Ivory plodded through the drifts, her eyes narrowed against the gusts of bitter wind that blasted toward her. It was from Ursa, she knew--that's what lay beyond. And it--well, it or this tunnel--seemed the perfect place to finally plant the gemstone she'd been saving all this time.

When Ursa first had opened, it had taken Ivory several cycles to even find out it existed. And from there, a couple more to hunt down the diamond she'd left glittering in a leaf pile in Eridanus. It had gotten overgrown; she'd damn near lost the thing.

Ivory wasn't really sure if reviving a piece of stone from the giant, murderous ice worm was a particularly good idea. The ice worm that had, in fact, killed several of the Gembound who'd been there in Hydra, at the time. But something about just... leaving it to die had felt wrong, somehow. And anyway, Ivory was lonely.

Lonely, because her father--the "stormbringer"--was nowhere to be found. The last few times she'd seen him, it was fleeting glimpses as he scrambled through the trees high above, rain and thunder crashing in his wake. But recently-? Either he'd died (or gone to sleep), or moved on. And Shida?

She had no idea where Shida had gone.

...This looks good enough, she decided, spotting a sort of alcove formed by a massive boulder nearly touching the tunnel wall. The space between the steep wall and the boulder was full of powder snow, on a slope, and it would be mostly sheltered by the wall above. Ivory could visit it, keep an eye on it, and hopefully be there when it hatched.

If it hatched.

Who knew if the diamond even held life, anymore.

She plowed through the chest-high drift, then stamped a bit of the snow down, and laid the diamond in it. A brush of her nose, a twist of magic, and new life was granted to it. "Here you go," she said softly. And, more wryly: Now don't become a big ol' murderer, like your other parent.

She'd settle in, for a time--watch over it--until it grew too cold for her to stand; then she'd head back home, returning only to visit periodically. The snow, meanwhile, would quickly cover the little shard of diamond, so that it could grow in insulated peace.