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Now Biratz was in a sort of crouching position, trying to keep her three dry legs fro too hard, and that there was nothing to push against except breakable ice

"Elena!"Stefan ithin earshot now "Don’t get any closer!"

But even as he said it, Elena saw a Sign Just a few feet away, lying on the ice was the tickle-prod that Pelat had used to get the thurgs going

She picked it up as she skated by and then she saw another Sign Reddish hay and the original covering for the hay - a giant tarpaulin - were lying behind the thurg Together they formed a broad wide path that was neither wet nor slick

"Elena!"

"This is going to be easy, Stefan!"

Elena pul ed a pair of dry socks out of her pocket and drew them up over her boots She fastened the tickle stick to her belt And then she started the run of her life

Her boots were fur with so like felt underneath and with the socks to aid theht on the tarpaulin and propel ed her forward She leaned into it, vaguely wishing Meredith were here, so she could do this instead, but al the ti closer And then she saw herchunks of ice

But the thurg looked climbable Very low in back, like a dinosaur halfway into a tar pit, but then rising up along the curved backbone If she could just somehow land there

Two steps til jump-off One step til juht foot, flew through the air for an endless time, and - hit the water

Instantly, she was soaked from head to foot and the shock of the icy water was unbelievable It caught hold of her like soed ice shards It blinded her with her own hair, it squeezed al the sound out of the universe

So at her face, she freed her htly below the surface of the water, and that was al she needed to push upward until her ful of delicious air, after which she had a coughing fit

First ti the old superstition that a drowning person wil rise three ti was that she wasn’t sinking There was a dul pain in her thigh but she wasn’t going under

Slowly, slowly, she realized what had happened She had , but landed on its thick reptilian tail One of the serrated fins had gashed her, but she was stable

Sonowal I have to do is cli see around her shoulders

She put up a fur-lined gloved hand and reached for the next fin up The water, while ht She ed to pul herself up to the next fin And the next And then here was the rump, and she had to be careful - no rabbed for handholds and found so with her left hand A broken strap froood idea - in retrospect

For a fewthe worst in her life she was showered with hay, pounded with rocks, and s

When it was final y over she looked around, sneezing and coughing, to find that she was Stillon the thurg The tickle stick had been broken but enough re, both aloud and by telepathy, if she was All right Bonnie was skating back and forth like a Tinker Bel guide, and Daet back to land and stay there

Meanwhile Elena was inching up the ruh the crushed supply basket She final y reached the thurg’s summit, and she settled just behind the domed head, in the seat where a driver would sit

And then she tickled the thurg behind the ears

"Elena!"Stefan shouted, and then Elena, what are you trying to do?

"I don’t know!"she shouted back "Trying to save the thurg!"

"You can’t,"Damon interrupted Stefan’s answer in a voice as cold and Stillas the place they were in

"She can make it!"Elena said fiercely - precisely because she herself was having doubts about whether the ani on her bridle"

"There’s no point,"Da quickly into the ive it a try Throw it out in front of her,"Stefan said

Elena threw the knotted bridle as hard as she could Stefan had to run alrab it before it fel in Then he held it aloft triumphantly "Got it!"

"Okay, pul ! Give her a direction to start in"

"Wil do!"

Elena tapped Biratz again behind her right ear There was a faint ru Elena could see Stefan straining at the bridle

"Come on," Elena said, and slapped sharply with the stick

The thurg lifted up a giant foot, placed it farther on the ice, and struggled As soon as she did, Elena smacked hard behind the left ear

This was the crucialal the ice between her back legs, theytentatively lifted her left hind leg and stretched it until it made contact with the ice

"Good, Biratz! Now! "Elena shouted Now if Biratz would only surge forward

There was a great upheaval underneath her For several h the ice with al four legs Then the thrashing changed to a rocking ly Elena knew that they had won

"Easy, now, easy,"she cal ed to the anientle tickle with the stick And slowly, ponderously, Biratz moved forward Her domed head drooped farther and farther as she went, and she foundered at the edge of a bank of ain But there she only sank a few inches before round Elena had to suck in her breath to stifle a screa her a short and scary ride to where the tusks re-curved on theht between them and had to hastily scramble off Biratz’s trunks

"It was pointless, you know, doing that,"Da your own life"

"What d-do you htened; she was freezing

"The ani to die anyway The next trial is one they can’t e and even if they could, this isn’t a place where anything grows Instead of a quick clean death in the water, they’re going to starve, slowly"

Elena didn’t answer; the only answer she could think of was,

"Why didn’t you tel , because a ht shake herself apart

Clothes, she thought vaguely That was the problem It certainly couldn’t be as cold here in the air as it had been in that water It was her clothes that were ers, to take them off First, she unfastened her leather jacket No zippers here: buttons That was a real probles, and only noed to undo the fastenings and the leather dropped to the ground with a muffled thump - it had taken a layer of her inner fur off with it Ick The smel of wet fur No she had to -

But she couldn’t She couldn’t do anything because so her ar, but at least she kneho they belonged to They were fir Al that added up to Stefan

Slowly, she raised her dripping head to ask Stefan to stop burning her arms

But she couldn’t Because on Stefan’s body there was Damon’s head Now that was funny She’d seen a lot of things that va heads business

"Stefan-Daasped between hysterical whoops of laughter "It hurts It’s too hot!"

"Hot? You’re frozen, youup and down her ar back her head to rub her cheeks She let it happen, because it seemed to be only sense that if it was Damon’s head, they were Stefan’s hands

"You’re cold but you’re not shivering?"a grim Damon-voice said fro up"Elena didn’t feel very wararment, one that reached to her knees under her leather breeches She fu up You’re going into the next stage of hypotherht now, you’re going to die"Not roughly, he tilted her chin up to look into her eyes "You’re delirious now - can you understand et you warue and faraway as life before she had ood thing What to do about it except laugh?

"All right Elena, just wait for a moh to stop her fro the fur down to her waist, but back before she could get her camisole off

"Here"He stripped off the damp fur and wrapped a warm, dry one around her, over her caan to shiver

"That’s htto save your life That’s alI’ive you my word"

Elena was bewildered Why should she think that Damon -

this h he could be a bastard so off her clothes

No That shouldn’t be happening Definitely not Especial y since Stefantoo hard to talk

And now that she was in her underwear, he wasother furs around her Elena didn’t understand anything that was happening, but it was al starting not towithoutin under the furs She snapped back froot a look at a bare chest And then a war with her

War her in contact al over her body

Through the uely heard Stefan’s voice

"What the hell are you doing?"