Author's Note: 11-hour day at work, so I didn't get time to post earlier. I wrote 800 words, and then decided I hated the chapter and erased it. I wrote something entirely different instead. I'm kinda tired and wrote this in 40 minutes, so you'll have to excuse grammar mistakes. I'll clean them up tomorrow.

It had been three days since she had seen Milori. The summer fairies were preparing to go to the mainland in two more days, and there were still many preparations to be done. Clarion had to send her regrets to Milori because she had been getting up at sunrise and going to bed after midnight for the last few nights. Gliss had brought her back a reply immediately, which Clarion hadn't expected.

My dearest Clarion,

I appreciate you letting me know that you can't come visit for a few days. I realize you have many duties to attend to, and it would be unfair of me to expect you to devote so much time to me and shirk your responsibilities. I have the luxury of convalescing right now while you do not. Unfortunately with us both being rulers, we may have times where it will be days before we're able to have time together. Sometimes our time might only be holding each other in sleep after we mate, but we'll figure it out. Apparently I miss talking to you because I'm digressing...

Yes, I'm doing alright. Spruce told me that he was ordered to report to you if I don't do my daily back and wing exercises with him, which I think is quite unfair of you, sweetheart. I'd rather face an hour of his rough hands poking my back than face the queen's wrath.

She laughed to herself, picturing him chuckling with a wink at her.

And, no, my leg is holding up fine. Spruce says that it is healing quick, thanks to you, and I can soon start some exercises to strengthen it.

I'm keeping you too long, so I shall say farewell for now. And be careful if Tinkerbell is inventing anything. Sled told me about the small explosion she caused in the tinker shop last night when everyone was thankfully gone. She seems to be accident prone, and I worry about you getting caught in it.

I miss you and love you.

Yours,

Milori

She smiled down at his elegant scrawl and gently ran her fingers over his last words. Yours. A shiver of delight ran through her, and she held his letter to her breast. He had sent her a letter once when she had been in the hospital, and she had been confused what 'yours' had meant. She understood now that, even back then when they had barely known each other, he had meant that he was hers.

She climbed into bed at one o'clock in the morning that night. She was irritable, exhausted and sick of having queenly duties when she wanted to be lazy at the cottage with Milori. Pulling the sheets up, she laid down and sank into her wonderfully plush bed that fit her in all the right places that only came with years of breaking it in. With a happy sigh, she closed her eyes and was ready for sleep to claim her.

There was a knock on her chamber door.

Keeping her eyes closed, her brow furrowed. Perhaps if she ignored it, the intruder would go away.

"Queen Clarion?" a guard called through the door and knocked louder. "My queen?!"

"What?!" she snapped, throwing back the blankets in a fit. She snatched up her robe and stomped to the door, wanting nothing more than to sleep—she even wanted it more than seeing Milori right now. She whipped it open to see a guard and Sled. "Sled? What are you doing here?" she asked, her first thought being something was wrong with Milori.

"I'm sorry to wake you, but there was a terrible avalanche in winter. Several winter fairies are buried, and Lord Milori is there right now trying to get them out with his talents. We've never seen an avalanche of this magnitude. His dust keeps draining fast, and he asked me to fetch you in hopes that you can keep supplying him. He can't hold out at this pace."

"Let me get dressed." She closed the door and threw on several layers of warm clothes in case she had to be in winter for several hours. Then she pulled on her cape and opened the door. "Come." She walked back into her room and over to the window.

"Um, shouldn't we use the hall?" he asked skeptically when she started to climb out.

"No, this way is faster."

"Isn't it too high for you to jump?"

"I sneak out this way all the time. The guards think I'm too delicate to climb out or something," she snorted with a wave of her hand. She slipped out the window and scaled down in the amount of time it took Sled to fly out. She looked around. "Is it far, or do I need Blizzard?"

"I can carry you."

"No, your wings aren't strong enough." She set her fingers to her lips and hoped Milori had trained Blizzard to respond to the pitch of an acorn whistle as he had done with Mountain. Then she waited with her eyes on the sky.

"He will come within seconds," he promised.

"Where is the avalanche?"

"In the East Woods at the base of a mountain. It's been a stable mountain for centuries, but the avalanche suddenly happened. It ripped out trees and everything in it's path. There are nearly a dozen homes at the bottom of the mountain, and they're all buried in thirty feet of snow. He keeps trying to take massive amounts of snow into the air to clear it away like he did when you went into the lake, but there's just too much. Sometimes he's able to plunge his hands into an avalanche of snow and use his talents to make it explode apart into snowflakes, but that isn't working either. He estimates another fifteen minutes and the trapped fairies will have suffocated in their homes."

"Does his back hurt?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I suppose so."

She looked him in the eye. "That could be the reason why his dust is draining so fast. Sled, I don't have his talents or strength. We have to figure something out or those fairies, and him, may fade."

Blizzard came soaring a moment later. She climbed up and scratched his back as Sled got seated behind her. The owl bobbed his head happily and pranced his feet.

"Queen Clarion!" one of the guards yelled from the window.

"You'll have to catch up because I'm not waiting!" she replied, purposefully not telling them her destination because she didn't want warm fairies going into winter where it wasn't safe. Then she snapped the reins. "Yah!" They tore into the sky.