Chapter 23: The Ice Dragon

Hello, and welcome back to our irregularly scheduled nonsense!

It's been a while (sorry about that) because 1) I've been working from home this summer and that's been sucking out a lot of my energy and 2) I started writing a review of the truly God-awful Artemis Fowl movie, so look forward to that coming out at some point!

Last time, Kelsey & Co. tricked the golden dragon to take them to the white dragon. The white dragon is the last of the five, so after he's gone, no more dragons. Ouch.

This time, Kelsey has another repetitive conversation with Ren about her relationship.

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Ice Dragon

We pick back up with Kelsey, Ren, and Kishan riding on Jinselong's back underwater. It takes them into water so deep it blocks out all the light, and Kelsey sees a bunch of fish glowing in the dark. She also sees an octopus that has glowing red lights on its mantle. I'm not aware of any deep-sea octopus that has a glowing mantle, but I suppose it's possible. The deep-sea octopuses/squids I'm aware of have glowing spots on their tentacles, because the glowing lights are used as lures, and it makes no sense to have a glowing target right on the spot that holds all of your vital organs.

Kelsey can hear lots of animal calls around them. The only animals I'm aware of that would actually make noise that deep would be, like, whales or something, but Kelsey declines to tell us what it is. Eventually they see a glowing light in the distance and once they get close enough they can see that it's a palace made out of ice.

The outside of the palace is landscaped with crystal-like ice trees filled with glowing light, which is a cool image, I guess.

There's a weird bit of description where Kelsey marvels at the glowing icy trees and plants and describes them in detail, and then describes the exact same scene again with less detail that we just read.

On each side of the path, frozen sculpted water plants and flowers sat in frosty beds. A crystal forest of trees rose up on either side, each tree lit from within with a different color, creating what appeared to be a neon city on the ocean floor. The dragon slowed, and I was able to glaze [sic--I think Houck means "graze"] my finger over the leaf of a pink tree that burned with fiery orange in the middle.

I stared in wonder at the glittering masterpieces and wondered if the dragon had created them. The details--the branches and sparkling leaves, the sea-grass spikes jutting in straight points as they grew from the ice plants, the feathered fronds of underwater foliage--were so exact, they mimicked real plants and trees as if transported form another world.

Like, am I going crazy? She spends an entire paragraph calling them trees, and then seems to think it's important to say that they look similar to trees. Yes, Houck, we can figure out that when Kelsey describes an ice structure as a tree, it isn't a real tree.

Jinselong takes them to an icy cave off the side of the palace, where the water turns to air. Everyone gets off, freeing cold and wet, and Jinselong turns into a human.

"Well, don't just stand there. One of you strapping lads help me over to the sofa. A dragon falling on his behind is not very dignified," he huffed.

I giggled while Jinselong murmured under his breath.

Comedy? Because butt?

It's really cold.

"I was really cold[...]"

Told you. It's like I'm there.

Kelsey says that they need to get into some dry clothes and uses the Scarf to make some winter clothes for herself (as well as a little changing booth, because we must remain Chaste in the series where the male love interest traps the protagonist against a wall to make out with her against her will). She also makes the boys some new clothes, and the three of them sit arond on a sofa for a little while before Houck remembered why they're there in the first place.

Kelsey asks Jinselong where the white dragon is, and Jinselong says that he'll be there soon. No, I have no idea how he even knows they're there, since Jinselong doesn't seem to have left the scene to actually tell him that he has visitors. Magic, I guess.

Kelsey snuggles up to Ren while sitting next to Kishan, because she's a bitch who doesn't feel like breaking up with Kishan.

Jinselong was very uncomfortable watching this. He squeaked impatiently, "Where can he be?" Then looked [sic--missing a noun there, Houck!] at Ren slyly and said, "I really should be getting back to my treasure. Aphrodite gets lonely without me, you see."

I...what? I thought he was kidding about the statue before.

Because Jinselong has a single character trait, he passes the time counting some coins. Natch.

Suddenly, a white-haired man enters the room and berates Jinselong for brining strangers here. Jinselong tries to make his excuses, and the other dragon kicks him out and tells him not to show up again for another two hundred years. Jinselong runs out as fast as he can.

Just in case you thought that this dragon might be cool because he doesn't take shit from no one, this new dragon smiles at them and says it's fun to scare Jinselong. Har har. What a scamp.

He introduces himself as Yinbailong, which is slightly more creative than the last two dragons. This translates directly to "silvery-white dragon," so it's a step up from something like Baiselong, which is what I was expecting. The only description we get about him is that he has white hair, blue eyes, and looks like a "British professor." It's like I'm actually there.

He guesses that they're looking for Durga's Necklace.

"Are you reading my thoughts?" I asked.

"No. I wouldn't do that without permission. Just . . . studying you. I haven't conversed with a human in a long time, let alone one so lovely."

Dragons hitting on Kelsey count: 4/5. I hate this book.

He says he'll get them some food and drinks and they can get down to business after they've rested a bit. He offers an arm to Kelsey, which makes both Ren and Kishan growl at him. Ha ha. It's so funny when the love interests are so over-protective they won't let Kelsey interact with another male. Ick.

"How do you get [the trees] to glow those different colors?" I inquired.

"Bioluminescence."

"You mean phosphorescent animals?"

"Not exactly. Ancient men once stared at the night ocean and saw a glow. They mistakenly associated it with the burning of the chemical phosphor. What is typically called phosphorescence in the ocean has nothing to do with burning at all. It involves no heat. Living creatures called dinoflagellates create my light. Similar to your fireflies on the land, these animals glow with an inner light."

GOD, this is SO poorly written. "No, it's not phosphorescent animals. It's little animals that glow without burning heat through a process called phosphorescence."

Like...that's the literal definition of phosphorescence.

Idiot.

This dragon infodumps almost as much as Mr. Kadam (in a similar format to Kelsey asking, "What is X?" and the dragon replying "X is [long-winded explanation].") He uses lots of different animals to create the different colors and keeps them alive by moderating the temperature inside of the trees. Neat.

"You may all be seated. The chairs won't freeze you any longer. It will feel like you're sitting on chairs made of oak."

Is there something about the temperature of the chairs that would let them differentiate between an oak chair and a chair made out of a different wood?

The writing is so baaaad

Food porn!

The dragon serves them crab legs and shrimp, lobster pot pie, a flatbread with crab artichoke dip, stuffed sole, seafood gumbo, salad, clam chowder, shrimp linguini, glazed salmon, and these weird little snow-cone drinks called "electric ices," whatever the hell those are. Does any of this matter? No! Does it halt any action and stall the natural inertia of the scene just to passionlessly describe a list of every food Houck could think of that has seafood in it? Yes!

I picked strawberry, and the dragon went to work. He poured a few drops of red syrup into the top of an amazing detailed dragon ice sculpture centerpiece and spoke a few words. The red liquid began to travel through the curvy dragon. Then, Yinbailong scooped up a frosty mug and held it under the mouth of the ice sculpture. The drink looked like a slushy but with more liquid and less ice. He repeated the process, making a grapefuit drink for Kishan, lemon for Ren, and cherry for himself.

This fucking slushie has gotten more description than any of the dragons so far. What the fuck.

Kelsey says that Lvselong said that all the dragons were born in different oceans, and asks Yinbailong what he meant by that and who his parents are. Gee, getting a bit personal real quick there.

The Ice Dragon set down his fork and leaned foward, clasping his hands under his chin. "My parents," he said, "are whom you would call Mother Earth and Father Time."

Gee, those are remarkably Western concepts to be the parents of a bunch of Chinese dragons.

Hey, unrelated, but I found a list of existing Chinese dragons from mythology. Fuzanglong is the underworld guardian of precious metals and jewels. Feilong rides along clouds and mist. Now, who do those sound like?

Kelsey asks where they live, and Yinbailong says that they live in another dimension, which is a hell of a thing to just drop on us out of nowhere. I thought they were already in a pocket dimension or whatever? What? That's different from this mysterious other dimension where Father Time and Mother Nature live? What???

Anyway, he says that they're "retired" and don't do much anymore, so that's all we get to hear about them.

This book. I swear.

Then Yinbailong decides to explain what each of the dragons that we've already met do, which they've all already explained to us individually, so that's really fun and repetitive to read again.

Jinselong watches over the treasure of the Earth, and actually inspired the Industrial Revolution to manufacture goods more quickly to collect. This makes no sense, because it's not like the Industrial Revolution manufactured artwork, which is what Jinselong actually collects.

Lvselong is the Earth Dragon and watches over nature. He was the one who taught the Egyptians how to make papyrus and keep written records, so he's the reason why humans have books. This is insane. Written records existed long before the use of papyrus--just look at Sumer and its use of cuneiform on stone tablets, which showed up a couple hundred years before hieroglyphics in Egypt. Also, the use of papyrus seems to have started at around the same time as the use of parchment, so it's not like without Lvselong showing up they wouldn't have anything to have kept records on. Additionally, written language may have shown up just as early in China in the form of pictographic oracle bones (although the first concrete evidence of a written language in China is from a couple thousand years later).

And hey, what about Mesoamerican writing? I'm not aware of any trade going on between Ancient Egypt and the Mayans, so it's not like Egypt was the only civilization with a written language.

Qinglong is supposed to provide the world with water, but he's apparently so lazy he's causing a lot of problems by not preventing overfishing, pollution, and drought.

"But, to be fair, he did inspire your early explorers to find other lands. He was young and eager to please back then."

The white dragon snickered. "Imagine! Columbus discovering land in those tiny ships on his own? Without a dragon, he would have been lost at sea in the first two weeks."

Columbus was not the first European to discover the Americas. That would be my boy Leif Erikson, who explored areas in Greenland and Canada. Also, it's not like Columbus was blindly sailing around hoping to hit land--he was specifically trying to take the long way around to India and stupidly didn't realize the world was as big as it is (even though, hey, Eratosthenes got pretty close to calculating the circumfrence of the Earth in, uh, 200-ish B.C.)

Also, you know what people were pretty good at doing if they were going to sail across giant oceans? Learning star charts to navigate with. Using maps that were literally designed to facilitate long ocean journeys (oh, hey, Mercator projection! There is a point to you!) Pointing their boat in one direction and sailing based on the position of the sun.

Longjun is in charge of the stars and he makes sure that meteors don't hit the Earth. Also he's in charge of the ozone layer (???), so he uses that as an excuse to get out of family reunions. He's also in charge of the space program (??????) and was on the moon when Neil Armstrong & Co. landed there.

"He's also fond of mathematics. He even taught Pythagoras how to play chess."

This is very impressive, considering chess wasn't invented until a thousand years after Pythagoras died.

Literally two Google searches away. This book is so stupid.

Kelsey asks what Yinbailong does. He says that he watches over the ice caps and poles (doing a great job there, bud), turns the Earth on its axis, and causes the Earth to revolve around the Sun.

"I inspire humans in philosophy, democracy, order, and the law. I cannot afford to nap. I cannot afford to ignore my duty. One mistake would send our planet whirling off into the dark universe. One misstep would damage the time line. One tiny loss of control, and the axis of Earth would shift, plummeting us into chaos."

And yet he has time to sit around with these chucklefucks making them seafood buffets and giving them slushies.

"I was the voice behind the world's greatest philosophers, religious reformers, and political revolutionaries. I follow the laws of the universe--the basic fundamental truths that govern all humankind."

See, this kind of think irks me. It's the idea that human beings are just incapable of doing things for ourselves and we have to rely on inspiration from outside sources to do anything like developing a written language, or discovering a new scientific breakthrough, or creating art. It's why the whole ancient aliens thing is so annoying to me. Ugh.

Anyway. Yinbailong says that he created Shangri-la.

"I can teach only basic right and wrong, so the people learn self-governance. The society then has to choose to accept it fully or in part. If even one member chooses to go another path, the system will eventually fail. The Silvanae not only accepted but also embraced the concept. They have lived peacefully in their land for millenia, and the animals that choose to abide by their laws live there in harmony as well."

So, the Silvanae represent the epitome of Absolute Moral Good in Houck's universe, right? And they're the society that was uncomfortably Western in this series about Asian mythology, which I already pointed out felt Off and Weird when going through the previous book. They were also immediately devoted to Kelsey. Hmm.

Kelsey asks what the Stymphalion birds were doing there then, since they were violent, but the dragon says that they were only created to protect the Scarf and didn't wish them harm "until [they] took the object they were designed to guard." Except, no, if you actually look at the text of the second book, Kelsey and Kishan were attacked as they got to the nest. Yes, the Scarf was in the nest, but they hadn't picked it up yet.

Also, the sirens were only "fulfilling their purpose" and didn't "mean" to hurt them. Gee, that's convenient. After they got the Scarf, the different parts of the tests were allowed to accept the Silvanae's Perfect Moral Society, or leave to some undisclosed location. The sirens were eeevil sexy monsters, so they left when they couldn't find anyone of the Silvanae to get frisky with. I guess the Perfect Moral Society doesn't allow for sexy times, which really says a lot about why Kelsey's relationships stop right at kissing and cuddling.

They sit around and eat snacks for a while, and then the dragon plays billiards with Ren and Kishan (Kelsey sits on the sidelines and watches, because billiards is a traditionally male game if you go by the time when men wore smoking jackets and smoked cigars and drank whiskey in the billiards room while the proper young ladies sat in a separate parlor and, like, read novels and braided their hair or whatever).

Kelsey gets tired and both Ren and Kishan get up to escort her to her room for the night. Kelsey asks Kishan if Ren can walk her back, because she needs to talk to him. Kishan, being slightly less psycho than Ren is, actually lets her spend time alone with another man because he's secure in his masculinity (unlike some other guy I can think of).

Anyway. Kelsey asks if Ren remembers when she was dating Li back in Oregon. Ren (being a dick) says that she was also dating Jason and Artie (continuing his gross "you're a whore" incel line of thought from before). Anyway--Ren said that Kelsey should date both him and Li at the same time so she could choose, and that he'd support her choice no matter what.

This important conversation is interrupted by Kelsey's bare feet getting rubbed by little bugs. No, that's not a joke.

The floor looked like it was covered with ice shavings. I bent to touch it, and it felt like a deep shag carpet. I kicked off my slippers and wiggled my toes. Little creatures under the floor drifted toward my feet and massaged my toes.

WHAT IS HAPPENING

I...I was kind of joking before, but I really think Houck has a thing for feet.

Kelsey says that she chose Ren before, but he had promised that if she'd chosen Li he would have been content being her friend. She asks if that's still true.

"You know it is." He took a step closer and picked up my hand. "I would never abandon you."

She keeps clarifying that the most important thing is that they're together and a family. She wastes some time waffling about how this is hard for her to say, and that given everything that's happened since Oregon her decision is the one that "makes the most sense."

"Just spit it out, woman. What are you trying to say?"

Ah, Ren, that charmer. Calling Kelsey "woman" every time he's even slightly exasperated with her. Ick.

Kelsey says that he's been trying to get her to admit that she's still in love with him, and she finally admits that he's right. 

"I am. I'm crazy in love with you, and I don't know that my feelings for you are ever going to change but--"

"But what?" His face darkened slightly. I even blinked, thinking it was a figment of my imagination.

"But . . . I can't choose you this time. I'm choosing . . . Kishan."

As, uh, as dramatic as this is, this is literally what she's been telling him the entire time he's been shoving his face into hers.

He dropped his hand from my cheek and took a step away. He looked at me with disbelief, and then his expression turned angry. The anger rolled into self-doubt, and then a kind of coolness stole over his face. Ren said nothing for a long minute.

He eventually nods politely (Kelsey explicitly calls back to the time she rejected him for asking to kiss her way back in the first book, so thanks, Houck, for reminding me of that) and leaves.

I dashed to the door. "But, Ren--"

He turned his head slightly so that I could see his profile. As if it pained him to look at me, he dropped his eyes and said softly, "The white tiger will always be your protector, Kelsey. Good-bye, priyatama."

And with that Drama, the chapter ends.

BAHAHA "I would never abandon you, Kelsey. That is, unless you decide not to date me, in which case BUH-BYE."

Closing Thoughts

Hey, Kelsey made a decision! It's the same decision she's been telling Ren the entire time, but this time it sticks, I guess. Ren probably only decided to listen to her after she caved into admitting her feelings for him, the dick. And now he's off to pout like a spoiled child when Kelsey doesn't tell him exactly what he wants to hear.

Yinbailong is boring and infodumps about nothing very important, and also hits on Kelsey, which just Sucks.

Next time, Chapter Twenty-Four: The Ocean of Milk! The dragons are gone, but I guess we get, uh, another mythical creature that doesn't belong here. Neat.