Our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow
CREVAN
Autumn had broken fast, near the end. The first cold snap came to settle heavily over Crevan’s thick coat one night, and not long after that he’d decided to hunt her down. Merida’s absence made it hard to sleep - especially when he’d grown so accustomed to her tiny form shadowing his. (“It couldn’t be that you’re worried about her.” He thought, rising today before dawn,“Couldn’t be.”)
Try as he could to deny it, the idea of her spirited body lying lifeless somewhere haunted him. It built inside his iron chest as guilt, tugged his black-rimmed lips into a steady frown when he tilted his blocky, pale head toward the morning sky to gain his bearings. Was she burrowed safely, sleeping soundly? He pondered, rising to stretch and watch his breath curl into ice rings. Does she … think about me?
The tan wolf shakes his head, a gesture to rid himself of quick-freezing dew and unwanted questions.
Instead the shifter bows to instinct, letting the feel of his magic pull him along in a graceful lope. Something about his immortality was tied to a never-ending healing, (that was the best his one-track mind could fathom) and after being burnt to a crisp by little Solace, Crevan had become keenly aware of it … working on his body. His ample legs would fold and extend beneath him, driving the predator onwards in a steady gait that never ceased. His muscles, torn by exercise and then instantaneously healed by this unique magic never tired.
He could run clear through the morning, into the bright dawn of midday, and come to rest at the banks of Taiga’s river by afternoon without much in the way of exhaustion.
Still, he dunks snout and forehead alike into the frigid water for a gulp or two, and then plunges headlong into the churning stream for a swim. Snaking like some pale, bushy alligator through the river, Crevan scrabbles soon enough onto the opposite shore. Winter’s bite never mattered anymore. Death never bothered him. Only Merida’s death, it would seem - and that was enough to leave him trotting through the forest with a frozen pelt, two dark eyes and one brown nose trained for any hint of his vulpine friend.
@[Merida]