you do not know who is your friend

or who is your enemy

until the ICE breaks.

"He's not coming back, Ice."

The pale sunlight of a bleak dawn arced across the sky.

"We killed his attacker, but he..he will always remain in the red hills now."

Snow capped the red peaks; it caught the sunlight, glittered where it was struck and refracted the light in a myriad of directions. It wasn't so red anymore. Nothing was red anymore. He'd even lost his other red friend, Merlin – and if he cut himself, his blood was probably blue. The bitter winter was reminiscent of home, froze him to the core. Drove the prey away.

Red. No, nothing was red anymore.

The sun had since long lost its warmth, was just a distant eye of memory, of light, shining down upon his narrowing back and teasing him with thoughts of a green, splendid summer, and of little white bundles tumbling in the shadow of an oak tree. Of little cubs tumbling in a sunlit, dazzling river, and copper highlights in an auburn fur. Ice raised his head against the sky. West, the way of home, bore a dark horizon, foreboding and cruel, speckled with stars and no clouds. Warmth flowed freely from the world and into the abyss, and Ice, he was shivering in his thick, matted fur. It was a long time since he'd eaten, some frozen-solid caribou carcass on a distant tundra far to the north. Herds had thinned and scattered, and one hungry, cold wolf wasn't enough to hunt frantic deer. Once you're in the downward spiral it's hard to break out and fly again.

It's almost as hard as admitting defeat. Or admitting that you've lost your companion, one whom you swore, simply by virtue of who you are, to keep safe, even though you didn't trust his mind, and tongue. Ice shook his head. Blizzards and small injuries and avalanches and frozen floods breaking their ice and.. once the weather had died down, after days and days, Ice hadn't been able to find Merlin again. They hadn't found Cali, either. So he'd returned. So there he stood, upon the summit of the not-red hills, the light in his fur a blazing halo but his eyes full of shadows.

Just like his heart.

His paws ached. His head ached. His gut ached. His bones ached. His front left paw left a bloodstain wherever he went, the pad scraped raw by the sharp, frigid snow. He was hungry and cold and tired and so close to home – to curling up back-to-back with @Corinna, with Serach and @Sceral in a heap of gangly, pale limbs around them. Somewhere warm and safe full of family and fur.

At the same time, he was worried. It had been too long since he'd seen any prey, and he knew what that meant: he was not stupid enough to not realize what was going on. That this winter was taking everything from them, trying to force them to their knees. Ice swallowed. Went over the rim; stretched out, touched down this side of the range, slipped into the west. Back into the shadow, for the sun was not high enough to climb above the jagged, snowy peaks. Home, he thought as he breathed, following some steep goat-path downwards into the darkness.

"He's not coming back, Ice."

"Marsh," he whispered; paused. Eastern Relic Lore spread out before him. No matter if he scoured every corner of it, he would never find the scarred, gruff male, with his soft iron eyes. His life had ended, somewhere in these very crags. Overcome with the emotion, Ice tipped his head back just as the sun laboriously climbed above the peaks; and in the first sunlight of a cold winter's day, his clear voice rang out across the forests in a lament of love lost.

.ice aesir

you do not know who is your friend

or who is your enemy

until the   ICE breaks.

His howl carried in the morning air, rang clear far and wide – a tale of echt emotion, too raw and deep. The plume of white breath ended in silence, silver eyes fixed in the pale blue morning sky: it was too hard to believe.. to accept.. to think of every day beginning and ending in this pit of desolation, that never would he have the red wolf by his side again.. the steady presence of his breath and level eyes; of how they softened by the river, so long ago. The memory was precious, and painful. His eyes closed. His heart kept beating. He wondered how it did that.

"Sir? I'm Hal." He hadn't realized how the drone of emotion, the keening of his heart, had dumbed him to the surroundings. Ice's eyes snapped open, found the spots of tan and brown among the pristine snow, slightly below him: equal in size, maybe. No one he knew. For a moment, Ice just stared at him. How do you pick up the pieces of yourself? How do you pull yourself together, when you were interrupted in such a private, intimate moment? And how, how do you respond to that? There was no question. Nothing. Just this wolf climbing up the hills to stick his tawny muzzle in Ice's heartbroken daydreaming and not even justifying his reason.

But Ice was too old, too tired, to be angry; he kept his mouth closed, black lips sealing in all the fangs. He was thinking about things to say, ways to respond, but he didn't really want to speak either – to break the perfect quiet of the early morning. It was cold and clear and beautiful, a bittersweet thing, searing his heart further. Beauty, could be painful, and for a moment he thought of the gilded young man up in the Dire, and his tears. His admission. Poor sod. But it was too long ago to move him, and just as Ice was about to do something (though he hadn't decided on what), a scent hit his nose. It smelled of life. Of hot blood, hot flesh, sustenance. And, it was his. He didn't care about some rude idiot he'd never met before.

The slightest growl played in his throat, a hint of teeth flashing in the sunlight before Ice turned away, sensitive nose picking out the scent of rabbit as he prowled along. If the stranger would try to take it.. his eyes narrowed. He would not let it. He needed something to eat, to keep him going, so he could go home and be useful to his family. Make up for the time spent looking for those they maybe shouldn't have cared so much for anyway: it always hurt. They came. They overcame the wariness; they earned their place in the hearts of the River-and-Oak wolves. And if they left.. it hurt all the more.

One ear flicked back, to listen to what this Hal would do. Then, Ice simply poised himself where he thought the nest's entrance was, snuffling in the snow, to find it beneath. And stars forbid the stranger interfered.

.ice aesir

you do not know who is your friend

or who is your enemy

until the   ICE breaks.

If he'd been less than a wolf, he would've reflected on how incredibly rude he was – just baring his fangs like that, prowling off, not even saying anything in return. But Ice wasn't only a wolf. He was a pretty dumb wolf, in his own way. That which was not spoken, was not often understood, and less so now that he'd been alone for so long. The body, it spoke, but the silent questions asked between the spaces of words and breaths? No; those were only silent.

His nose shuffled the snow aside from the bosky terrain, grazed against frozen-stiff dead things lurking beneath the white cover. The rabbit probably thought it was safe, buried underneath snow and rock, but Ice's hunger had woken. Saliva glittered along the edges of his lips, froze in his whiskers, heart and gut pounding away the silence.

The creature stirred. Its den wasn't deep enough in this treacherous, steep terrain, and the wolf's mouth too close. Terrified, it bolted out of the snow, but Ice was faster: his jaws latched onto the hind end of its body, and he threw his head back. The snap of its spine rang loudly along the lonely mountainside, and Ice, blood dripping down his chin, wasted no time. With the warm, dead body between his teeth he scuttled onto firmer ground, laid it down beneath his ample paws and tore into it with a fervor, one wary, jealous eye cast on Hal. He would not be cheated of his food – not this close to home.

.ice aesir

you do not know who is your friend

or who is your enemy

until the   ICE breaks.

It was the stuff of life, of gods, hot blood and hot meat. It steamed in the harsh winter cold upon that sunny slope, painted his white muzzle red. Teeth locked around organs and tore them out, crushed bones for every last bit of nutrient, paws pinning it against the sharp crust. In those moments of devouring the rabbit, Ice forgot about the world: he almost forgot about the lone wolf. He was simply a presence in the back of Ice's mind, a creature to be wary about, alert for any movement.. any sound. Ice kept working away at his carcass, but froze at the sound of the soft, stammering voice. His pale gaze flicked up, tongue licking the some of the blood and fur from his lips. Ice's name? Why did he need that? Why was he afraid? Ice hadn't done anything, simply warned him not to try anything, and he hadn't. Good boy.

"Ice," he responded thickly after a moment, taking his eyes off the tawny lone-wolf to devour the rest of his meal.

He made short work of it, and while it was definitely better than nothing.. it wasn't enough. Only blood on the snow remained, tufts of fur he didn't want to swallow, and some of the ache in his gut soothed. He was still hungry, though. The red hills were barren. In an almost thoughtful way Ice licked his injured front paw, tongue smearing blood and saliva across it. He felt.. strange. Like he was back in the years between moving away from home and being found by Indru, so unsure of how to behave, of what to do – the only difference being that he smoothed it over with a bold face and a brazen tongue. He had kids to go home to.. and a lost love to mourn.

Sighing, Ice put his paw down and took a couple of steps closer to the tawny male with his tail high and ears erect. Still all bloody-muzzled he canted his head to one side. "Have you been here long?" "Here", obviously being Relic Lore, and not the red mountains: at least, obviously if you were in Ice's head.

.ice aesir