The god has assigned him a simple task, for even a wanderer could remain if he felt enough of a connection with a place. The Steppe had almost killed him once, the snow there almost chilled him to death; he longed for it in the warmer nights spent by the shore or in the forests. His return was in turn a triumphant one, one of a father coming home to his family with christmas presents and a cheery grin after a life lived too long in poverty. The father lived for the smiles on the faces of his children- Birch lived for the numbing, deadening feeling of the snow.

His hooves met the ice with little resistance and forced him to walk carefully, even as the wind blinded him with flakes of snow and a chill that cut through to bone. The Arborun smiled for one of the first times in a long time, forced breath from his lungs and watched as ice and snow falling hard from the sky pierced the cloud of his breath. His thin coat did little to keep out the cold, but his tough hide repelled the trickling sheet of hail as it flew down inconsistently. He felt on edge and alive on the brink of death, he felt safe and warm and content at last.

Even as the wind whistled deafeningly in his ears and his eyes and nose and mouth began to grow clogged with ice and snow, even as the bloody sap mixture that ran through his veins began to crystallize in the cold, he felt happiness. Blissful and undeterred; he longed for nothing else. Surely there were caves in which to hide from the dark night storm he could seek out... He thought absently that he should try to find them if he was able, that as long as he was able he was meant to live.

But one step proved to tire his muscles more than he could have pictured, and another led frozen legs to slip from beneath themselves. The giant fell and clashed to the ground slowly, naturally, as if this was all that was left for him. He could not think about moving on, could not focus enough to understand if he did or did not have the strength to move on. He simply lay there in the cold and watched as white took over his vision, breathed faintly as the ice began to form within him and cap over a dry tongue and wet teeth. In white silence, he waited and wanted to die.