"I can't believe we're doing this," the Christmas Wocky complained, wrapping her paws around herself in a desperate attempt to keep warm.

"But it's the season of giving, Casera!" her brother, a blue Poogle with a scarf wrapped around his neck, replied. "We should be kind to Snowy!"

"Really, Bartel! Your obsession with the Snowager is downright strange." the Wocky commented. "It's just a big, angry beast that hoards stuff. Why should we bring it a gift?"

"He's just grumpy because, whenever he tries to sleep, Neopets rush in and try to steal from his hoard! He's just trying to defend what's his."

The Wocky couldn't think of a response to that, so she continued to sulk while trudging through the ice and snow that covered the bottom of the Ice Caves, following after her little brother.

When they got to the Snowager's Cave, the pair immediately noticed hundreds of Neopets rushing in and out of the cave, carrying armfuls of Neggs, keychains, and other bits from the Snowager's hoard.

Bartel ran up to a Scorchio that had at least five Neggs piled in his arms. "What's going on?" the little Poogle asked.

"The Snowager's gone! Isn't it wonderful?!? Go and help yourself to his stash, there's still tons left!" the Scorchio said, beaming.

Bartel gasped. This was horrible! He dropped the gift that he’d intended for "Snowy" and ran as fast as he could to the cave. Casera sighed as she picked the gift up out of the snow, then slowly followed her brother.

Upon reaching the cave, the Poogle’s worst fears were realised. The Scorchio had been telling the truth -- the Snowager was gone...

Casera rolled her eyes and snorted. "Give me a break. He's never melted before, so why would he melt now -- in the winter?"

Bartel considered that for a moment thoughtfully. "Well, we've gotta go look for him anyway," the Poogle said, nodding to himself. "He'll be so grateful we found him!"

"Think about it," Casera said, starting to explain slowly. "If he's gone somewhere, that means he knows where he went to!"

Her brother considered that as well. "But... but what if he was kidnapped by some mean kidnapper?" Bartel protested.

Casera imagined a Neopet, about as tall as her diminutive little brother, trying to stuff "Snowy" into a sack. She giggled.

"It's not funny!" Bartel yelled. All the Neopets standing close by turned to stare at him. The Poogle blushed and looked down.

Not wanting her brother to be embarrassed again, the Wocky gave up and muttered, "Okay, fine."

"Great!" Bartel said with a grin. "We can start at..."

With a loud sigh of reluctance, Casera started slowly after her brother, who was running out of the caves ahead of her. Upon reaching the top of the hill, the Poogle tripped and tumbled all the way down, landing in a heap of snow.

The Wocky couldn't help but laugh as she slid down after him. Bartel leapt to his feet and brushed the snow off before starting to run again.

"Bartel!" Casera called in annoyance, dashing after her brother. She managed to catch up just as he reached the Advent Calendar.

"Excuse me," the Poogle said as a Kacheek strolled out of the building, his arms filled with free items. "Have you seen the Snowager? He's gone!"

"He's gone?" the Kacheek repeated excitedly, dropping his possessions and dashing away. Bartel looked glum, but he turned around as someone behind him spoke. It was a Christmas Gelert, peering from the bushes.

"I think I know what might have happened to the Snowager," the Gelert said, glancing around before looking back at Casera and Bartel. "Late last night, there was a great earthquake on Terror Mountain, and something strange happened..."

"Remember the thin, old, icy chasm that lay several meters before the Snowager's Cave?" the Gelert asked.

Casera and Bartel nodded; when they were younger, they used to make a game out of jumping over it.

"Did you see it today when you went to see the Snowager?" the Gelert continued.

Casera started to nod slowly, as if she wasn't sure. She looked at her brother. "Did you see it?"

Bartel shook his head vigorously, so that the tassels on his scarf hit him in the face. He looked at the Gelert. "What else happened?"

"When the earthquake occurred, all the lights on Terror Mountain went out. I heard a loud crash about two minutes before the shaking stopped. My guess is that the chasm opened up during the quake, and the Snowager fell into the large crevasse before it closed up."

Bartel gasped, then began running frantically in circles, shouting, "SNOWY!!! SNOWY!!!"

"Wouldn't he get squished if the walls of the crack closed in?" Casera asked over Bartel's cries.

"I'm not sure, miss," the Gelert said, still standing behind the bushes. "Old Terror Mountain folklore says that there are beautiful, shimmering caves, which lie even deeper inside the mountain than the Ice Caves. To this point, no one's be able to prove it, though. Thusfar, such stories could only be classified as legends." As he began to walk away, the Gelert called out to Casera, "For all I know, he just melted away."

Casera, however, wouldn't accept the idea for her brother's sake. Even if she did find this whole Snowager business insane, the Wocky knew how much "Snowy" meant to Bartel. Repeating what the Gelert had said, Casera tried to calm her brother down. With great uncertainty, the two siblings walked up to the Ice Caves again, searching for the spot where the huge crevasse had once been...

"No, not yet," Casera sighed as she knelt down, looking at the ground. "I'm sure it was right here, though!"

With a frustrated grunt, Bartel fell back into the snow and began making snow faeries with his arms. He wanted to find Snowy so badly that it was giving him a stomachache, but it seemed as though their efforts were futile. Maybe the Gelert was right... maybe Snowy had just melted away.

Just as the Poogle was giving up hope, Casera squealed. Surprised, Bartel jumped up from the ground. "What? What?!?"

Casera was jumping up and down, one paw over her mouth while the other motioned towards something under the ice. Bartel bent down to look closely. Most of the ice was a thick, foggy white, but the Poogle noticed a long, thin, jagged strip that was a translucent turquoise blue. It was the exact shape of the crevasse.

"Wow, Casera!" Bartel said in awe. "How did you find this? It's nearly impossible to see!"

Casera took a deep breath and put her paw over a spot on the ice, letting the warmth of it melt an imprint in. "Look under my pawprint," she said. "You'll see what caught my eye."

Bartel looked into the ice and saw...

"Ohhh..." Bartel whispered. "How did they all get down there?"

"Well," Casera reasoned, "he's always lying on that big pile of treasure of his. The Neggs probably stuck to him and got scraped off as he went into the crevasse."

"We have to go get him!" Bartel said firmly, standing up and brushing the ice off his fur. "I'm sure he'd do the same for us!"

Casera rolled her eyes, deeply doubting that the Snowager would ever want to rescue any Neopets.

"Really, Casera, he needs us! How would you feel, trapped down there with no one to comfort or help you?"

"I bet he enjoys it," Casera muttered under her breath. "Bartel!" she said a bit louder. "You make him sound like a poor little Angelpuss! He's big and strong!"

"Well, if you won't go, I will!" Bartel yelled, stamping his foot on the ice.

Casera heard a rumble deep inside the earth. "Bartel!" she cried. "Do that again!"

He stamped again, and the crevasse split open a tiny bit. Casera got up and jumped with him. The Neopets rushing past probably thought the two siblings were crazy, but the two paid them no heed. Bending down, Casera and Bartel began hurriedly chipping and digging at the ice as it slowly gave way. Soon, the crevasse was wide enough for the Wocky and the Poogle to pass through. With Bartel eagerly leading the way, they descended into the dark chasm...

A paw groped in the darkness and found hers. "It's fine, Casera; I can see the path," Bartel told her confidently.

"Really?"

"Well... no."

"Bartel!"

"I do think that I can see some light up ahead, though," the Poogle added quickly, tugging on his sister's hand to keep her moving. "Don't worry, I won't let us fall."

Grumbling about the foolishness of this excursion, Casera allowed herself to be blindly led forward. She soon realized that Bartel was right -- there was some sort of light ahead of them, cold and flickering like a blue flame. The light continued to grow stronger, until she and Bartel had touched down on a stone floor. They seemed to be at the bottom of the cavern, at last.

There was a faint roaring ahead, like the rushing of water. It seemed to be coming from around a bend in the icy rock where the light came from. "Is that the Snowager?" Bartel whispered.

Casera shook her head. "Hmm... sounds like water. Maybe there's an underground river?"

"Let's go see," Bartel said excitedly, tugging on the Wocky's hand again. Pressing close together, the two Neopets shuffled forward around the bend in their path...

The light they had seen was coming from above. Casera looked up and, to her amazement, saw that sunlight was pouring in from a small, jagged hole that was situated high up on the cavernous walls. Where the waterfall began was a rounded edge to the icy cavern.

"Look!" Bartel breathed excitedly, taking a step forward. Casera realized that he was looking in the direction that the river flowed. She gasped; the water drifted by in their view for a while, but the icy river quickly vanished around a corner, swallowed into dark nothingness as if it were entering the mouth of a monster.

It was hard for Casera to hear her brother over the roaring of the gushing water, but she followed his gaze and gulped. "What should we do?" she shouted over the sounds of the waterfall.

Before Bartel could reply, his voice was drowned out by a roar far louder than the rushing water. The roar pierced the air, coming from the dark, icy cave that consumed the river. Casera trembled as there was a sudden, loud crushing sound. A noise that sounded as if some gigantic snake were slithering towards them crept in ever so slowly. Occasionally, there would be a splash of water. The rumbling came closer and closer...

Bartel’s blood ran cold. Fear rushed through him in a palpable wave.

“Hello?” the Poogle cried out uneasily. His voice echoed through the cavern.

“Snowy?”

The only reply was the steady sound of water dripping. Silence reigned over the cave.

Suddenly, the walls of the grotto began to crumble. Shards of ice splintered and fell in chunks to the ground. Casera dodged a stalactite as it whizzed like an arrow to the spot where she had been standing.

“Earthquake! Let’s get out of here!” the Wocky shrieked. Her voice had nearly been drowned out by the ice's rupturing. “We need to go back!” Casera shouted, grabbing her brother’s paw with her own and trying to drag him away.

Bartel refused to move. “I can’t!” he screamed emphatically. “I’ve come too far to leave without Snowy!”

“Don’t be so ignorant!” Casera shouted impatiently. “Our lives are in danger! We need to go!”

A chunk of ice fell close by, barely missing Bartel.

“Not without Snowy,” the Poogle cried, yanking his paw free from Casera’s. Before she could stop him, Bartel began sprinting desperately towards the dark, icy cave that consumed the river.

Casera stared after her brother in disbelief. How could he be so imbecilic? “Wait, you fool!” she cried. “I’m coming!”…

However, she stopped as soon as her gaze rested upon her heroic (yet extremely foolish) brother.

"BARTEL!" Casera shrieked with alarm as her Poogle brother leapt into the frozen river and did one of the rashest things possible -- he let the river carry him into the dark cavern from which it flowed.

Peering over the water, Bartel could see part of the Snowager's huge body trapped in a smaller ice cave. Furiously, the Poogle jumped into a small spot that only the little Neopet could have fit into, then began burrowing the ice away. With the help of his furious digging and the force of an earthquake that was shaking everything loose, the Snowager broke free with a loud roar.

As his sister watched with eyes widening in horror, Bartel was scooped into the Snowager's large mouth.

"SNOWY! SNOWY!!" the Poogle hollered, beating at what must have been the Snowager's tooth. "SNOWY! WE HAVE TO LEAVE NOW! COME ON! We'll be trapped soon, Snowy, under all the ice... then we'll NEVER get out! SO COME ON!"

Just then, the walls of the black grotto shifted slightly to one side, then the other. Back and forth, faster and faster it shook. Bartel desperately attempted to keep ahold of the giant tooth as he was jiggled from one side to the other.

The Snowager shook himself free from the remaining snow that was piled on him. Mouth still open, the beast shook his head, then began slithering forward -- right towards Casera.

The Wocky gasped and started to move away in fright, but Bartel yelled something that sounded like "Stay where you are!" (After all, she couldn't exactly tell with the scraping sound of the slithering Snowager, the roaring river, and the chunks of ice still raining from the cavern.)

Casera, trembling with terror, obediently locked her paws to the icy ground as best she could, letting herself get swept up into the Snowager's cavern of a mouth alongside her brother. Grabbing Bartel's hand, she hung on fast as "Snowy" began to rear up. A gush of icy cold air and a blast of sound rushed its way from the Snowager's throat as he roared. Tensing, he flung his head up and crashed his way through the icy ceiling.

All of a sudden, the Poogle and the Wocky were tumbling, tumbling, tumbling, until thud! They hit the ground. The forgotten gift went tumbling to the ground beside them.

Slightly dazed, the siblings gazed around and found themselves back in the Ice Caves, which had apparently been abandoned as the Snowager crashed through the ground, leaving a jagged hole behind him.

Bartel shot a glance over at Casera, grinning weakly in triumph. The Wocky smiled back with a faint giggle of relief.

"Well, are you satisfied now? After nearly getting trapped under who knows how much ice and risking being swallowed, we finally saved your 'Snowy,'" Casera said. They watched as the Snowager picked up the now bedraggled gift, bobbed his head slightly, and turned around, his thin tail disappearing into the cave.

Bartel thought about everything. At least Snowy was safe.

The Poogle nodded to his sister. "Yeah, I guess I'm pretty happy..." Suddenly, he burst out laughing. "C'mon, sis, let's go have a slushie!"

The End