Reinhard blinked before he found himself in a familiar dream once more. But that was all he could do before a tremor came without warning.

Reinhard watched as the Pale One stiffened mid-gesture, his bronze fingers halting mere inches from the ice sculpture he'd been shaping. Beside him, the female frost giant turned her head sharply, those pale frost-glass eyes widening.

The ground shakes again, but this time even louder and deeper than before. It wasn't the surface cracking but instead shaking that went all the way below and traveled through countless layers of frozen land.

The smaller ice-beings moved in confusion, their incomprehensible growls rising in pitch. Even the towering cow lifted its massive head, dark eyes fixed toward the horizon where fire met frost.

The Pale One moved first as it turned into a blur across the ice, crimson veins beneath his skin flaring bright as he ran. The female giant followed with the others following behind, and they stomped across the snow landscape.

Reinhard felt himself pulled along, a passenger in this ancient dream, watching as the landscape rushed past.

The jagged ice formations gave way to smoother terrain, then to the misty border zone where frost fingers reached toward flame and heat pushed back against cold. Steam rose in thick columns, obscuring vision, but the Pale One didn't slow.

They burst through the vapor wall and into the boundary area.

The swirling mass of purple, black, and white boundary stretched before them. But now, near the fireside, something had changed. The ground had split open, revealing a passage that descended into darkness. But it wasn't completely dark, as a luminous light shone from deep within, it was soft and unlike anything in either the ice or fire realms.

It gently glowed, sending out soft ripples of light that faded when it neared the entrance, but made them stare in awe at its beautiful, shimmering light.

The Pale One approached the edge cautiously. He knelt with his bronze fingers resting against the ground and felt the vibrations. His crimson eyes reflected the glow from below, twin points of red light in his pale face.

Behind him, the other frost giants assembled, their forms casting long shadows across the broken ground.

The female giant placed her massive hand on his shoulder. When he looked up at her, she gestured toward the towering frost giant who had arrived last. T

he ancient being stood at the back of the gathering, its white eyes studying the opening with an expression that might have been recognition.

The Pale One rose and walked to stand before the towering giant. For a long moment, they regarded each other in silence, and then the giant nodded once, a slow dip of its horned head, and stepped forward.

Its weight made the ground groan, ice cracking and reforming with each footfall as it approached the opening.

The giant paused at the edge, then simply stepped into the passage and began descending.

The others followed without hesitation.

The Pale One and the female giant went next, then the smaller ice-beings, and finally the towering cow, which somehow fit its enormous bulk into the opening that seemed too small to accommodate it.

Reinhard descended with them, consciousness drifting through stone and frost.

The passage walls glowed with that soft luminescence, growing brighter with each step downward. The air changed from the biting cold of the frozen realm to something cool and warm.

It carried moisture, a gentle dampness that felt foreign after the absolute dryness of ice and the scorching fire.

Then the passage opened, and Reinhard's eyes widened.

There was a light blue sky that stretched across. Not the endless void of the realm above, but a proper sky with depth and gradation, pale at the horizon and deeper toward its zenith.

Clouds drifted across it, wispy and delicate, catching light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

Below the sky lay a landscape of stunning beauty.

A beautiful lake dominated the view, its waters so clear that one can see the reflection of the sky. The surface shimmered in shades of azure and turquoise, reflecting the clouds above while somehow maintaining its own inner light.

At its shores, light blue snow lay in soft drifts, but it wasn't like the snow in the upper snow landscape.

But the snow looked fluffy and inviting rather than hard-packed and deadly. And growing through that snow, defying all logic, were patches of golden grass that swayed in a breeze Reinhard couldn't feel.

Then, around the golden grass were trees unlike any in the frozen realm that rose from the landscape. Their trunks were smooth and pale, with their branches spreading in graceful arcs, and leaves.

The leaves were gold, and each of them glowed as if they were their own little stars.

Bushes clustered between them, the colors vary between deep emerald and bright jade, and among them grew flowers. Reinhard realized these were actual flowers with white petals, gold, and light blue.

The frost giants stood frozen at the passage, their forms reflecting this new world in countless facets. The smaller ice-beings huddled together, their crude features somehow conveying wonder.

Even the towering cow seemed affected, its broad head turning slowly to take in the vista.

The female giant reached out and took the Pale One's hand. Her massive fingers dwarfed his, but he squeezed back, and together they stepped forward onto the golden grass.

The light blue snow accepted their footsteps without crunching, parting like powder. They walked toward the lake's edge, and the others followed, spreading out across this pristine landscape in silent exploration.

Reinhard watched the Pale One kneel at the water's edge. His bronze-tipped fingers touched the surface, creating ripples that spread outward in perfect circles.

The water was cool, not too cold or freezing, but enough to send a slight shiver and another impossibility in a world that had known only extremes.

He cupped some in his palms and watched it flow between his fingers, each drop catching light and throwing tiny rainbows.

The female giant moves into the shallows, her ice-formed legs creating no cold cloud as they would have in normal water.

She stood there, water lapping at her knees, and looked up at the sky with a peaceful feeling that Reinhard felt that strange ache again.

That emotion that was and wasn't his.

They explored for what felt like hours.

The smaller ice-beings discovered that the golden grass, when touched, released tiny motes of light that floated upward like inverse snowflakes. The towering cow found a grove of trees whose bark, when licked, hummed with soft sounds.

The towering frost giant simply walked the perimeter of the lake, its white eyes taking in every detail with what might have been satisfaction or nostalgia.

Then the Pale One saw it.

At the center of the lake, rising from an island barely visible above the water's surface, stood a pillar of light.

Not a solid structure, but pure radiance taking, a tower of color that shifted and flowed through every color imaginable.

Red bleeding into orange, orange into gold, gold into green, green into blue, blue into purple, purple back to another color in an endless cycle.

The towering giant approached the shore nearest the island. It raised both massive hands and gestured outward.

The water responded, freezing instantly but not into the jagged formations of the realm above. Instead, a bridge of perfectly smooth ice formed, its surface transparent enough to see the lake depths below.

The colored light from the pillar shined through it, creating a rainbow pathway.

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