The Great Wall!

Snow and ice was everywhere in this dark world. Not only were mushrooms and crystals and freaky fireflies and animals plentiful, but so was ice. Lots and lots of ice. Ares strolled through the range, knee-high in snow but he plowed through with little effort as he made his way towards the river that wound its way towards the edge of the territory. He knew some spots were frozen solid, while others still gave access for drinking, but he wasn't going for a drink today. He had spotted something interesting the day before and was going to collect it, and while at first, he thought it no big deal, he hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. He neared the river, the sound of silence greeting him what with all the crazy weird shit happening. The moon hung low in the sky, lighting his way in the snow much like all the crystals that lined the river bank. He immediately started walking along the side of the river when he reached it, looking for the thing from the day before, but...he had no luck finding it. "I coulda swore it was around here, somewhere..." He searched high and low but he supposed somebody else had already picked it up. Oh well.

He sighed as he looked at the frozen part of the river. An idea formed in his head. He was bored...and there was ice here...maybe his thing had fallen into the river and was now topped with ice. Yeah, that sounded like what happened.

Without another thought, he walked onto the ice and started chiseling away with his long fangs. They made great ice-breaking tools now that he thought about it! He worked at chopping out different-sized blocks, from small to large and he worked from one edge of the river to the other, cutting out ice blocks and pushing them up onto the shore where he had originally been before he started this.

When he was done, there were at least a couple dozen random-sized holes in the river, and he had a whole lot of ice to work with now. He started to slide them over to a somewhat flatter part of the ground, making a row of blocks before placing more blocks on top. The first stack, however, didn't seem to want to stay in place. So he grabbed some snow and packed a bit in between each block to better hold them together. His goal was to build a little wall. Maybe use it as a shield to aid in any snowball having warfare.

His own little bunker, perhaps. Though he knew it would melt at some point come Spring probably, he would still build on it for the remainder of the season. Who knows, maybe he'd end up building an entire fort out of ice! The idea excited him, so he toiled away pushing ice blocks together, making notches with his teeth and claws to better fit some, even carving out random designs on them. He packed snow in between each block for added sturdiness (since he was sure the ice would further freeze the snow and pretty much glue it together). He went back and forth between his shield wall and the river, chopping out more blocks until finally...

He had a wall that he was mostly satisfied with. The wall measured about three wolf lengths long, and a couple of wolf lengths tall. It had taken him a lot of extra work to stack ice that high, but he had managed to accomplish the feat with lots of scrabbling and staircasing the blocks. Admiring his handiwork, he grinned with satisfaction as he took a rest.

Now all he needed to do was test it...but nobody was around at the moment, which meant he'd be testing it himself. He rolled up a couple of snowballs and chucked them at his ice wall, only to watch as they either stuck to the ice or exploded on impact. It held up pretty well against snow-made artillery, but that was to be expected considering he made it. But how would it hold up to something heavier?

Only one way to find out.

Ares backed up a few more paces, eyes glued to his structure as he took a moment to get ready. Then, with a war cry, he burst forward in a flurry of snow as he ran full-on towards the wall. Bracing for impact, he turned his head away and slammed the full weight of his body into the ice wall! The impact caused his body to reverberate before he slumped into the snow, and he swore he felt the wall shake. Dazed, he looked at the wall and saw that it was still standing. Yep. He had made it pretty sturdy all right!