Fog billowed from his nostrils, drifting up around his eyes before finally disappearing around his horn. Its stream was nearly continuous with his sides rising and falling with anxious energy. Sweat wrinkled against his 'brow, nervous and staggeringly cold against his temples. He felt all of these things, noticed them all with an acute perception he wasn't familiar with. It was like being huddled up in the dark for so long then being thrust out into daylight. It hurt because it was so glaring and he was so sensitive.

As cruel as the thought was, he wanted nothing more than to crawl back into the corpse of his wolf prison, rapidly forgetting the torment he'd felt inside it, donning instead rose-tinted goggles when he looked back upon those past experiences, ones quickly slipping away from him. His mind could not tolerate that existence and this one. Before long he would not remember what it was to be a wraith. Maybe flashes and fragments in his dreams, but the memories would sink into his subconscious, buried by plenty of other crap to think about.

Öde huffed - another burst of steam.

Lena kneeled then, her knees sinking into the snow beside him, the movement grabbing his attention. The dull sheen in his bloody gaze flickered with newfound recognition. Kneel he thought with a grin, remembering that word, that position, that sensation of ownership. Giddy he threw his head onto her neck, rubbing his chin against her winter wooled coat and pressing into her to hoist himself up. Eagerly his tail flicked back and forth at his rear, a small rear even thrown in as he tried out his legs after pulling them from the ice. He stumbled faintly, but his energy easily rebounded him, sending him haphazardly towards her flanks.

She spoke again, ears twitching at the sound of her voice, so gentle and calm, unlike most he had heard. He thought for a moment, but that word was one he would always know; it was one he meant to teach to everybody. "Öde," he croaked as he stood beside her, leaning against her slightly, partially for support on his unsteady limbs (were they always so long?) and warmth, but also because it comforted him.

Eat he reminded himself. A crown was worth nothing on a skeleton king. Relying on mechanical memory Öde dove under her bay garb, lips searching for the teats that ought to dangle by her leg, rich with the white gold of milk.