One of Mylene Haprele's thick, fur-lined boots landed with a crunch in the thick, heavy snow of the Arctic Circle. Another followed, sinking more than a foot, which she thought was slightly excessive. The snow blew thick and heavy in front of her face as she and her partner slowly and carefully made their way across the frozen ground.

Next to her, Ivan muttered through chattering teeth, something about "why the hell did it have to be us who came up to this goddamn hell icicle". Mylene silently agreed. He nudged her. "Look."

A bright green flag waved over the top of the next hill, and both Ivan and Mylene sighed in relief. They went back to their climbing, but with a little spring in their step that no one could say had been there before.

Someone was waiting for them as they crested the hill. A woman, actually, though you could barely tell from the ridiculously huge hood she and everyone else was wearing. Her voice was bright and high, even as she was shouthing through the freezing wind. "Are you Mylene Haprele and Ivan Bruel, from the capitol?" Ivan shouted a yes, and she made a motion to signal 'follow me'.

As they started to move, the woman began talking. "I'm Aurore Boreale, and I'm pretty sure I know what you're thinking."

Ivan looked over at her. "Well, I don't care what you think that I think, I want to know what's so special that we have to fly up to the goddamn top of the world."

Aurore laughed, a bell sound that Mylene could barely hear. "I thought you'd say that!" Ivan huffed and rolled his eyes. Mylene piped up.

"Sorry, but why did you call us up here? I mean, couldn't you have just gotten a crane?" Mylene saw Aurore's patronizing smile out of the corner of her eye, which irritated her.

"Oh, ma'am, I'm sorry, but I don't think you really understand. What I mean is that you'd need an awfully big crane!"

Just then, a shadow fell over them. Mylene looked up to see...something. Something big. She slowly moved back as Aurore's words dawned on her.

It was an airship. A helicarrier. And it was still whole.

Mylene waited nervously inside with Aurore as people rushed around them, calling out names and places and all sorts of numbers. The other woman was chatting away as Mylene held a mug of steaming hot chocolate. She was trying to listen, honestly, but she couldn't help worrying about-

The door banged open and all chatter stopped. Even Aurore was shocked silent as Ivan burst through, more excited than she'd ever seen him. He ran over, still covered in snow as he spoke. "Mylene. I got the door open. Come quickly."

Within a few minutes, the clamor of voices had reawoken, and the only sign that something had happened was the extra mug of hot chocolate on the table near Aurore Boreale.

Ivan's eyes were wide as he and Mylene stepped into the helicarrier. His voice rang out in the quiet. "How do you think this got here?" Mylene shrugged. Something flashed in the light of her flashlight beam as she walked over, footsteps echoing. As she picked up the shiny thing, something gave way beneath her fingers. Panicking, she brought the golden thing closer to her face to try to see what went wrong. She could see her sigh of relief in the air as she realized that it was a locket, but her blood chilled at the faces inside it.

"Ivan!" The burly man ran over faster than she thought he could. At the sight of the pictures, though, he froze.

"No. Fucking. Way." He looked at her with doubt in his eyes, but her urge to find out what this was was growing stronger by the second. She turned around, walking around the cabin.

Mylene could practically feel the history of this place. She could tell that it was old. But, god, what had happened here? Maybe...no. It couldn't be.

The flashlight beam passed over more ice, but this time...this time the ice seemed to have...god, it seemed to have color behind it. She whispered Ivan's name, and as he saw her discovery, he grinned and pushed her forward. "Go ahead."

Mylene stepped forwards. Her legs must have gotten much colder, because they wouldn't stop shaking. She raised a gloved hand...and wiped off the seventy-five year old frost.

"Hey, Aurore?"

"Mylene, it's almost midnight. It's negative thirty degrees out. What do you want?"

"You're going to want to see this."

It was hard to see, but under four inches of solid ice, there was a silver staff…

and a red and black yoyo.