Night had fallen a while ago, and Corwin had used every second of that time to make it to the lake. It was cold, so cold that he used the heat to pull an aura up around him. He missed Kliment, and didn't quite know what he was doing at the lake. Maybe in the hopes of finding fireflies, or maybe...Maybe he needed help, overcoming his fear of the ice and the darkness. Could he do that? Perhaps at the lake, he would find something that could convince him the ice wasn't always something to be feared. Kliment had sewn that comfort in him, but Corwin wanted to grow on his own a little, so that he could go back stronger than he had been.
Corwin sought out the bank, where the sand sloped into the water, and sat well out of reach of the spray. Water at all made his temperatures haywire. In fact, he still managed to get his toes wet, and he promptly turned some of the sand lower down into glass, when he dug his fingers through the sand in surprise. He sighed to himself.
"I'm never going to get the hang of this, am I?" Corwin flopped down into the sand and shimmied off of the glass, laying on his back, looking up at the stars.
He wished he knew what their names were, or how to identify them. He felt like they were friends, because he had walked beneath them for as long as he could remember. They had watched over him when he had felt as though the world was empty; they had seen him make friends, acquaintances, and even-- Corwin's heart beat faster and he blushed, looking to the side, into the dark blades of grass where the sand ended. Even what? What was he thinking, giving into that?
Instead, he sat up and started to pick up pebbles mixed in with the sand, throwing them into the water. He got up, and searched the slick banks for stones he could skip across the lake surface. Maybe this wasn't such a bad way to spend a lonely night. He wondered if, with enough practice, he could master his temperatures even if the lake kept driving him haywire.
