My skin was like a milky white pathway to the stars.

It was a wispy swirl of forever, reaching up and up with nothing to tether it down. It was swirled with blackness where he'd put his lips, making my skin burn down to charcoal. I was so absorbed in his touch that I didn't even notice the rocky surface beneath me, the indentations where hard edges of rock had drilled into my skin causing me to bleed without me even doing as much as flinch.

I kept my eyes closed, a cold sweat on my forehead as he was still above me, leaning on one elbow, stroking my cheek. I was almost frightened I would become more and more desensitised to the calibre of his touch the more he used it on me, but I never was. Every caress was as white-hot as the last, if not more.

I heard him whisper things, whisper me back to reality, and I became more and more aware of my bloody back, but his voice was healing honey poured over the rashes, made the pain disperse and disappear once more. He was whispering words of praise, telling me how good I was, that I was the strongest person he'd ever met, not human, but person, that I was beautiful, that everything about me was lovely and that I'd done good, that I was doing good. He asked me over and over to open my eyes, to look at him, to come back to him, but I wanted to stay in my place just a small while longer, taking all of this in.

I lifted a hand, that trembled so much it made me realise exactly how tired the act had made me and my hand fell down, but not before the king caught it, kissing each and every one of my fingertips. For eon after eon, he just cared for me. I vocalised my frustration over not being able to give the same thing back to him, but he just chuckled, told me he wanted to do it, and I surrendered to him. He swam back to Jenna carrying me on his back so my upper body was out of the water because the salt had stung the rashes so badly I had screamed, and as we came back to Jenna, I could swear she would be looking at us with one eyebrow raised, had she had any. The king ignored her, and she used her fin to help us up on her back, where the king took a small bottle of a violet-coloured jelly and massaged it onto my back. The relief was instant.

Jenna had just woken and was very well rested, because she sped away without the king having to use his flute. Instead, he put on his trousers, his turquoise robe, not tying it in the waist, and also took his crown from my neck, but not before kissing me where the main crystal had been, causing me to gasp. I got dressed in my simple robe as well, and then he sat down and pulled me into his embrace, with one leg on each side of me, continuing to whisper praise in my ear until I fell asleep.

We didn't speak to each other for the rest of the trip.

We didn't have to.

At first, I didn't recognise what we saw as land, as I had never seen anything like it. I had come to realise I had seen very little of anything in general. But ahead of us, we soon saw a giant strip of white, reaching from the horizon on the left, to the horizon on the right.

Ice. Masses upon masses of ice. Jenna let us get off her and onto the icy land, and after so many days on her back, we were both wobbly on our feet in a way that didn't have to do with the thick layer of snow covering the ice. The king put the pearl back into Jenna's mouth and put a hand on her forehead before she sunk down. She would come pick us up once we were done.

We still hadn't spoken to each other for the rest of the five days we had travelled since that night, and we didn't now, either, the rasping of the wind on the surface of the ice being the only thing surrounding us. Instead, the king reached his hand out, and I took it.

Together, we began walking across the South Pole. The king had packed warm coats and hats made of fake fur and thick boots that were perfectly isolated that we had put on before dismounting Jenna, so the only exposure to the cold were our faces and our hands, but I would rather have my hand freeze off than let go of his. The snow and ice crunched beneath our feet, matching the crispness of the light blue sky and the icy air. The landscape was vast, flat and completely white, looking so incredibly pure I felt out of place. The king took a flask from a bag he was carrying and offered it to me, and I drank of the water before handing it back to him so he could drink as well. Suddenly, I felt desperate to talk to him.

"Sire..."

He choked on his water.

"What did you call me?"

"Umm... Just trying to be polite."

He looked at me sideways, one eyebrow raised.

"After everything I called you... I thought we were past that."

I looked away and blushed like a madman. He had called me all sorts of things, and we were far gone beyond the gates of politeness.

The king squeezed my hand. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Elves live until they're thirty, right?"

"Right..."

"And you're..." I let the last part remain unspoken. The king didn't.

"Twenty-seven."

I just nodded, the lump forming in my throat making me unable to speak.

We kept walking hand in hand, the king stroking the back of my hand with his thumb.

"What are we looking for?" I asked, trying to change the topic. The one we had dipped our toes in hurt too much.

"The great crystals."

"And how are we going to find them?"

Suddenly, there was a loud sound, like the airhorn of a ship, or the alarm warning a country of war. It was incredibly frightening, and I stopped dead.

In front of us was a gigantic, milky-white crystal with smooth edges and a pointy top, narrow and as high as Jenna if you'd put her on her tail.

The king gestured towards the one in front of us. "They're sensing the crystal in your sword."