It had been long enough now that Soul wasn't certain when his mother would be back, and it gave the boy a confusing mishmash of feelings. He had quickly grown attached to his papa and wasn't exactly eager to leave him either. He wasn't quite ready to grasp the concept of abandonment but he could still feel it in a way unrecognizable to his young brain. The problem with not knowing exactly how he was feeling meant he didn't really know how to talk about it, so when his papa had to leave that morning he hadn't really known what to do with himself. So Soul set about trying to distract and amuse himself. He had learned what snow was pretty quickly, and it was one of his favorite things about where he was now. It was easy enough to play with even without being able to see it. He especially liked rolling around in it, his fur was thicker, even visibly so on his back so it was easier to avoid getting to cold if he didn't just wade right into it. So it was that the boy set about rolling around in the snow, making what he imagined were drawings in the snow, though his mostly random flailing didn't leave anything recognizable behind. After some minutes yipping and giggling to himself he'd already exhausted a decent amount of his early morning energy and lay on his back, forepaws tucked to his chest while his hindlegs folded in to protect his exposed and already quickly chilling abdomen. The boy breathed a huffy sigh, and closed his eyes, letting the feeling of the cool cradle he'd built for himself seep into his fur... it was oddly comforting, a slightly numbing balm for his overactive and confused mind. "Speech"

Art by Ulfeid3

Fable didn't like to stray far from her siblings, but she'd seen a tiny field mouse scamper by the den entrance and couldn't resist. If she could catch it maybe Sparhawk would teach her how to transform it in their den fire! She'd watched things go into it and then come out different before - trees, leaves, sometimes scraps of meat. It wasn't too long before she lost track of the mouse. All this snow made it impossible. The snow made her feel small in a way that she hated. Unlike Soul, the endless white just made her feel frustrated. The tracks of prey disappeared as soon as she spotted them and their scents were even harder to pick up once the winds blew. All she could smell was cold, cold, cold.

She continued on nonetheless, hoping she could pick the trail back up soon. What she found wasn't a field mouse at all - it was another puppy. She knew there were some others scampering around but Fable didn't recognize this young man at all. "Hello?" She said, trotting up to him and shivering just a bit. "Didja see a little mouse scamper by? Or like, anything at all?"

The rapids made it a little harder for Soul to rely on his hearing, and so while he could tell someone was approaching he wasn't sure if their paths would actually meet, it was only when her sweet voice reached him that the boy's eyes flew open, more out of some deeply ingrained instinct than habit or need. Pale eyes slid across the empty expanse before him, not landing solidly on where the girl was but somewhere just past her. He frowned, considering the girl's question. It was significantly harder for him to notice things like small animals with the noise from the rapids still so loud to his ears. Eventually, he might learn to tune it out but for now, he struggled with it still a great deal. The boy shook his head finally, unable to remember hearing or smelling a mouse going by. "No sorry." He said, rolling onto his stomach and rising into a sitting position. "Why?" His papa had been bringing him, small creatures, to eat but he hadn't really put much thought into the connection between that and the small things the scurried in the snow and grass here. "I'm Soul by the way!" "Speech"

Art by Ulfeid3