Through the morning mist, the sound of coughing might be heard echoing out from the cavern’s darkness. Leander lay against the cool rock, a feverish cheek pressed achingly to stone. His lungs felt brittle, dry – and there was crusted blood around his nostrils, though he couldn’t remember when the nosebleed had occurred. He had awoken fitfully in the night, only to find that Kora had gone.
 
It hadn’t surprised him. He was getting used to her abrupt vanishings – the way she came and went without notice. If truth be told, his sister wasn’t exactly what he’d expected or even imagined. Of course, their parents had only known her before she’d become the wintry woman she was now, which meant the stories he’d heard had solely taken place prior to that point. Obviously a lot had happened since then.
 
Still, whenever they had spoken of Kora, he’d envisioned someone meek yet well-meaning, perhaps nervous, but softly sweet – a conjured image that hardly bore resemblance to the icy mare who’d found him asleep in a snowdrift at the beginning of spring. This Kora was something of an enigma in comparison. She was odd, he thought; though perhaps a better word was incongruous.
 
Whenever they spoke of their shared history, something in her whispery voice sounded distant and evasive. At times, she was so detached that he fell silent, though she hardly noticed. At others, he swore he glimpsed moments of substance fluctuating like cloud cover beyond the coolness of her gaze. When that happened, she would leave – almost as though she couldn’t stand to be near him – and yet she still returned.
 
He couldn’t make sense of it, especially in his current state. There were hours when his mind spun, his thoughts dizzyingly fuzzy at the edges; he was getting weaker by the day. Though he had no appetite, he knew he needed to eat. Wearily spurring himself from the stone floor, Leander slowly made his way to the cave’s entrance. Tufts of hardy northern grasses peek out from the snow – there would always be snow this far north, no matter the season.
 
Despite the rather mild breeze, Lee shivered. In the rising light, many of his bones were starkly outlined through splashed palomino skin. He nibbled inattentively for a while, staving off bouts of faintness as they came in waves. At one point, Leander glanced up to see an arctic fox crouched in the snow some yards away. “Don’t you look comfortable,” he commented offhandedly, envious of the animal’s dense fur as he continued to shudder with cold – his sickness more to blame than the actual weather.

Leander blinked hard when the fox actually responded to him – was he really that delirious? Shaking his head, the overo stallion smiled a little and decided that it didn’t matter if he was imagining it. If anything, perhaps it would help to distract him from the sad state of his current affairs. “That’s kind of you,” he replied, his weakened body swaying as he lowered his head to better meet the creature’s bright blue eyes. “However, I don’t quite think I’d fit in a fox-sized cave.” Lee chuckled at that, though the sound immediately turned into a hacking cough.

Once recovered, he shrugged the heavy set of wings which he found he could barely lift from his sides anymore. “I’m afraid I’m not quite up to the task, friend.” His brown eyes contemplated the small white animal. It certainly looked real. The mind was a funny thing, wasn’t it? Still a bit amused that he was somehow conversing with a fox in the first place, he said to himself rather wryly, “Dad would get a kick out of this.” Leander didn’t think to consider that this was a shapeshifter – after all, his thoughts were blurry and muddled by sickness. He simply carried on believing he was imagining things. Not the worst daydream to find oneself in, he mused. “What’s your name? Mine’s Leander.”

While his newfound fox friend provided a logical explanation for what Lee had half-believed was his own hallucinations, he emitted a self-deprecating laugh – though it rasped from his throat somewhat excruciatingly. “Well, Jesper,” he coughed, “I’m relieved to know that I’m not going crazy.” Not yet, at least. He knew the sickness was advanced in him, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before his mind slipped away on the plague’s black tides before well and truly finishing him off. Giving a weak shake of his unkempt mane, he stubbornly returned himself to the present.

“My sister, Kora, is somewhere here on the Isle, and I…” he paused, drawing breath, “I won’t leave without her.” He could have said ‘I can’t leave without her,’ but that wasn’t entirely true. Leander might very well be able to muster the last dredges of his strength and make the short flight to Nerine alone, as the fox-shifter suggested. If he went now, chances were that he would get the help he needed. Then again, if he went now, chances were that Kora would disappear on him forever. “It’s a generous offer, though. Thanks,” he managed amidst a hacking cough, working to bring what was meant to be a reassuring smile to dry lips.

A wind rose over the tundra, stirring up flecks of snow and dusting them across his too-thin frame. Lee did his best to ward off a shudder. “Perhaps you would help me pass the time until she gets back?” Weakly, he rearranged his wings in an attempt to deflect the sudden gale. It wasn’t really that cold of a day, but his illness made him feel chilled to his very bones. “You could tell me more about your family,” he suggested, “You mentioned a grandsire? What about parents, or siblings..?” It felt a small comfort to be in another’s company, and Leander didn’t want to give that up just yet – especially when a part of him feared what might happen if he were left alone in his current state.