When Ellen woke up it was still dark. She didn't know quite what time it was exactly but she knew from her own odd yawns that it must have been some time in the early hours.

And that's when she began to panic a little. Because she knew, in a strange instinctive way, that something was wrong here. Her mother was still asleep and Tristan…

"Tristan?" she called into the darkness of the house.

He could have been outside, readying the boat for market in a few hours' time. Ellen dashed to the window the check

"Tristan?" she shouted again, glancing down between the houses.

A sudden noise caught her attention and she glanced up at the sky to identify it. The bell. The bell had never rung in Ellen's lifetime. At least, not like this. Not this fast. Whoever was ringing it was shouting something from the platform beneath the bell itself but Ellen couldn't make it out.

"Mother?" she called back into the house, panicking a little as people from the houses began to swarm around their boats in a blind daze, their shouting from the streets below beginning to drown out Ellen's own uneven breathing.

"Mother!" she called, louder now, as torches were lit in the streets and people were ushered into boats, carrying what they could as the bell continued to ring

As always, her mother's door was locked and Ellen tugged on the handle

"Mother!" she screamed "Mother, help!"

She heard footsteps from the other side of the door as Annice began to walk towards it, still sleepily unaware of the danger

"What is it, my darling?" she asked

Ellen moved away from the door and ran to the other side of the house, throwing herself against the window there to force it open.

She stared out at the cold night sky. That's when she saw it. The huge, iridescent shape gliding through the space between the mountain and lake-town

"Mummy?" she called again, quietly.

It was less of a question and more of a whimper as the moonlight reappeared from behind the shadow and Ellen squinted as the light hit her window.

The shape opened its mouth

-x-X-x-

Tristan stood perfectly still. The wind pulled at his long coat and sent it whistling around his ankles.

The town was burning. His town was burning

Shock prevented him from registering much else. Not the arms tugging on his shoulder, not the screaming in his ears. Nothing.

A slap to the face knocked him out of it and he came around to see Narius rubbing the piece of his face he'd just hit

"Sorry, man but it's for your own good" he muttered

Vahri was still screaming "We have to help them. Oh God, oh god, no, we have to do something. We…!"

"Vahri stop!" Tristan shrieked, glancing back out to the lake "They're gone. Everyone is gone"

"We don't have time" Narius' voice rose an octave as he began to drag Tristan with him "People are coming this way"

Sure enough, the figures of the dwarves were making their way up the hill, towards the outcrop the three of them were stood on.

Tristan looked back briefly at the mountain and the approaching shapes and turned quickly, walking with his hands in his deep, damp pockets and keeping his head up.

Vahri watched him with Narius stumbling after the young man and it was only now that she had begun to feel just how cold she was.

Vahri looked back at Tristan's retreating figure.

The water around her began to freeze over.

-x-X-x-

Tristan ignored his companions who trailed behind him morosely. He wanted to find his mother and Ellen. He had been completely devoid of hope until he'd seen figures wading from the depths onto the craggy shore. There were survivors, a lot of children and a few women. His family could be amongst them. Could be.

He felt strangely hot; unreasonably angry.

Perhaps it was because his boots hadn't been properly fixed by the cobbler and were letting in frost or maybe it was the holes in coat shoulder. Maybe it was because his hair was in his eyes.

It struck Tristan very heavily as he began to accelerate his movements with the incline of the mountain, one foot falling in front of the other jerkily, not slowing down.

He had run away

He had left his family. In the dead of night he had just rowed away and left them. He hadn't even thought twice about it.

Before he could follow the thought further he tripped.

Tristan yelped as the right side of his face took the brunt of the fall and his neck bent backwards painfully before he flipped over and somersaulted through the air, landing on his tailbone and beginning to roll forwards again. This time he gave another pained grunt as he tried to stick his left leg out to steady himself, only serving to launch himself partially into the air and slam back down on his right side, He rolled a few more times before coming to a halt on the charcoal bed of small black pebbles at the very last stretch of the mountain. Everything was quiet.

Tristan lay on his back, His arms out to either side of him, his right leg bent with his knee in the air and his foot on the floor. He took a deep breath in and it came out shaky with a pitched whistle in his throat and a sore ache.

Tristan threw his hands up to his face took another breath that piped and whistled. And then another and another. He was only grateful that the tears didn't freeze to his face.