Chapter One: First Impressions

At first glance, the Ice Palace seemed to be a place of cold beauty, lovely on the outside with its shimmering walls that didn't seem to know if they wanted to be blue or green, and the glistening icicles that hung from its simple yet grand architecture, but not a place to live in. A mere year before, the coolly pretty blue halls had been filled with monsters, thanks to Santa Claus and his misguided attempt to use the Mana Seed that had transformed him into a monster himself, the fearsome Ice Gigas. But when the Mana Knight and his friends had defeated the Gigas and returned him to his original form, the halls had become cold and empty once more, as Santa moved out and the monsters vanished. It wasn't a place anyone would think of making their home.

Except Skye Scorpio. Pulling her long silver coat around herself, she began to walk down the steps that led up to the Ice Palace's front doors. She had been staying here for the past couple months of her year away from home and Army duties. In an odd way it had begun to feel like a home to her, a beautiful, quiet place where she could think and draw and consider her future without anyone or anything to disturb her. She would have stayed in her abandoned resort, but the place brought back too many unpleasant memories of that period.

She didn't mind being alone. In fact, she preferred it. Never the overly social type, she didn't like being around other people a lot. Sometimes she felt a little lonely, but she always banished the feeling quickly, reminding herself of how awkward she felt around others, though she hid it well with her caustic attitude, which drove them off anyway (to her delight). She didn't really feel comfortable around other people, and the idea of opening up to anyone unnerved her.

Skye sighed. It was probably thanks to her overly strict parents, who'd thought that they were doing the right thing by not allowing her to have any friends in the worry that it would distract from her training as the heiress to the Scorpion Army. They'd meant well, she knew, but she wondered how different she'd have been if they hadn't deprived her of friendship while she was growing up. Oh, she'd still have been caustic and cranky -- it was her natural personality -- but maybe she wouldn't be so quick to use it to chase everyone off.

"Oh, who am I kidding?" she muttered with a slight smirk. "I'd be exactly the same. Except maybe I wouldn't talk to myself so much. Oh well...." Shrugging, she continued walking down the stairs, pausing only once to take a final look back at the frosty beauty of a castle that had been her home for the past two months. She was leaving the Ice Country today, moving on to who-knows-where. She was going to take a final look at her failed resort first, then hop into a cannon (not literally, of course) and blast off for slightly warmer climes. The chilliness of the frigid Northern lands was starting to get to her.

Trudging through the snow, Skye considered her choices of destinations. She didn't care to go back to the Kakkara Desert, certainly not. Too hot. The Great Forest was pretty this time of year, though, as was Tasnica. It could be interesting to go visit the Empire; she hadn't been back there after the fall of the Mana Fortress, and she wondered what had happened there. Too bad she wouldn't be able to see that cute demon, though, if she did go there.

Shivering at a sudden icy wind, she wrapped her coat around her tighter. Dressed in silver and white, with her light blonde hair and gray eyes and pale skin, she looked like a snow fairy walking through the Crystal Forest. After leaving home, she'd cut her hair short, but now it was growing back out, falling in soft blonde waves around her shoulders. Her cool beauty was a sharp contrast to the fiery personality beneath. Reaching up, she absently toyed with the silver scorpion that hung around her neck. Matching earrings dangled from her ears, reflecting the dim sunlight that managed to peer out here and there from the blanket of gray clouds that covered the sky here in the Ice Country. She smiled to herself as she released the little charm. She'd bought it and the earrings in Pandora at the beginning of her year away, a treat to remind her of the Army that awaited her back home. She knew that when she returned to her duties as head of it, she'd run it much better this time.

Something rustled softly in the forest behind Skye just then, startling her out of her quiet thoughts. She turned, expecting to see a Howler or Pebbler there. But there was no one there, no monster, no person. She could swear she heard something, though, like a soft whispering. If it weren't for the fact that she definitely felt a presence there and neither felt nor saw any wind, she would have thought she was hearing the wind blowing through the trees, stirring their crystalline leaves. With a shiver that had little to do with the chilly air, she turned around and continued walking.

The quiet crunching of the snow and ice under her boots was the only sound as Skye walked into the place where she'd had her resort. It looked exactly the same as she'd left it, a sleeping village forgotten by time. It was almost eerie, seeing the pretty little cottages with snow on their roofs and not a soul inside. Looking inside the frosted-over windows, Skye could see that some guests had left things behind. Some dishes here, a vase with long-dead flowers in it there. It was like a ghost town, something people stumbled upon years later without a clue as to why the residents fled their homes leaving some of their possessions behind. She knew why they had left, of course, the resort no longer as attractive without Salamando the Fire Elemental to keep it toasty warm, but she wondered if years from now this little hideaway would be found by those who didn't know, and speculated about. She'd called it the Hidden Paradise resort; it was hidden as ever, tucked away in a remote little corner of the vast, sparsely populated Ice Country, but the paradise was gone. It was quite a long walk away from Todo Village, the only place where anyone resided in these frigid parts, so she doubted people would find it any time soon.

Skye's eyes were sad as she gazed at the little town, with the iced-over old brown stove in the center of the place. There she had imprisoned Salamando, using the Fire Elemental to further her own greed, capitalizing on his Mana power. Though she was still irritated at the boys for being so stupid as to trust the Mana Knight and his friends to watching the stove when they should have remembered who they were and what happened to Kilroy, she couldn't help but feel a bit guilty for what she'd done then. If only.... She sighed and shook her head. So many regrets, so many failed dreams. She didn't know what her dreams were now, if she even had any. That's why she wasn't in any hurry to get back home, even though her year was over in a few days. She still hadn't figured out what to do with her life, which was the real reason she'd left, and why she hadn't resisted her father's order to do so.

With a deep sigh, she pulled the hood of her coat over her head and continued walking towards the exit to the resort, towards the Cannon Travel Center that awaited her a ways south yet.

Then the strangest thing Skye had ever set eyes on appeared seemingly from out of nowhere in front of her. With a startled gasp, she took several steps backward. Thing, indeed. Deathly pale, with long, straight black hair and the face of a monster, it was quite odd to look at.

"Hello, Skye," it said in a grating, harsh voice. "Quite the restless one today, aren't you? I'm Katra DuFarr."

"That's.... nice," Skye said warily. "How do you know my name?"

"I have my ways," Katra replied with a slight giggle.

"Ookay," Skye said slowly. She didn't know quite what to make of this odd creature. Then it sank in, the rest of what it had said. "Wait a minute.... have you been following me today?"

"I must confess, yes," Katra replied, giggling again. Skye shivered, the sound creeping her out a bit.

"Why?" Skye asked. "What are you? Friend or foe? A crazy creep out for my blood? What?"

"You talk strangely," Katra observed. Skye frowned. This rhyming, giggling lunatic was telling her that she spoke strangely? Weirdo....

"Answer the question," Skye said impatiently. "I didn't ask what you think of the way I speak, I asked why have you been following me and what are you?"

"Wellll, I'm not really allowed to answer the second question, but I can answer the first, sort of," Katra replied.

"Well, get to it then," Skye said irritably. "Answer me."

"Oh me, oh my, so impatient, aren't we?" Katra giggled.

"Sorry -- well, not really -- but being stalked tends to make me cranky!" Skye snapped. "So answer my question already and get going! I have places to be and standing here chatting aimlessly with you is not one of them!"

Katra glared at her. "All in good time," she gritted out between sharp black fangs. Skye was quite startled and unnerved to see them. Then Katra took a deep breath and let it out.

"Now, about your question," she continued. "I was following you because of your army. I wish to have it."

"Have it?" Skye frowned. "Don't you mean join it? You can't though, because we're not recruiting at the present time, seeing as I'm on leave and everything. Sorry, try again some other time."

"No, no." Katra shook her head, a calm yet crazy smile on her monstrous face. "I mean have it. I'm supposed to take control of it."

"I do believe you're mistaken," Skye said with a slightly nervous laugh. "That's my army, and only I or another member of the Scorpio family can control it. And the last time I checked, I'm not related to anything like you."

"What do you mean, anything like me?" Katra's violet eyes glittered dangerously and she took a step towards Skye. "Is that an insult?"

"You said it, I didn't," Skye replied, smiling with mock sweetness. "I don't know where you got these idiotic delusions of yours, and quite frankly, I really couldn't care less, but that's all they are -- delusions. No one owns and runs the Scorpion Army except me. I don't know why you'd want it anyway -- it's not a real army."

Katra hissed at Skye and started to growl something, but then the last thing Skye had said registered. "It's not?" she said, a confused frown on her face.

"Nope," Skye said, shaking her head. This was interesting. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding, and this thing would leave her alone after she set the record straight about her "army."

"I thought it was," Katra murmured, partially to herself. "She thought it was too, after I told her.... guess I was wrong."

"What?" Skye wasn't quite sure she'd heard right. "She? Who are you talking about? Someone sent you here after me? Because of a misconception?"

"Not supposed to tell you that," Katra replied, giggling nervously. "But yes, it was indeed a misconception. My mistake. We don't need your army after all. Sorry."

"Oh, that's okay," Skye replied with a smile. "Believe me, it's all right." She cleared her throat. "Well, now that we got that cleared up, I'll be going."

"I don't think so," Katra said coldly.

"What?" Skye was stunned and a little scared. What more could this creature possibly want with her.

"You heard me. You're not going anywhere. I don't particularly care for how you insulted me." She glared at Skye. "So I am going to take the liberty of disposing of you."

Skye paled. "I, I don't think so!" she replied shakily. Reaching into her coat pocket, she pulled out the boomerang she had found in the abandoned, ruined Sprite Village after the fall of the Mana Fortress. Its sharp edges glinted menacingly in the pale sunlight. "I'll kill you first. There's no way you can threaten me and get away with it."

Katra hissed angrily at the sight of the boomerang. Then she began to laugh, insanely. Skye stared at her, nervous and bewildered. "What's so funny?" she demanded.

"This time it's you who misunderstands," Katra replied. "You see, I don't intend to kill you. I have been taught that sometimes life is worse. So, I will condemn you to a life in a strange land that is not your own, that you can never leave. In time, you'll wish that I had killed you."