Half past noon, and still no sign of Hezeky. He knew it was opening day, he should have been here. Sure, it wasn’t his buisness, Ura was intent on running it all on her own, it was her endevior after all. But still, how could he miss opening day? Especially after all the work he put in on building the place? Didn’t he want to see the outcome of his labor?
The guests kept coming. It was a successful opening. Ura was up to her ears in buisness. She hoped the bustle of costomers would distract her, but the worry still came. . . as did the small sliver of anger that gradually grew and grew as the hours ticked by.
Ura kept her shoulders back and put up a front. The costomers expected friendly survice, it was a coffee shop after all: a place for people to come and hang out to relax and enjoy a warm drink. . . or a cold drink, for those who prefered ice.
Ice was hard to come by in this reigen. It only snowed two months out of the year, not nearly enough time for the lakes to freeze over to make good ice blocks to shave. So ice was a real commodity. . . which just made buisness all the more successful.
Ura was never at a loss for ice. She had hunted for the Ice Drake, Eirwein when she was just sixteen weeks old. Eirwein had taken her in after finding her alone in the mountins, and Ura quickly imprented on Eirwein as her mother.
When Ura was old enough to leave the cave, Eirwein gave her a crystal made from one of her frozen scales. The crystal, when brought in contact with any form of water, could instantly turn that water into ice.
In a small town like the one Ura and Hezeky had just moved into, crystals were also a very small commodity. This meant Ura’s cafe was the only one to serve cold drinks. All the other shops in town could only serve drinks at room temperature.
Ura had made a whole celler of ice the night before, in preperation for the opening day. The cellar walls were made of ice themselves. She soaked the foundation stomes with water and froze them to keep the cellar extra cold, to ensure her ice remained frozen. With the ice already made ahead of time, all she had to do was shave off some chunks to put in the drinks.
By the end of the day, news of her ice had spread around town, and the other shop owners came by to see for themselves, in hopes to learn her secret. Of course, Ura couldn’t tell them she had an ice crystal: wars had been started for less. So her methods of getting ice had to remain a mystery.
Cats, Crystals, & Coffee 