Patience and vigilance strung tangible threads along the icy threshold, and the nymph and kitsune watched over the brooding youth, chiseled not in age or finery – seemingly lost without the touch of demons resting over his brow. They rose in tandem, flickering over the patchwork snow, mighty and valorous, ignoring wobbling strides or stumbling fortitudes; her eyes drifted elsewhere as he faltered, as if she’d seen nothing, couldn’t be dismayed or swayed from his certain prowess. The affable smile still remained floating across her lips, manifested in warm finery and beatific respites, fixating her honeyed gaze back upon the fellow as he murmured his name: Öde, proud and sagacious despite its barren meaning. She wondered over how he’d acquired the calling (would a mother hasten such a bleak, desolate term upon their child, like there was naught before them, no promise, no prowess?), but merely flicked her ears, assured her attention upon his small frame, didn’t compose the question into the air, held no wish to offend a once keeper of monsters. Besides, her fixation had to alter rather quickly, for as soon as both had risen, hunger must have gnawed at his sides, swiftly turning towards her flank, bowing beneath her, searching for the impossible. Imogen laughed in the background, a bright, chirpy chuckle, while the elegant nymph had to dissuade the boy from his futile attempts. “My apologies, you’ll discover no provisions there.” She shook her noble head, winked despite the comical circumstances, for she’d never given birth, never had her own child, never nurtured a creature of her own flesh and blood, and bestowed the lively, carefree tunes back across the rime, extending suggestions towards the lad before he asked for something else she couldn’t provide. “Perhaps we can find you some grass?” Her stare widened and searched for the curling fronds of the hot springs again in the distance, a hopeful hand, a guiding force, an inclined sanctuary settled into Siberia. The wiry, lithe vixen, with her ivory tassels and shifting tails, took the hint, dancing shallowly along the puffs of snow and mingling breaths, carving a path through the forest of white. Offering her frame as a means of warmth and support, the Mender began to move forward, following in the small footsteps of the fox, aiming to provide the babe with his own methods of consumption (wasn’t he old enough to no longer nurse? His size made it difficult to surmise). Quietly, intrigued and curious, she permitted one query to float aloft, dangling in front of the lad like a toy, a marionette, a waltzing warren in the endless paradigms, while they maneuvered towards deeper salvation. “Where is your home, Öde?” Certainly he had a family searching for his tiny frame, gallantly crossing over hither and yon for their precious babe adrift, taken from their sides – he should be returned to his rightful bearings.