Cold.
Hot.
And in between..
On one side was the hottest volcanic activity in the world. Living around this volcano were creatures of flame. They had built themselves a small town and were trying to live a life here. Their houses were made of thick, black obsidian stones that withstood the heat. Some of the flame creatures were warrior-like, up to 2 meters tall. And one of their most important needs was cold. Because if they didn't keep calm, they aged fast and died fast, so each creature needed a little bit of ice. They were lucky in this respect. The ice town was just nearby...
Speaking of ice towns, this volcano was located at the pole, so the further away you went from the volcano, the colder it got. So cold that it could extinguish even the strongest burning flame creature. But there were others living in this cold.
Ice creatures.
They were heavy, short, thick, lumbering, slow-moving creatures with thick ice bodies. Their villages consisted of igloo houses, simply sculpted ice cubes. The stronger the cold, the slower they moved. Because they moved slowly, they had a hard time hunting. They needed energy to run after their prey. That's why they used the fire given off by the flame creatures.
What allowed these two creatures, so different but living so close together, to survive was a magical boundary line. A magical barrier.
Thanks to this barrier, the Arctic cold doesn't travel to the volcano mountain, and the heat of the volcano mountain doesn't spread to the poles. And the volcanic activity didn't die down. Some legends say that this barrier was put there by Mother Nature.
Right on this borderline, there was a market. A grand bazaar. Here the ice creatures and the fire creatures had shops opposite each other. Thanks to this magical barrier in the street between them, the ice creatures did not melt and the fire creatures did not freeze. Even though they were completely opposite to each other, they could only survive because of this magical barrier, which was like a thin veil of gauze. Oh, of course, anyone who wanted to could quickly cross over to the other side.
The barrier did not prevent people from passing through. But if they did, the fire creatures would be extinguished on the other side in a few minutes and the ice creatures would melt in a few minutes.
It was in this market that they traded with each other in closed boxes, magically sealed with thick iron. They sold each other ice and flame. They sold food caught by hunters on the other side. Even though they were so different, even though they had wars in their history, they had to get along and live in dependence on each other.
It's a fine line...
Thin line...
...
This story is inspired by Worldbuilding prompt Magical Barriers. Thank you so much for all the amazing inspiration you are giving 🙏
@worldbuilder/worldbuilding-prompt-657-magical-barriers
Image is generated using Leonardo ai.
