Snow. It's cold and white, like iron in her lungs; the air tastes of blood each time it passes through her throat.
It's just the cold that does it.
There's no blood to be found, no warm meat to fill empty bellies, nothing to satisfy the urge of a hungry wolf—to calm the restless hunger of a predator. There's only snow and cold, breath steaming into the air, the silence, and the heartbeat counting down the time.
It's getting late, Cézanne.

A lone trail of paws led from northeast to southwest, but you had to be there to see them, for the wind covered them up within an hour. It tugged at her fur, forced her eyes to teary, yellow slits, ears flat against her skull. She was no stranger to cold, to snow, but it had been many years since she'd had the rumbling of her belly for company this long. The search for her brother had become something else: the search for food, the struggle to survive. She was old, but not too old. In the deepest hours of night her joints ached dully, but in the half-light of the pale, distant sun, she was just like any other wolf, fleet of foot and strong of mind, sound of heart.
Maybe even more stubborn than most.
She wasn't interested in leaving the forest; the trees kept the howling, rugged winds at bay, trapped some of the sparse heat beneath their heavy pine boughs. A faux sense of security.
Senses strained in the darkness, and Cézanne's lips curled into a grimace. Stars, and the moon, crowded the black sky, and everything was shadows and pristine light, the snow glittering like the cold, cruel carpet it was. But the view, was not why she was here. This stretch of the forest smelled of pack territory, and this was the closest she had come to the scent markers since she'd first caught wind of it. Cézanne was headstrong, fierce, but not stupid; she had read the signs for weeks.
The herds were leaving.
Winter, was coming.

The lone wolf dies but the pack survives.

Thu-thump. Thu-thump.
Hear that, Cézanne? It's the life and the death, the pulse and the silence in-between. It knows that you grow weak as the moon waxes, because it was so long since you had the blood between your teeth.
Maledictiō tu, tace! She knows that the falling snow wishes only to cover them up for the winter, sing its requiem for them, and lay them down to sleep, a sick preservation of life in the cold arms of death: they would not rot, with the frost set so deep in their bones.
The scent of the pack was strong in her nose, ignited the blood in her veins: they could be her salvation, her road to surviving this hell-wrought season, or, they could bring her to her knees. Make her easy prey for the weather to fell. Her jaws were firmly sealed, the fur on her shoulders pricking upright every once in a while. Cézanne ill liked to bow to anyone, but she had more sense than to die for her pride.
At least, so she hoped.

Noise caught her attention. Cézanne's body froze immediately in the darkness, lean muscles tensing up. Silently her ears rotated, listened to the pawing, the angry braying, to the sound of the clash: something was happening. The cold wind blew in her face, obscuring the scent of the other wolf but revealing that of goats. What were they doing so far from home?
Dying.
She grinned wolfishly in the darkness, and veered away slightly from her path parallel to the borders. The pack could wait another hour or so. She had fresh meat to hunt, and her paws led her on a skulking journey through snow-drifts and frost-hard, naked bushes. Soon enough the frigid moonlight painted the white goats all silvery-bright, and like gladiators from a time since long past they danced their deadly dance, unaware of their coming doom.
Cézanne, she was patient. She chose her vantage point well, folded her long limbs underneath her and laid down upon the snow, waiting for the time to strike—one would be the weakest, one would take the blows, and when they thought they had won, Cézanne would let them know how wrong they were.
Tonight, there would be only one winner, and that, was Cézanne.

There came movement. Other hungry souls were adrift in the dark night, on lithe paws with aching bellies. Hot blood on their teeth nothing but a memory, and they craved the flash-flood of it just like she, didn't they? She had not been aware of them before, but there was one. He was close. Too close. Mine. Her fangs bared in the darkness but she made not a sound; there were more important things to do.
He got company. A female, rounding behind Cézanne. It bodes ill for you.
Six eyes watched the display, patient predators with white breath smoking from their mouths. Finally, one goat gave in, folded its legs beneath itself, tired and beaten. Dead? Cézanne doubted it. Just too weak to survive, now. Soon, dead.

The art of hunting, the grace of a hunter, is beautiful: moonlight rippled along the fur of the charging, brazen female. She came head-on. Fool. Cézanne's long legs unfurled, and silent as a ghost she padded through the trees, snow whispering under well-worn paws. The goat stood his ground, scraped one hoof through the disturbed ground, stomped it down, snorted; you come here but no further.
Which was all well. Let the young and bold take the blows while the wisdom of age quietly slits the throat.
She grinned again in the darkness, blood-lust hot in the back of her throat, and stood a wary silhouette among the thin trees, waiting for the moment to strike. She was the Reaper come to haunt the earth, the devil in the doorway to block their escape: she was the butcher and the artist. A patient expert.
Vivat regina, Cézanne!
There were reasons she were still alive and hale.