silver is the grip on the helping hand

until it isn't.

The reindeer falls. And Strai is beneath it.

Bylgja drops her axe to the snow, and lets it steam there. She lurches forward, catching the reindeer by the side of the face, her canine teeth squelching into its eyes as she strains. She doesn't realize that when she saw it happen, she screamed his name in raw, brutal panic. She doesn't realize.

Adrenaline courses through her.

This is an age-old strength: mothers, able to lift impossible weights, when their children are in danger. The blade is steaming and blood and guts slick the snow and Bylgja adjusts her grip, heaving, pulling at the reindeer, forcing it up, forcing it to roll in its dying moments. Forcing it off of Strai with the raw, bone-deep horror-strength of a caretaker, even now. Her muscles strain, and she jerks her body in furious movements, snarling and screaming against its skull, matched only by the horrific bleating of the dying animal,

until

she has pulled

the reindeer

off of the boy. Until she is left, bent, panting, shuddering with exertion, blood on her coat, her teeth. Her heart thuds so heavily, so brutally, it feels as if it will burst from her ribs. "Strai!" Her voice, raw. She rounds the deer. She moves to him, to pull him up, to help him free. "I've got you, Strai!" Without question. She had helped him without question.