Chapter One; It's cold.

She doesn't remember much, besides the long white fields. There was a paw of warmth at one point, and yet that fleeting run toward it was futile. When she looked around, there was no one but the pale snow falling upon herself and the land itself. Open, and cold - she couldn't tell where she was, or what she was doing. When Bambi whinned, no one came toward her so, just the quiest sound of crunching snow as dainty white paws crossed to the fields.

Bambi thought everything would be fine, maybe this was the moment of truth on where she would grow up, just like other wolves. Yet, she was so small and weak that even a walk toward a mouse was a failure, every hunt in attempt that came to.. Was just a defeat. She could feel her not only her stomach growl in that desire of food, but the warmth was slowly growing. Her paws as days went on grew colder and colder ; until one day she finally could not feel them.

Bambi of course, thought nothing of it. Even when she fell into the frozen rivers and emerged from the banks, she felt nothing - for a while.. All but a shiver as the young emaciated pup, pitifully looked around. Eyes but mellowed into a distant gaze, and everything was either but cold.. Or painful.

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@Antares ; no one permitted to join unless permission granted from Antares

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His nose knew enough by now. As much as he wanted to stay out of it all, he felt its influence creeping in on him in subtle ways despite his best efforts to simply, determinedly, not acknowledge the Empress' season at all. In response to such things that made his head feel cluttery, he had marked up the borderlands, manned the watch, and hiked this way and that and still a trickle of restlessness wouldn't let him go. Even after everything, Antares couldn't coax his mind to settle proper; he only made a quick pass his densite's area to make sure it was still in one piece. After that, since he encountered no one else to be a distraction on his way, he slipped from the boundaries and took off at a run when the scenery allowed. He would return to them refreshed, regrouped. He hoped. And soon.

Antares opened up in the whiteness, content to feel nothing past this very moment as snow whirled. He didn't want to think about anything but his heartbeat, and the rhythm of his paws. Simple, basal. He did not know how far he loped across the vast expanses. As long as it took, he supposed. Eventually, his muscles were burning and he found a waterway that drew him in: frozen, mostly, and he snaked along with it. He went on, never having passed this way before--at least to his knowledge--with his nose low, but eyes and ears up; though it all smelled like ice and snow to him for quite some time.

He did eventually find something else out here with him. Someone. Not that he was convinced, at first, as he squinted at the pale shape ahead to be sure it turned out to be a tangible canine, at least, not just some trick of the eye or worse. But.. it was shaping up to be true as he came striding closer. His tail arced, uneasy at first when he recognized so very little. The stranger... they were small. Disconcertingly small, he realized next. Even with his own senses feeling muddied, he sniffed anyway, and glanced around. They seemed alone and he didn't like any of it. “Little one,” he greeted as he walked steadily closer, carried firm enough to see if he warranted a reaction, and if so, what it might look like from such a wisp of a thing.

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"Mister.." Button-eye drops, looking upon the midnight man within the snow white path. Perhaps she would've thought he was a dream if she didn't feel that cold shiver running through her body, the piercing pain upon her frozen paws.. A cold breath, wisped out, "it's cold." A part of of the child would've reached forward to grasp any warmth from another, strange or not - there was a desperation, and a loneliness in the depths of an abyssal black eye. Unable to move that she was, her fur though once wet, as now stuck to the floor. Even but a squirm from her tail was trapped.

"It hurts mister," she said with a shiver.

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His steps were shortening, but concern took root. The young wolf looked to him and Antares felt a chill that went deeper than the rest, worse than icy wind. For the moment, it flattened his ears and looked her over, vacillating between disbelief, worry, disgust, anguish, and... something else there were no words for. He caught himself selfishly feeling thankful this was not one of his sisters out here, miserable and suffering like this in some foreign wasteland.

When he reached her, he circled around first, and paused in a slow exhale; the worried crease on his face unusual, but so was this particular finding. The voice that reached for him was strange, then the look in her eyes slowed him. It hurts mister.. and it took him plenty not to wince at this.

For a beat of flickering glances, he was quiet, unsure what to say at first before he could muster: “I know..” he said evenly, in a low voice while breathing in her despair. Nearer now, he realized more; all bad. His furs shifted, a small shiver. He had moved close to the stranger, and still burned in comparison to her--all but claimed by the river and ice and maybe something else before, he couldn't tell anymore. Antares did not have the feeling that this was new. “This is a terrible place to be lost and alone in. Do you have a home?” He hated to ask. She didn't smell like anyone, or anyplace. He couldn't send her back to her parents, surely. They must be long, long gone. And now all she had left to receive her was this unforgiving tundra, and now him.

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"I don't know.." A whimper escaped from the small child as a breeze came from he cold tundra, and shivered heavily. A stranger circled her, and remembered how she did so while playing with the bugs at home. She missed it, the sound of others in the distance, and the warmth when she would homebound to their furs. A bathe as she slumbered with a fully belly, and yet she now was cold to the touch, skinny to the death itself - and within the unknown land.

"When will it stop to hurt?" A desire to cry yet only a single drop could be given, she felt her eyes dry and the water clinging to her pelt in a freeze. It stung, that she closed her button eyes shut from the wind touching so and started to curl in a ball, but so unnaturally. Like her limbs started to freeze a crackling of stiff fur and awkwardness in moving while attempting to but a single motion ; she could not, and even gave up, back into a laying position in exhaustion.

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He had to strain to make out the answer. No confidence to inspire in what he managed to hear, Antares had a worsening feeling about what he was seeing. Shit. His heart sank, and the sigh he exhaled in response shuddered. She was.. so small, and the way she moved unnerved him deeply.. or rather lack thereof--it all sent his ears pinning back again. Really, he had never encountered this compounding effect of cold and long-term struggle so his guesses were all over the place as to what had started her down this path to lead her, frozen before him. Injury? Illness? Abandonment? Anything. There could be a lot involved, and now, so was he.

Antares paused there, having drawn in close. When will it stop to hurt? He peered at her head on, searching her expression--for what? Doubt? There was nothing to be found. Depths, empty and cold only. Was it that bad? It must be. It looked bad. He licked his teeth, biting back a whine of his own, watching her try to shrink into herself painfully. Though he could already guess the answer: “What hurts..?” he asked, a dryness in his mouth already. Everything.

A wolf so young should not suffer like this. She couldn't deserve this agony, even if she had come from nothing, or nowhere. Teeth clenching and skin prickling, he didn't like it and stewed for a long moment. “It could stop, now,” the dark Ostrega almost blurted before he could rescind. Death was bearing down on her already. He didn't even know what exactly ailed her, or if she had any hope left in her pitiful body. “But everything will stop, too.. if it has to be now,” his lower lip quivered as he reached past her face to nudge her on the side of her neck where she had collapsed. Half nervous, half curious, but all sorrow and breathing hot compared to the frigid wind. When he tried to muster certainty for her, earnestly, he didn't think she could make it back to Shiroshika, or even know if there was anything to be done for her there. This looked far worse than what a meal, warm bath, and long sleep could fix.

But what was the other alternative, besides a slow crawl to the end here?

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"Please.. Mister..  Make it stop," how she begged, "I want to go home.." For time going on everything felt like a stand still. Even the man before her, was like but a shadow within the snow-white world. She could not muster to see his face, for all that the child could see was but a blurr. A fading in consciousness and yet held on, a begging to be let go and to be somewhere else besides within the pain. Bambi would not last, though she was holding on with the hope it all end, and just maybe..

She could see her mom again.

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Fuck. He remained close to the withered pup, heart racing and feeling on fire and freezing over at once. In this present, he grappled with detaching himself properly, though knew it was his best way to stand a chance with this; remove everything. Surely he could find some mantra from his mother's lessons that could help him stand firm and fast, and most of all, be decisive.

She was on death's door already. He sensed it, but it pained her--had pained her already, likely for some time. Someone so young shouldn't suffer--endless repeat in his head. Then, a new prevailing thought that was eerily familiar: he was too late to do anything. He was too late..

The girl's pleading spurred his focus into better clarity, a soft shh hissing between his teeth before he knew it. “It'll stop,” he said, re-centering. Thanks to him, which he couldn't say. He couldn't see the homelands she cried for either, but from deep down, he wanted to believe he would understand--would he crave his mother's side on the slopes of Moonspear one day when his end came? The poor pup deserved to go back, wherever they were. Far away from here he hoped. To whatever time she had known that had been happy last. That was what Antares wanted for her.

“You are almost home,” he promised her in a rough whisper, before a sharp breath. Then he reached to clasp his jaws around her fragile neck before it turned to pressure and teeth. It'll be over soon he reassured himself and though she would never hear, the nameless girl as well. He wanted to make it quick, maybe a surprise so she wouldn't feel any fear--but he didn't know, in the end. She had asked him to, after all. His eyes were burning already; there was inexperience in him yet and innocent blood on his tongue.

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It was like a wave of relief to the stranger offering help. Bambi wasn't sure what she expected, she hoped a man — a hero to save her from this pain and return to the arms off her mother. A reunion desperately desired as she shook from this cold, and flinched at the first touch of heat from this cold desolate land. Lifeless eyes — for her time was near, and painfully drawn to the dead of time as the time had been casted.

Warm breath upon her neck, and still even to the end — she knew not what she wished, but welcomed the darkness that came. A cold that was never there and but a blank void.. Where history would no longer be written, besides being embraced in the momentarily warmth, and a sunshine coming through.

To die by own means or through frostbite itself ; the child had been slain.

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It didn't take much at all. If anything, it was probably the freeze that resisted him most of all, and as soon as the resolve had swept hotly through him, soon she went still. Then seconds ticked on without this particular young life, unchanged, yet she was freed to go on unburdened by this life's failings. But, left here with what she was once made of, he blinked open his eyes, stinging against the cold as he delicately let go of her with a shudder and low whine. Mostly for his own sake. There was no one else to hear now. Still, he stayed laying beside her for a little while, like he was trying to muster himself back up again.

He felt the solitude sting, and even now, peering down at the snow gathering on her lifeless shape, he wondered why she had found herself here. This was no place for her, and hardly a place for him. But.. she could go now. He had let her go, he reminded himself. The fastest, best choice. She was better off and now, what was left of her constraints here could return to the earth and ice. At least she didn't have to feel it anymore. For that, he shouldn't have any doubt.

Antares wouldn't leave for a short time; he didn't know why, especially under the weight of his thoughts, but he lingered to watch the snow build, and maybe help encourage it some once he got up to pace around--while he was at it, map the area too, for reasons he didn't know to explain either. It was too frozen for him to expect more. He scarcely knew what to do to honor unknown dead properly but this restless energy had to go somewhere.Then, finally, he reached a point where it was as good as it was ever going to get for him. He whispered some vague last farewell to the girl's departed spirit, and took off into the snow too with the memories of her last moments a new piece of him now.

He would not return immediately to Tsukiishi's jagged peaks, but take some time alone first before a tired wolf turned up back at home. Antares was certain this would all feel too surreal come tomorrow. He would cross that path when it came...

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