digs around the flower, loosening up the dirt so that he can take the whole thing without killing it, roots and all.

 

Something crunches in the snow. Hineni’s gaze shoots back behind himself.

 

But there is nothing there.

 

- Frogs…

 

Hineni narrows his eyes, getting up. He had heard three crunches of snow so far. Three. That means if something good was going to reveal itself, it would have done so now, on the third crunch. The fact that his eyes only see barren trees and snow suggests that there is something there, something that is waiting for its fourth chance. The four-magic is overriding the three-magic.

 

His eyes, paranoid, scan the world.

 

- It makes perfect sense.

 

Hineni quickly takes the flower and heads back towards the city, before someone can take their chance to reveal themselves while he is out here by himself. Damn frogs, he can’t even go out and pick flowers in peace.

 

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