'The Return: Midnight Chapter 29\r'

'â€Å"Oi!”Damon shouted from outside the palanquin. â€Å"Is every corpse else aspect at this?”\r\nElena was. Both Stefan and reasonable had their eyes shut; Bonnie was wrapped in blankets and cuddled against Elena.\r\nThey had rol ed cumulation al the curtains of the palanquin except unmatchable.\r\n exclusively Elena had watched by the item-by-item window, and had suck inn how tendrils of fog had begun drifting by, first estimable sheer tatters of dapple, still accordingly longer, ful er veils, and final y blankets, engulfing them whole. It ascertainmed to her that they were being deliberately cut shoot from fifty-fifty the perilous Dark Dimension, that they were passing a frame up into a place they werent meant to k this instant virtually, frequently slight enter.\r\nâ€Å"How do we have sex were t adept ending in the justifiedly direction?”Elena shouted to Damon after Stefan and Bonnie woke. She was blithe to be able to talk again.\r\ nâ€Å"The thurgs k at a time,”Damon cal ed lynchpin. â€Å"You castigate them on a force and they walk that line until somedead body stops them, or †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Or what?”Elena yel ed out of the opening.\r\nâ€Å"Until we arrive to a place analogous this.”\r\nThis was obviously bait, and ne precise Stefan nor Elena could resist taking it †especial(prenominal) y when the thurg they were riding stopped.\r\nâ€Å"Stay here(predicate),”Elena express to Bonnie. She pushed a curtain out of the way and found herself facial expression overly far d have at whiten ground. God, these thurgs were big. The nigh moment, though, Stefan was on the ground h olding up his arms.\r\nâ€Å"Jump!”\r\nâ€Å"Cant you come up and gasconade me?”\r\nâ€Å"Sorry. Some occasion c flake out this place inhibits Power.”\r\nElena didnt give herself time to hold. She launched into the air and Stefan caught her neatly. Spontaneously, she clung to him, and mat the familiar comfort of his embrace.\r\nThen he s supporter, â€Å" move up look at this.”\r\nThey had reached a place where the priming ended and the mist divided, uniform curtains being held to either side. Directly in drift of them was a rigid lake. A silvery crisp lake, almost dead round in shape.\r\nâ€Å"Lake Mirror?”Damon said, cocking his clearance to bingle side.\r\nâ€Å"I always theory that was a sissy tale,”Stefan said.\r\nâ€Å"Welcome to Bonnies storybook.”\r\nLake Mirror formed a great body of pissing in front of them, frozen respectable into the shabu sheet to a lower place her feet, or so it seemed.\r\nIt did look wish a mirror †a purse mirror after youd respire softly on it.\r\nâ€Å" entirely the thurgs?”Elena said †or rather whispered. She couldnt help whispering. The silent lake pressed on her, as did the escape of any kind of born(p) sound: at that place were no birds singin g, no murmurous in the bushes †no bushes! No trees!\r\n sooner, just the mist surrounding the frozen water.\r\nâ€Å"The thurgs,”Elena repeated in a slightly louder vo scratch. â€Å"They cant possibly walk on that!”\r\nâ€Å"Depends on how thick the lake spyglass is,”Damon said, flashing his old 250-kilowatt down(p)(p)ace at her. â€Å"If its thick exuberant, itl be just exchangeable walking on land for them.”\r\nâ€Å"And if it isnt?”\r\nâ€Å"Hmm…Do thurgs float?”\r\nElena gave him an exasperated glance and looked at Stefan. â€Å"What do you recollect?”\r\nâ€Å"I dont know,”he said doubtful y. â€Å"Theyre very large animals.\r\nLets use up Bonnie about the kids in the fairy tale.”\r\nBonnie, Stillwrapped in skin blankets that began col ecting chunks of ice as they dragged on the ground, looked at the lake grimly. â€Å"The story didnt go into detail,”she said. â€Å"It just said that the y went down, down, down, and that they had to pass tests of their courage and †and †humor †to begin with they got there.”\r\nâ€Å"Fortunately,”Damon said, smiling, â€Å"I have large comme il faut amounts of some(prenominal)(prenominal) to top up for my br early(a)s entire lack of either †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Stop it, Damon!”Elena burst out. The moment shed seen the smile, shed turn to Stefan, pul ed him down to her height, and begun kissing him. She knew what Damon would see when he turned bet on toward them †her and Stefan locked in an embrace, Stefan profoundly conscious of anything being said. At least they could Stilltouch with their minds. And it was intriguing, Elena thought, Stefans warm let loose when everything else in the world was tatty. She looked pronto at Bonnie, to make sure she hadnt upset her, exactly Bonnie was looking quite cheerful.\r\nThe farther I seem to grounds Damon away, the happier she is, Elena t hought. Oh, God…this is a problem.\r\nStefan spoke up quietly. â€Å"Bonnie, what it comes down to is that it has to be your choice. Dont audition to use courage or wit or anything except your inner feelings. Where do we go?”\r\nBonnie glanced punt at the thurgs, thusly looked at the lake.\r\nâ€Å"That way,”she said, without hesitation, and she pointed forthwith across the lake.\r\nâ€Å"Wed better hold some of the cooking stones and fuel and backpacks with iron rations in them,”Stefan said. â€Å"That way, if the worst happens, wel Stillhave basic supplies.”\r\nâ€Å"Besides,”said Elena, â€Å"itl lighten that thurgs turn on †if nevertheless by a little.”\r\nIt seemed a annoyance to put a backpack on Bonnie, merely she insisted. Final y, Elena arranged one fil ed only with the warm, curiously light pelt clothes. Everyone else was carrying furs, food, and poop †the desiccate animal dung that would from now on be their only fuel.\r\nIt was difficult from the first. Elena had only had a brace of experiences with ice that she had reason to be wary of †but one of those had almost been disastrous for Matt. She was ready to rise and whirl at any crack †any sound that the ice was breaking. But there were no cracks; no water flowing up to plash onto her boots.\r\nThe thurgs were the ones who seemed actual y built for walking on frozen water. Their feet were pneumatic, and could spread out to almost fractional again their original size, avoiding putting as well much pressure on any one character of ice.\r\nCrossing the lake was slow, but Elena didnt see anything particularly mischievous about it. It was simply the smoothest, slickest ice she had ever encountered. Her boots precious to skate.\r\nâ€Å"Hey, everybody!”Bonnie was skating, exactly as if she were in a rink, backward and forward and sideways. â€Å"This is fun!”\r\nâ€Å"Were non here to have fun,”Ele na shouted back. She longed to try it herself, but was aghast(predicate) to make cuts †even scuffs †in the ice. And beside that, Bonnie was use twice as much energy as she collected to.\r\nShe was about to cal out to Bonnie and tel her this, when Damon, in a voice of exasperation, made al the points she had thought of, and a some more.\r\nâ€Å"This isnt a pleasure cruise,”he said shortly. â€Å"Its for the fate of your town.”\r\nâ€Å"As if you c atomic number 18,”Elena murmured, turning her back on him and touching the unhappy Bonnies pass off both to give comfort and to evolve them going at arms length again. â€Å"Bonnie, do you sense anything trickal about the lake?”\r\nâ€Å"No.”But then Bonnies imagination seemed to pilot into high gear. â€Å"But maybe its where the mystics from both dimensions al gathered to exchange spel s. Or maybe its where they utilise the ice like a real magic mirror to see faraway places and thin gs.”\r\nâ€Å"Maybe both of them,”Elena said, secretly amused, but Bonnie nodded solemnly.\r\nAnd that was when it came. The sound Elena had been time lag for.\r\nNor was it a distant booming which could be neglected or discussed. They had been walking at arms length from one an otherwise to avoid stressing the ice, while the thurgs walked behind them, and to either side †like a flock of geese with no leaders.\r\nThis noise was a dreadful y progress crack like the report of a gun. Immediately, it sounded again, like a whiplash, and then a crumbling.\r\nIt was to Elenas leave, on Bonnies side.\r\nâ€Å"skate, Bonnie,”she shouted. â€Å"Skate as fast as you can.\r\nScream if you see land.”\r\nBonnie didnt ask a single question. She took off like an Olympic speed skater in front of Elena, and Elena swiftly turned.\r\nIt was Biratz, the thurg Bonnie had asked Pelat about. She had one monstrous back leg in the ice, and as she struggled, more ice cracke d.\r\nStefan! Can you hear me?\r\nFaintly. Im coming for you.\r\nYes †but only come as close as you need to Influence the thurg.\r\nInfluence the †?\r\nMake her calm, put her out, whatever. Shes tear up the ice and itll just make it inviolableer to get her out!\r\nThis time there was a fail earlier Stefans dissolver came.\r\nShe knew though, by faint echoes, that he was talking telepathical y with someone else. only right, love, Ill do it. Ill take care of the thurg, too. You follow Bonnie.\r\nHe was manufacturing. Or, not lying, but keeping something from her.\r\nThe person hed been sending thoughts to was Damon. They were pampering her. They didnt mean to help at all.\r\nJust at that moment she hear a shril scream †not so far away. It was Bonnie in tump over †no! Bonnie had found land!\r\nElena didnt lose another second. She dumped her backpack on the ice and skated straight back to the thurg.\r\nThere it was, so huge, so pathetic, so helpless. The ver y thing that had kept it safe from other Godawful Hel acious monsters in the Dark Dimension †its great spate †was now turned against it. Elena mat up her chest deoxidize as if she were wearing a corset.\r\nEven as she watched, though, the animal became calmer.\r\nShe stopped laborious to get her leftover hind leg out of the ice, which meant that she stopped churn up the ice roughly it.\r\n in a flash Biratz was in a sort of crouching position, trying to keep her third ironical legs from going under. The problem was that she was trying too hard, and that there was nothing to push against except splintery ice.\r\nâ€Å"Elena!”Stefan was within earshot now. â€Å"Dont get any contiguous!”\r\nBut even as he said it, Elena motto a Sign. Just a a couple of(prenominal) feet away, lying on the ice was the tickle-prod that Pelat had used to get the thurgs going.\r\nShe picked it up as she skated by and then she saw another Sign. Reddish hay and the origi nal showing for the hay †a giant tarpaulin †were lying behind the thurg. Together they formed a unspecific wide path that was neither wet nor slick.\r\nâ€Å"Elena!”\r\nâ€Å"This is going to be easy, Stefan!”\r\nElena pul ed a pair of run dry socks out of her pocket and drew them up over her boots. She fastened the tickle stick to her belt. And then she started the waiver of her life.\r\nHer boots were fur with something like felt underneath and with the socks to aid them, they caught on the tarpaulin and propel ed her forward. She leaned into it, mistily wishing Meredith were here, so she could do this instead, but al the time getting closer. And then she saw her secernate: the end of the tarp and beyond it floating chunks of ice.\r\nBut the thurg looked move upable. very(prenominal) low in back, like a dinosaur halfway into a tar pit, but then rising up along the curved backbone. If she could just somehow land there…\r\nTwo go til jump-off. O ne step til jump-off.\r\nJUMP!\r\nElena pushed off with her right foot, flew by dint of the air for an endless time, and †hit the water.\r\nInstantly, she was unbendable from channel to foot and the shock of the icy water was unbelievable. It caught hold of her like some monster with a handful of jagged ice shards. It blinded her with her own hair, it squeezed al the sound out of the universe.\r\nSomehow, clawing at her face, she freed her mouth and eyes from hair. She realized that she was only slightly below the surface of the water, and that was al she needed to push upwards until her mouth broke the surface and she could suck in a lungful of delicious air, after which she had a coughing fit.\r\nFirst time up, she thought, remembering the old credulity that a drowning person wil rise three propagation and then sink forever.\r\nBut the strange thing was that she wasnt sinking. There was a dul pain in her thigh but she wasnt going under.\r\nSlowly, slowly, she realized what had happened. She had missed the back of the thurg, but landed on its thick reptilian tail. One of the serrated fins had gashed her, but she was stable.\r\nSo…now…al I have to do is climb the thurg, she puzzled out slowly. Everything seemed slow because there were icebergs bobbing nigh her shoulders.\r\nShe put up a fur-lined gloved hand and reached for the next fin up. The water, while making her alky clothes heavier, supported some of her weight. She managed to pul herself up to the next fin. And the next. And then here was the rump, and she had to be careful †no more footholds. Instead she grabbed for handholds and found something with her left hand. A broken strap from the hay carrier.\r\nnot a bully idea †in retrospect.\r\nFor a few minutes that qualified as among the worst in her life she was showered with hay, pounded with rocks, and smothered in the dust of old dung.\r\nWhen it was final y over she looked around, sneezing and coughing, to cal l up that she was Stillon the thurg. The tickle stick had been broken but enough remained for her to use.\r\nStefan was frantical y asking, both aloud and by telepathy, if she was all(a) right. Bonnie was skating back and forth like a Tinker Bel guide, and Damon was cursing at Bonnie to get back to land and impediment there.\r\nMeanwhile Elena was inching up the rump of the thurg. She made it through the crushed supply basket. She final y reached the thurgs summit, and she colonised just behind the domed head, in the shoes where a driver would sit.\r\nAnd then she tickled the thurg behind the ears.\r\nâ€Å"Elena!”Stefan shouted, and then Elena, what are you trying to do?\r\nâ€Å"I dont know!”she shouted back. â€Å"Trying to save the thurg!”\r\nâ€Å"You cant,”Damon interrupted Stefans answer in a voice as frigid and Stillas the place they were in.\r\nâ€Å"She can make it!”Elena said ferociously †precisely because she herself was having doubts about whether the animal could. â€Å"You could help by pul ing on her bridle.”\r\nâ€Å"Theres no point,”Damon shouted, and turned about-face, walking quickly into the mist.\r\nâ€Å"Il give it a try. Throw it out in front of her,”Stefan said.\r\nElena threw the knotted bridle as hard as she could. Stefan had to run almost to the march on of the ice to grab it before it fel in. Then he held it aloft triumphantly. â€Å"Got it!”\r\nâ€Å"Okay, pul ! Give her a direction to start in.”\r\nâ€Å"Wil do!”\r\nElena tapped Biratz again behind her right ear. There was a faint rumble from the animal and then nothing. Elena could see Stefan straining at the bridle.\r\nâ€Å"Come on,” Elena said, and slapped sharply with the stick.\r\nThe thurg raise up a giant foot, placed it farther on the ice, and struggled. As soon as she did, Elena smacked hard behind the left ear.\r\nThis was the crucial moment. If Elena could keep Biratz from devastating al the ice between her back legs, they exponent have a chance.\r\nThe thurg tentatively lifted her left hind leg and stretched it until it made contact with the ice.\r\nâ€Å"Good, Biratz! Now! â€Å"Elena shouted. Now if Biratz would only surge forward…\r\nThere was a great upheaval underneath her. For several(prenominal) minutes Elena thought that perhaps Biratz had broken through the ice with al four legs. Then the mass murder changed to a rocking motion and suddenly, dizzyingly Elena knew that they had won.\r\nâ€Å"Easy, now, easy,”she cal ed to the animal, giving her a gentle tickle with the stick. And slowly, ponderously, Biratz moved forward. Her domed head drooped farther and farther as she went, and she foundered at the edge of a bank of mist, breaking the ice again. But there she only sank a few inches before meeting mud.\r\nA few more travel and they were on solid ground. Elena had to suck in her inkling to stifle a scream as the thurgs dom elike head slumped, giving her a short and scary put on to where the tusks re-curved on themselves. Somehow she slid right between them and had to in haste scramble off Biratzs trunks.\r\nâ€Å"It was pointless, you know, doing that,”Damon said from somewhere in the mist beside her. â€Å"Risking your own life.”\r\nâ€Å"What d-do you mean p-pointless?”Elena demanded. She wasnt frightened; she was freezing.\r\nâ€Å"The animals are going to die anyway. The next trial is one they cant manage and even if they could, this isnt a place where anything grows. Instead of a quick clean death in the water, theyre going to starve, slowly.”\r\nElena didnt answer; the only answer she could appreciate of was,\r\nâ€Å"Why didnt you tel me earlier?”She had stopped chill, which was a great thing, because a moment ago her body had felt as if she might shake herself apart.\r\nClothes, she thought vaguely. That was the problem. It sure couldnt be as cold here in the air as it had been in that water. It was her clothes that were making her so cold.\r\nShe began, with numb fingers, to take them off. First, she unfastened her whip jacket. No zippers here: buttons. That was a real problem. Her fingers felt like frozen hot dogs, and only nominal y under her direction. But somehow or other she managed to undo the fastenings and the leather dropped to the ground with a muffled thump †it had taken a class of her inner fur off with it. Ick. The smel of wet fur. Now, now she had to â€\r\nBut she couldnt. She couldnt do anything because someone was holding her arms. desirous her arms. Those hands were annoying, but at least she knew who they belonged to. They were true and very gentle but very strong. Al that added up to Stefan.\r\nSlowly, she raised her dripping head to ask Stefan to stop burning her arms.\r\nBut she couldnt. Because on Stefans body there was Damons head. Now that was funny. Shed seen a lot of things that vampires coul d do, but not this swapping heads business.\r\nâ€Å"Stefan-Damon †please stop,”she gasped between hysterical whoops of laughter. â€Å"It equipment casualtys. Its too hot!”\r\nâ€Å"Hot? Youre frozen, you mean.”The deft, searing hands were itchbing up and down her arms, pushing back her head to rub her cheeks. She let it happen, because it seemed to be only sense that if it was Damons head, they were Stefans hands.\r\nâ€Å"Youre cold but youre not shivering?”a grim Damon-voice said from somewhere.\r\nâ€Å"Yes, so you see I mustiness be warm up.”Elena didnt feel very change up. She realized that she Stillhad on a longer fur garment, one that reached to her knees under her leather breeches. She fumbled with her belt.\r\nâ€Å"Youre not warming up. Youre going into the next stage of hypothermia. And if you dont get dry and warm right now, youre going to die.”Not roughly, he tilted her chin up to look into her eyes. â€Å"Youre si ck now †can you understand me, Elena? We need to unfeignedly get you warm.”\r\nWarm was a concept as vague and faraway as life before she had met Stefan. But delirious she understood. That was not a good thing. What to do about it except laugh?\r\nâ€Å"All right. Elena, just wait for a moment. Let me distinguish †â€Å"In a moment he was back. Not quick enough to stop her from unwrapping the fur down to her waist, but back before she could get her camisole off.\r\nâ€Å"Here.”He stripped off the damp fur and wrapped a warm, dry one around her, over her camisole.\r\nAfter a moment or two she began to shiver.\r\nâ€Å"Thats my girl,”Damons voice said. It went on: â€Å"Dont fight me, Elena. Im trying to save your life. Thats al . Im not going to try to do anything else. I give you my word.”\r\nElena was bewildered. Why should she think that Damon â€\r\nthis must be Damon, she decided †would want to hurt her?\r\nAlthough he could be a b astard sometimes…\r\nAnd he was taking off her clothes.\r\nNo. That shouldnt be happening. Definitely not. Especial y since Stefan must be somewhere around.\r\nBut by now Elena was shivering too hard to talk.\r\nAnd now that she was in her underwear, he was making her lie down on furs, tucking other furs around her. Elena didnt understand anything that was happening, but it was al first not to matter. She was floating somewhere outside herself, notice without much interest.\r\nThen another body was move in under the furs. She snapped back from the place she had been floating. Very briefly she got a look at a bare chest. And then a warm, compact body slid into the makeshift sleeping bag with her.\r\nWarm, hard arms went around her, keeping her in contact al over her body.\r\nThrough the mist she vaguely heard Stefans voice.\r\nâ€Å"What the hell are you doing?”\r\n'