The ice goes crack

It was hard to see what was happening beyond the edge of the ice as she bobbed up and down in the cold water, just getting glimpses of the world above the surface occasionally as she floundered and strained to keep her nose up over the top of the water with her legs kicking endlessly. She heard her brother yell her name and a moment later heard him yell something about climbing and when her magenta gaze turned upward she saw a bit of a stick that he was holding out for her. She reached and tried to grab it, but her teeth just barely scraped the bark and her efforts only made her dip back under the water in the process. The little "hop" she had done with her outstretched neck in her attempt to grab her brother's stick had an opposite effect with the returning momentum, sending her further down into the icy water than she had been before and she started to panic a bit, her magenta eyes wide as she looked up toward the hole in the ice where she had fallen in, the moonlight just bright enough for her to distinguish it from the rest of the mostly solid ice around it.

A moment later she saw a shadow cast over the hole, this figure much bigger than her brother, and there was a muffled voice from up above just as her lungs started to burn for oxygen. Everything was so cold that it was getting very hard for her to move but she tried her best to at least not sink any further with stiff kicks of her legs while she watched as the shadow slammed into the ice, making that hole even bigger, and then started to move toward her. It wasn't until her father was in the water with her that she was able to make out his similar white splotches in the dark water and she started doubling down on her efforts to swim toward him until she felt his teeth on her scruff and felt him pulling her back toward the surface. Relief washed over her because she had full, unwavering belief that everything would be fine now that their dad was here. A beat later he brought them both back to the surface and she sucked in a breath of air, coughing and sputtering from some of the frigid water that she had breathed in among all her struggling to stay above water.

Everything felt a little foggy around her, but she managed to keep her eyes open for the most part as her dad swam back to the edge of the ice, only slightly aware of his struggle to get up onto the surface until she was suddenly moving again and she felt the hard surface of the ice on her side as he tossed her up onto the ice. She blinked and tried to refocus her vision, which was suddenly very hard to do, and she saw their dad floating in the water with his paws on the edge of the ice and heard him telling her to go. Everything was somehow kind of numb and also hurt at the same time as she forced her legs to move and she rolled onto her paws on the slippery ice and it wasn't until she was making herself stand that she realized she was shivering all over. "O-Okay," she agreed, at least having enough sense to know that arguing with her dad right now was just going to get her into more trouble, and she began to slowly shuffle her way back to shore, looking up toward the edge of the lake to make sure she could see Rampage to use him as a guide.

"Rebel Klein"