Illuminate the 'No's' on their vacancy signs

@Jessie this is set before 'Towels round our blisters and bones'
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Hodr was slipping, both literally and mentally. Overnight the fog had settled to freeze solid on the snow, his nails had nothing to catch. A sighted wolf could have hugged the perimeter of this particular clearing and used the wind-falls embedded in the snow for traction. Hodr had no such ability. Certainly another would have simply avoided the whole water-logged area.

Unfamiliar with the land and unable to see safety just beyond step, the bony yearling shuffled right though the middle of it. The surface was like glass and every wrong foot sent his knees and chin crashing into the hard surface as he slipped. Each impact shattered his grip on reality further and further. His parents had been careful to shelter him. That wasn't to say he had been pampered. His childhood had been filled with the usual uncertainty and unhappiness, but nothing like this. For nearly two weeks now his mind had been running at full speed, fearful of running into something, being attacked by an unseen wolf, starving, walking off the edge of a cliff. There was only so much that the mind could take, and Hodr was beginning to reach his breaking point. He was driving himself to insanity.

Little by little he skated across the glazed clearing, surrounded on both sides by secure footing. A soft noise broke the silence of his concentration. The jay flitted over the unseeing wolf, unconcerned with any fallout. Hodr's head swung one way and his body the other. "Hullo?" He rasped out. His throat grated with disuse and dryness. "Who's there?"

The woman was furious. Ever since she returned, she had been nothing short of kicked about by her mate. She wasn't some toy of his to be thrown around and she certainly didn't appreciate his harshness towards her. Hotei had known that the pack had always come first with her and now he was probably enjoying this new found power that he had over her...that he shouldn't have even had in the first place. In order to avoid having another run-in with the man, Jessie took her time to head outside of the territory, her emerald eyes alert and observant to the area around her. She steered clear of the always looming territory that held one of her worst memories in it. She simply refused to set food into that area, scared by what she had found there, alone for those several moments until Ice and Fenru arrived, pulling her away from the disgusting pulpy form of what was once Rissa. She pushed those thoughts away as she entered another area, the fog growing thicker as she pushed forward.

Her steps were silent and she paused when she heard the oddest of sounds. It certainly sounded like a wolf. Like a ghost she moved, her body moving towards the noises with ease, much like a predator. She stood and waited, awhile away, her eyes focused on the man in front of her...banging his head on ice? Not realizing it, she snorted out loud in amusement, the sanity of this man obviously lacking. When he spoke, she froze remaining still, she watched him, a game forming in her mind. If it was any other day, the Tainn might have had mercy on the man but she was angry and she needed to take it out on someone. So, without hesitation, Jessie threw her voice, a mocking, cackling tone to it, "Why!! I would be your worst nightmare. AHHH HA HA HA HA HA!" Her lips twitched in amusement as she watched on, the predatory gleam in her eye awaiting the game to finally start.

sorry for the wait @Jessie, his muse was all "nah man. i died in that other thread, remember?"

Hodr strained toward that odd sound, feeling his legs start to go two separate ways under him. It was tricky to stay upright on such a glazed surface; impossible when you couldn't see your feet to place them securely. All he could tell was that it was smooth as glass and hard as diamond. His head was still ringing from his earlier falls. The sound was constant, a dull buzz that made his ears flick to and fro to catch the source. A gash from the ice dripped a line of red down his face. Hodr's head whipped right to listen and the blood trailed into his sightless right eye.

Even with the dull buzz of his advancing concussion, Hodr couldn't have missed Jessie's shout. He stood still and let the voice wash over him, pelt rising and falling in waves of defensiveness and fear. His ears flicked even more wildly than before, so sharply that it seemed they could have snapped right. And then it was gone. He waited for something to come at him. Nothing came.

There was nothing but the constant slipping of his legs. Eventually his toes lost whatever purchase they'd had and Hodr went down again; smashing his knees and then his nose in quick succession. He climbed to his face and a smear of blood froze solid on the ice below him. It was nothing new, it was simply the nightmare that he'd been living for the past two weeks. "Not yet, you're not." He wheezed to the phantom voice. All empty promise, that voice was.