it's a melody; it's a battle cry

The cold air weighed heavily against Irin's dainty body. Vigorous shivers wracked her frame as she padded along, lifting her paws high to get them clear of the snow. She was not a wolf built for the frozen expanses of this land, despite her white fur. And yet, after discovering the stark beauty that this place possessed, she had come to like it, and was quite willing to explore it further, despite the fact that she did not quite belong there.



Once again, it seemed that Irin had stumbled across one of the many wonders that the northern parts of this continent hid. The frigid weather of winter had ensured that most running water was frozen solid. It made finding drinkable water that was not in the form of snow rather difficult, but it did mean that the river that Irin had stumbled across was frozen with a thick enough band across the surface that Irin felt comfortable stepping forward, putting one dainty paw on the ice to see if it would light up like the frozen lake had. She was almost disappointed to see that it didn't.



And then her gaze focused on the tree tops, just reaching above the ice. What had happened here? Irin let her imagination wander, eyes widening as she thought about the many possibilities. Maybe there had been a great flood, drowning the forest in one fell swoop, trapping creatures of all sorts beneath the ice as the creeping cold froze it solid. A shiver, this time related to the thought of drowning in such a place instead of the temperature, wracked Irin's frame, and she slipped back a few steps, unwilling to leave her paws lingering for too long on the ice.



For all she knew, the exact same thing could happen to her.



But that fear was not enough to make the white female retreat too far. Instead, she remained in place, head tilted slightly as she examined the tree tops curiously. Once, these trees had surely been massive structures, stretching towards the sky. Now, they barely reached above the surface of this frozen river. There wasn't much of the sense of majesty that there had surely once been remaining in these trees. But maybe beneath them was a mystical, magical world, one where wolves with fish tails played, oblivious to the fact there was a whole world above them.



"speech"