Ashe, with a little skill and a fair amount of luck, landed feet first before falling to her hands and knees. Pain shot through her body from her legs and she grit her teeth. It took her a moment to convince herself she hadn't broken any of her limbs. Sprained, she wondered? It didn't quite amount to the pain she would have expected from a sprained leg, but she didn't know better. In either case, if she was cautious, she could move.

Looking up, it wasn't possible to tell how far she'd fallen.

The ground had swallowed them whole. It seemed they had wandered over a ravine, and the snow layer that covered it collapsed, taking them down to the bottom of the chasm. Staring up, all she could see were two stone walls, jagged and uneven and eventually angling away from her, so she couldn't see the sky above. There was, however, a marginal amount of light that reached her. Enough that she could see her surroundings and realize Quinn was nowhere to be seen.

The two had been running no more than a couple meters apart, and Ashe was sure she'd seen Quinn get caught up in the collapsing snow. Had she managed to escape falling down into the ravine? Ashe could only hope so. There were only two directions to go, and she'd been tossed and turned around too much in the fall to be able to tell which direction Quinn had been in.

After a few minutes of heavy breathing and leaning against the nearby wall, she began to move.

"Quinn?" she called out gently.

Nothing but the rumble of an ominous wind reached her. At the very least, the Yeti hadn't followed down after them. It must have leaped over the chasm and gave up on its prey. That was only a small reprieve.

She felt a modicum of responsibility for what happened to Quinn. The girl was too young to be travelling Freljord alone, no matter her goals, and she had trusted Ashe enough to follow her. If Quinn was injured – or even worse, hadn't survived the fall – then Ashe would only have herself to blame.

She shook her head vigorously, flushing out any bad thoughts.

With careful steps, as not to slip on the icy rock floor, she began to explore the cold prison.

It turned out, Quinn was just around the corner.

She was standing, which Ashe was relieved about, but the relief was very short lived. The girl's gloves were discarded on the ground, and she was throwing herself at the wall, trying to clamber up the vertical surface. She was ruthlessly grating her fingers on the rock in the process, trying to find leverage to pull herself up, and Ashe could hear her hard breathing.

"Quinn, stop it," Ashe said, rushing over. "What are you doing?"

"We need to get out of here," Quinn said. Her entire body was shaking. "Out – we need out. We're going to die."

Ashe grabbed Quinn, pulling her away from the wall and into a hug. "Calm down. We're fine. We're alive. We'll get out – but not like this."

"Gonna die, gonna die. I don't want to die, but I'm gonna die," Quinn said.

The girl quivered in her arms, and Ashe realized it was a panic attack, or something of the sort. Claustrophobia?

"It's over. It's dark. It's cold, and lonely. I don't like it. I don't like death."

If their current situation was causing the panic attack, then they needed out as soon as possible. Ashe grabbed Quinn's gloves, pocketing them because the task of forcing them on Quinn's shaking hands would have been too much, and pulled Quinn along.

The chasm was very narrow – if she reached her arms out, she could touch either end – and there were only two directions she could possibly go. Forward or backwards. Grasping Quinn's hand as tightly as possible, so the girl wouldn't break free and start attacking the walls again, Ashe moved forward. In minutes, they were walking in a pitch black environment, and Ashe had to hold out a hand to guide herself, so they wouldn't walk into a wall.

Pessimistic mutterings of death followed them through the void.

Holding Quinn's hand, Ashe felt another relief – one which wasn't quite as easily explained. Since the moment she had met Quinn, something seemed off about the girl. There had been too much bravery, too much confidence, and too much recklessness abandon in the girl, making her seem much too mature for a thirteen year old. The pitiful demeanor she now saw in Quinn – however terrible it may have been – was reassuring.

Quinn was a child, and this was the first time she was really showing it.

The stone walls of the cave ended, and Ashe stepped out into the bright sunlight, squinting but smiling. Quinn had run ahead of her, as soon as they saw the light, and she was now sitting on the ground, washing her face in the snow. The action indicated she was recovering, but Ashe quickly forgot about the girl as she realized what they had happened upon.

The cave had opened up into a small valley. The place was secluded from the rest of the world, with steep, unclimbable mountain slopes on either side. It was narrow, maybe fifty meters wide, and fir trees were interspersed throughout area, their lower branches showing dark green pines, unladen by snow. The trees were tall, and sheltered circles of permafrost beneath them, but even the surrounding snow wasn't very deep. Half a foot, at the most.

Cautiously, Ashe walked forward. It felt like she was the first human to ever walk the grounds, and that the place was sacred. A vale which had never been seen before, and her and Quinn would be the first to explore it. In mere seconds, her eyes alighted on the most amazing part of it all. Running lengthwise through the valley was a river with islands of snow and shallow areas, and the water was crystal clear, revealing a rocky bottom. From the waters, clouds billowed upwards. Steam. They had stumbled upon a genuine hot-springs river.

Suddenly, the sweat Ashe had accumulated all day made itself apparent. Her body felt sticky, underneath her winter gear, and her exhaustion made her want to drop to her knees. She approached the river, afraid it was some kind of magical illusion and would disappear if she blinked.

"No way," Quinn whispered, now following closely behind her. "Is that what I think it is?"

The current was gentle and quiet, and snow was overhanging the edges of the river, like a glacier in the process of being melted. The steam had formed large gaps between the water's surface and the snow hanging over the edge, and Ashe half expected it to collapse as she approached, disturbing the serenity of the river's edge.

Quinn charged forward, peeling off her layers of clothing before she'd even made it to the water. She struggled with her boots, and then hopped on one foot as she pulled a sock off, alternating foot to get the other sock off. Leaving her clothing strewn about in the snow, there was no hesitation, or pause, at the water's edge. She jumped in, curling up into a ball a moment before hitting the water.

Ashe watched, bemused, but with no intention of going to Quinn's aid should she drown or get boiled alive - though the latter was unlikely, since there were no volcanoes nearby to heat the water.

A few seconds later, Quinn burst through the surface with a shout. "This is amazing! Ashe, come on!"

She splashed water in Ashe's direction, and it fell short, hitting the snow with a hiss and creating pockets of air in the previously uninterrupted blanket of white. Ashe approached, eyeing the water warily. Around the edges, it was shallow, but the river was pretty wide, and probably deep near the center.

Quinn disappeared under the water again, popping up a few seconds later with a gleeful laugh.

"It's so warm!"

"Keep it down, would you?" Ashe said, looking around the valley. "There may not be any animal tracks, but I have a hard time believing this place is completely empty."

Leaving Quinn to swim back and forth in the river, she began following the river's edge to lower ground, where it would be easier to step into the water.

"Ashe, Ashe, come quick!" Quinn shouted only minutes later.

"What? What is it?" Ashe said, fearing the worst as she rushed over to where Quinn was, now sitting in shallower water.

"It's a tongue thing," Quinn said, pointing to a nearby tree. "And it's watching us, look!"

Ashe looked over. She didn't immediately see it, because it camouflaged so well within the snow. It appeared she was right; they weren't alone in the valley. The red tongue gave it away, and Ashe squinted at the ball of fluff. There were two more nearby, completely motionless as they stared at Quinn and Ashe.

"Poros," she said. "I didn't know they were around here. Relax, Quinn, they're one of Freljord's few indigenous creatures. Completely harmless, like a pet dog – though not really domesticated."

"Domesticated?"

"Pets. Household pets, Quinn."

"Oh. Are they rare?"

"Rare?"
"I've never heard of them before."

"You really didn't prepare, before coming out here, did you? It's hard to say. Though this is the first time I've seen one outside of the village." Ashe took a step towards it. "I wonder if it'll let me pet it."

"Outside of the village? Didn't you say they weren't – weren't domesticated?"

"They aren't, but from the winter solstice until Snowdown, there's a great migration. A couple thousand pass through the village in a few days. It's a tradition, and we prepare weeks in advance, cooking biscuits for them."

"Thousands of them? That sounds fun."

"It is," Ashe nodded. "We make gifts for them too. Boots, hats, horn warmers, scarfs. And then we bring it all out and line up along the road. If a Poro takes your gift, it means good luck for the year." She frowned. "Though, in retrospect, I don't think I've failed to give away my gift. Maybe I'm just a really good seamstress?"

"I think they're too cute to be rude, and would take your horn warmer no matter how deformed it is."

Ashe laughed. "I guess so. There's a migration during the summer solstice too, but it isn't as big of an event. Aside from the solstices, though, I've never seen a Poro. But sometimes hunting teams come back saying they saw a fluft of Poros, so they're definitely out there."

"Can they swim?" Quinn said.

"Not really. They float really well, but their paws are so small that the current would be too strong for them to go anywhere besides downstream. I wonder if this place is their home?"

Once it seemed Quinn had no more questions, Ashe returned to the beach she had found earlier.

There, she took off her winter gear, making sure to balance the majority of it on her boots, so they wouldn't get filled with snow. Standing barefoot in the snow wasn't all that bad – living in Freljord, she'd had no choice but to acclimate to the coldness – but a sense of impatience and excitement was still stirring within her, and it helped her take the first step into the water.

The intense change in temperature made her recoil, but before she could leap back out, Quinn, who had swam up into the shallows without her noticing, grabbed her feet.

"Come on, hurry up," Quinn whined. "Isn't it nice? Quit dilly dallying."

"Hold on," Ashe said, though she let Quinn drag her in deeper. Once the water was at her waist, she stopped. "I'm not going any deeper."

She knelt down until the water reached her neck, and sighed. It was, like Quinn had said, amazing. All the sweat accumulated from the first five days of her trial was washed away, and, leaning back, she let the water run through her hair.

Beyond wishing for a comb and shampoo, the only thing the outdoor hot-springs lacked was an underwater bench, so she could sit in the water and forget all her worries. Initially, she had been anxious about the water's current, but she realized it wasn't all that strong, and instead it felt like a massage. The way it ran through her hair was especially pleasant, and it made her want to stay forever.

Quinn tugged on her arm, and Ashe opened her eyes, annoyed by the interruption.

"I'm not going in over my head," she said.

"You can't swim?" Quinn said, after a moment of contemplation.

"Not much opportunity, around here. I can skate, if that counts for anything."

"Skate? Is that the thing where you attach swords to your boots?"

"I wouldn't call them swords, but yeah. Pretty much."

"Wow. I thought only men did that. So, what's your record?"

"My record?"

"Farthest you've made it," Quinn said, crouching in the water and sighing happily.

"Uh – are we talking about the same activity, here?"

"Sure. You put the skates on and see how far across the lake you can go before the ice breaks and you fall in."

"Before the – wha – that sounds dangerous!"

Quinn frowned. "It is. That's why I'm surprised you skate."

"Aha," Ashe said triumphantly. It was too crazy to be true. "You're joking! You can't trick me."

"I'm serious."

"Serious?"

"Serious."

"And I thought Freljordians were the insane ones. Well, skating is different in Freljord. The entire lake is frozen and the ice doesn't break."

"Oh." Quinn looked up and down the river, apparently realizing it was an exception, and not the norm. "Then what do you do? What's the point of it?"

"Well, I mean, you can make the point up. There's sports you can play, like hockey. It's a good means of transportation, in some regions of Freljord, or you can figure skate – like dancing-"

Quinn made a face. "I don't like dancing."

"It's better when you have swords attached to your feet," Ashe said. "Trust me."

"I still don't get how you would move around like that. It sounds ridiculous."

"No more than swimming – you should sink to the bottom if you weigh more than a Poro. You know what? I'll teach you to skate some time. It's fun."

"Oh, then I'll show you how to swim!"

Ashe tried to refuse – both because she was a little ashamed at being taught by a junior, and because it really didn't feel like the place, nor the time, to learn – but Quinn was aggressive about it, and after getting them chased off a cliff by a Yeti, she figured she owed it to the girl. That didn't change the fact that she felt childish, holding on to Quinn's hands in the shallow waters, kicking her feet like her life depended on it.

"So what did you do in the winter then? For fun?" Ashe said, looking for a topic during their break to distract herself from the fact that she was learning such a critical skill from someone three years younger than her. At the very least, Quinn didn't seem bothered by the fact.
"Hmm. There's less farm work to do in winter, so we had extra classes. From dawn until dusk – almost. Skating was never a thing because the closest lake to us was a village over, and that kind of trek would take forever. My mom did say she would teach me, in secret, when I got old enough – but I don't know if she was serious or not. Probably not. I guess, in the end, we did lots of snowball fights. Lots and lots of them. You probably have more, though."

"Haven't in years," Ashe said. It was something that was closely associated with childishness, so most kids stopped doing it by the time they turned fourteen.

Quinn looked at her, shocked before quickly recollecting herself. "Aha. You can't trick me. You're joking."

"I'm serious."

"Serious?"

"Serious." Before the conversation could wrap around on itself, Ashe decided she needed to clear something up. "About earlier," she said. "In the cave. You're claustrophobic?"

Quinn seemed to take the broach of the topic well, but she didn't respond immediately. Her answer, when she finally seemed to have decided on something, was curt.

"I don't like caves."

"Oh. Well... there's one good thing about all this. You gave up your crossbow," Ashe said with a grin. "Finally realized the superiority of the bow?"

"No," Quinn said with a defiant glare. "I wouldn't be here today if I used a bow. You think bows can match the speed of magic?"

"They don't need to," Ashe said, finding herself once again trying to estimate what kind of person Quinn was. "Wild animals don't use magic."

Without verbally deciding it, they returned to Ashe's practice, where Quinn began teaching her about arm movements and breathing, and tactics to regain stamina while still in deep water – all of which Ashe only struggled with for a bit, before she figured them out. In an hour, Ashe was marginally less afraid of the river, but still didn't dare crossing it without being accompanied by Quinn; the current always dragged her so far downstream that if Quinn didn't follow, they would have been separated.

Finally, they called it quits on the practice, and Ashe relaxed in the hot waters, attempting to wash her feet, while Quinn continued endlessly swimming around.

"I've got it," Ashe said, looking up at the trees with a growing smile.

"What?"

"What did the tree say after the long winter?"

"I don't know."

"What a re-leaf!"

"I don't think anyone has ever told you this, so allow me to be the first. Your jokes are terrible," Quinn said as she began swimming up river. "Relief? Really? That doesn't even work. All the trees in Freljord are pines and stuff. They don't have leaves."

Ashe sighed. It was the tough audience, she told herself. "If you want to be a kill-joy, then you can just say the snow doesn't even melt here."

She avoided pointing out coniferous trees did have leaves, but they weren't seasonal, and instead she tried to move her thoughts beyond their newfound private hot-springs.

Time was running out for her to complete her trial, but she couldn't bring herself to panic – panic wouldn't help, and the hot water was doing a great deal for her mental health. She wished Quinn was right, and that she could just let herself fail, but it was way too soon – she was way too young – to give up on her dream of unifying Freljord. Returning to the nearby village to marry a stranger was an abhorrent prospect, but necessary.

For now, she was a free woman, and she would enjoy every last minute of it.

No matter how few remained.

Ashe lowered her head into the hot waters as a cold breeze blew by. The experience of being out in Freljord's cold and unforgiving environment, yet being so warm and comfortable was a little disorienting, and she found herself unable to keep still for very long.

Quinn seemed to feel the same way, because she was struggling to move upstream, alternating between swimming – where the current would slow her progress to a snail's pace – and trudging against the current. Several times, the girl seemed to lose her footing, and slip back a few steps before bracing herself against a larger rock on the river's bottom.

Once the distance between them grew too much to talk, Ashe began to follow. She wasn't a good enough swimmer to fight the river, so she trudged upstream instead. Though even if she had been a good swimmer, she wouldn't have elected to fight the pointless battle against the water by swimming.

"Be careful," Ashe shouted once they were farther upstream than usual. "Stay near the edges. There'll be a hole somewhere near the middle of the river, which leads down into the earth – that's where the river is getting its heat from. You'll boil yourself alive if you go too close to it."

Quinn didn't answer, and as they worked their way up the river, Ashe began to think maybe she didn't hear.

"Quinn," she said, before she sidestepped to the bank, formed a snowball, and lobbed it at the girl.

"But there's something here," Quinn said, watching the snowball miss her by a foot and dissolve into the steaming waters. "There's something down there."

"Down there? Down where? In the water?"

"Can't you feel it? Magic, or something."

"Something?" The vague talk was beginning to bother her.

"It's powerful – this – it's what I came here looking for!"

"An artifact?"

Quinn nodded.

"And you're sure about this?"

Quinn nodded again, slower this time, and swam out to the center of the river. She looked ready to dive under at any second.

"I wonder if it's one of the Freljordian Gems," Ashe said.

"What's that?"

"Three Freljordian Gems, used to control Freljord's atmosphere, and by extension, Runeterra's. It's said that the true Queen of Freljord is the one who owns all three of the gems, but they went missing five centuries ago."

"Five centuries ago? Then why would they show up now?"

"You're right," Ashe said. "Never mind."

Without warning, Quinn took a deep breath and disappeared under the surface. Ashe didn't know if she would have stopped Quinn, if given the opportunity, so she was glad Quinn didn't delay any longer. She watched the spot where Quinn descended, and then shifted her attention downstream a little, taking into account the river's current.

Was it possible Quinn was actually playing a prank? She didn't seem like that sort of girl, but it seemed too convenient, for her to find what she came north for, after being chased by a Yeti and then falling down a ravine.

Before Ashe could decide if she was being played or not, Quinn resurfaced. Immediately, she rose her hand into the air. In it, a small box.

"I got it," she shouted, though entirely unnecessary.

She made her way to the river's edge, and Ashe quickly followed.

"Your hands!" Ashe said once she was close enough. They were wrinkled and pink. "You burned them!"

Quinn formed a fist with one hand. "Not burned. It was hot, but I'll be fine. Besides, do you even see what I'm holding?"

It might have been that the excitement was masking the pain, but Quinn didn't seem to mind in the least, and Ashe couldn't help but forget about the injury, in favour of staring at the box with wide eyes.

"That's the smallest treasure box I've ever seen," she finally commented.

Quinn looked up at her with wide eyes. "How many have you seen?"
"A fair few. Just what exactly do you think treasure boxes are? Traders use them to lock away their jewellery and rare goods, and our chieftain has a storeroom full of them, with heirlooms and the such. They're nothing special."

"Oh." Quinn looked crestfallen at the revelation.

"But sometimes our hunters bring them back. Tribes of the old used to hide their valuables deep in caves or under a lake's ice, and the shifting ice and snow reveals them over time."

"Like this one!" Quinn said, thrusting the box forward.

"Yes, like this one. Now open it, I'm getting curious."

There was, fortunately, no lock that required a key. Instead, it was a simple latch mechanism, which, though rusted, Quinn managed to open in mere seconds. The inside was empty but for a single item. A dark blue coin, no larger than a Demacian silver, but perhaps twice its thickness. Embroidered on the face of the coin was the image of the sun, with rays radiating outward from it.

"The Nadir Coin," Ashe whispered, momentarily forgetting to breathe. "I can't believe it." She shook her head when she realized she shouldn't believe it. "It's a little odd, isn't it?"

"What is?" Quinn said, staring at the object, awestruck.

"Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of tundra, forest, and mountains, and you just so happen to find what you're looking for?"

Quinn shrugged. "This isn't necessarily the artifact they were talking about back in Demacia. And besides, someone had to find it eventually, so why not us?"

"And the rumours," Ashe continued. "Where did they even come from?"

Questioning the reality of the situation didn't seem to appeal to Quinn. "The Nadir Coin, you called it? What does it do?"

"You tell me," Ashe said, giving up her suspicion and motioning towards the coin. "Pick it up."

Quinn obeyed, her whole body stiffening when her fingers wrapped around the artifact. She looked around, then up towards the trees for a few seconds, before her eyes darted down to the water she stood in. Slowly, the girl turned the coin around in hand. Several revolutions later, she began wading towards the shallow waters. At the river's bank, she reached out and grabbed a handful of snow.

It was interesting to watch the girl's thought process, as her brain was receiving conflicting information. After forming a relatively spherical snowball in hand, and then running it along her body experimentally, she took a bite out of it. Her reaction showed she was making progress. She pressed the coin into the half eaten snowball, and then knelt down and submerged it in the water.

This was the first time Ashe could actually see the effects of the Nadir Coin. Nothing happened. The water ran around the snowball, leaving it completely untouched and unaffected – unmelted. Quinn was seemingly satisfied with the experiment, because she broke the coin free and watched the snowball drift downstream, rapidly shrinking in size until it was no more.

She retrieved one of her socks from her pile of clothing next to the river, and washed it in the water. Then, she pocketed the coin inside the sock. It dried in a matter of seconds. Next, she put it in the water. It didn't get wet, and that was apparently enough for Quinn to conclude her experiments. She retrieved the coin and threw the sock back to shore.

"Warm and dry," Quinn said when she returned to where Ashe was standing in the water. "It keeps me warm and dry, but only on the outside of my body. It's the same for other objects, unless... their natural state is cold or wet?"

"You got it," Ashe said with a smile.

"Here."

Quinn flipped the coin through the air, and Ashe reflexively held out her hand, catching it. It landed in her palm, and it felt like her body had been put in limbo. The water's heat disappeared, and her ears immediately warmed up, until her entire body was the same, lukewarm temperature.

"What?" she said, after the initial shock passed.

"It's not any Freljordian gem, but take it. You saved me. It's repayment."

"You don't owe me anything," Ashe said. "I didn't do much more than stumble across you on a mountain. Besides, if anything, I owe you, for keeping me company and waking me before I became Yeti snack."

"And I wouldn't have found it at all, if you hadn't stumbled across me. I wouldn't have found anything, if you hadn't. You said you needed something valuable, and this, well, it's both money and magic. You can't get much better."

Money, magic, and marriage.

Ashe ran a finger over the coin, tracing the contour of the sun. She could feel the magic as it ran across her skin, shielding her from the winds. Here, in the hot-springs, it may not have seemed so valuable, but protection from Freljord's constant wintry atmosphere was invaluable to any of the kingdom's inhabitants.

Though what Quinn had given her would do more than just keep her from the cold.

It would save her from a marriage. It would save her from failure. It would lead her on the path to her dreams. She would not squander the opportunity. She would unite Freljord, and Quinn's gift was the first tangible step towards this future.