By the time Indi returns to the Castle it's more built than it had been before she left. It was quite the beautiful sight to behold! The Ice Palace was starting to look amazing at this point. The north and west walls were completed and the two seemed to be working on finishing up the south wall at that exact moment.
"Ah, Indi, there you are!" Snow Miser smiles warmly at her, quickly making his way over to her when he sees her. "I was starting to get worried, Sugar Plum. I thought something might've happened!"
"It's funny that you say that because, something did happen, actually.." Indi glances off to where she came from. "There was thi-.."
"WHAT!? What happened!? Are you okay?" Snow goes into a slight panic as he starts checking her over, looking for any sort of blood or injury. "Who did it..!?"
"Do you need me to roast 'em?" Heat joins in as he pauses from the work he was so focused on. Although he was nervous about his brothers relationship with her, he still cared enough about the girls well being. She didn't seem like a bad human. Also, if their mother found out she was a human through that, it could be very dangerous.
"Whoa! Haha, slow down you two, I'm fine! Thank you for worrying about me though." Indi gives a soft smile. "What happened was there was this person standing over there, hiding in the bushes. So I followed them! I was right on their tail and then poof they disappeared right? Then I went to get a drink from this pond and there was a strange girl with orange hair in it talking to me..."
"A girl with orange hair..?" Snow Miser raises an eyebrow and glances at Heat. "I know someone with that description.."
"Don't jump to conclusions yet, Snowball! What were her other features?" Heat motions to Indi to continue.
"Well, she had blue yes like me and a brown and green outfit, some gold and white hair too.. She asked me if I knew her or if this seemed familiar. I ...I can honestly say I do know her! I just..don't know her name..and everything does seem familiar here in some way. I got spooked by her talking and when I looked in the water, she was gone.." Indi frowns.
Both Heat Miser and Snow Miser are staring at her, wide-eyed and dumbfounded at this point. They definitely knew who the girl was but could it be true..? They hadn't seen her in years, many, many years at that. "It...can't be! Can it..?"
"We know her.." Heat Miser looks at Snow Miser to see his reaction.
"Her name is Inari she was the Harvest Maiden. It was her job to bring fall and harvests to the world. She painted the colors of the leaves, brought out fall crops and harvests while destroying and preserving life for the next season, Winter. She had a bunch of powers! But.." Snow stops a moment to try and catch his emotions.
"She never got the chance. We were all playing as kids and practicing our powers. Showing off more so I guess.." Heat explains, " We were just being kids. Our brother, North Wind, joined in and we all got a bit too carried away and wild. A wind storm came out of nowhere and Inari was swept away.."
"We could never find her no matter how hard we tried. All of us elementals pitched in! She was just...gone, but, if you've seen her around, that means she's still alive! I wonder why she hasn't shown herself to any of us..?" Snow Miser looks slightly hurt as he thinks about it, glancing back at Heat.
"We'll have to inform Mother and the others as soon as possible. This is big news! Then we can all keep an eye out for her." Heat Miser grins really big as he thinks about it. "Just imagine if we do find her? That would be a huge nod in our favor towards that award!"
"Wow, so there's a Harvest Maiden named Inari? Huh, that name does sound familiar come to think of it. I swear I heard it when I was just a kid! My mom used to tell me a bunch of stories about the elementals, my father too. It's so cool to hear about another one! I don't remember hearing my mom talk too much about her. Just a little bit and now I can see why!" She smiles warmly at them. "If I can do anything to help, I'd be very happy to!"
"Thanks, we'd appreciate it!" Snow gives a smile at her. "For now we should focus on finishing up this Ice Palace. I'm sorry if it's a bit boring since you can't help out with any of your powers...but you are helping out a lot by guarding it!"
Heat Miser gasps a moment as a thought dawns on him, "Now I know she can't use fire power, but, do you think the sabotager could've been Inari?" He looks at Snow.
"What?! Inari wouldn't do that! ...Would she..?" Snow Miser had to think about it for a moment.
"If she thinks we're the ones to blame for what might've happened to her, she just might!" Heat tries to reason with his brother the both giving a nod in agreement. This was going to be tricky now if that were the case.
"If only there were a way to catch her in the act, then we'd know for sure!" Heat slams a fist into his other hand.
"True, hmn, do you think she'll show up to crash the Ceremony..? We would be able to catch her then for sure!" Snow looks between the two as he plots.
"Oh definitely! If she's a woman scorned, she is definitely going to show up and crash your party! I mean, she's trying to destroy it already. If this doesn't work, she's doing an inside job! As a lady myself I can tell you that when some of us get mad, we plot revenge. If one thing doesn't work out for us, we will hit you where it hurts. Since you are both trying to get this award at this ceremony, seems to be that'd be a perfect time to try and crash it! It'd make you both look like horrible fools in front of everyone. All of the elements would see, she could easily try and ruin your reputations and chances at the award. Not to mention if she tries to pull any other things out of her hat that Mother Nature would listen to and believe, you guys could end up punished. I'm not really sure how that works up here with your Mom, but let me tell you, I tried to avoid getting in trouble with my mother at all costs. I couldn't imagine the wrath of Mother Nature and to be honest, I don't want to." Indi smirks and folds her arms. "So it looks like operation Catch Fall is our only option! Who's with me?"
"Oh, you have no idea! It's the absolute WORST! North Wind isn't getting out of chore duty of several thousand years because he nearly killed Santa Claus a few Christmas' ago!" Snow Miser shudders at the thought of being forced to do that sort of stuff over creating his beautiful snow.
"Oh yeah, he definitely felt Mother's wrath worse than that too. She kept coming up with new things to throw at him as punishment as she went along. Something she does when she herself is bored and is trying to teach the problem child a lesson. We know that all too well! Oof, growing up with her and constantly fighting the way we did, we were always in trouble." Heat shakes his head and stomps his foot. "Anyways, there's no way I'm letting her or anyone ruin my chances at that award! The only thing we can do is stop her. I don't want to see her get punished by Mother either, not after just returning."
"Agreed!" Snow Miser nods at them both.
Heat, Snow and Indi all put their hands in, shaking upon the new found team up. They were going to solve this mystery of Inari the missing Harvest Maiden.