The noise that followed was oppressive and distinctive. Around him snow crunched and the silence he had once enjoyed faded to one filled with heavy breathing, deep voices, and the rustle of fur. His eyes, as if frozen shut, refused to open, but his lips still somehow managed to part and his vocal chords still managed to create a voice. The whistle of the storm's air was drowned out by voices, voices that grew in number and insistency. Voices that told him to get up; something that he was not sure he could remember how to do, but knew he had no intention of doing either way. The arborun shifted in the snow, only to feel the ice burn in his veins as the blood and sap within his surface veins began to form crystals. The tree upon his back cracked and ached, the branches snapped with even the slightest movement. Eyes rolled in their sockets but lids stayed shut. The voice drifted, first a whisper and then a note held in the air.

"Fuck off."

Sharp and clear. Birch kicked out but his leg only slightly moved. He forced again, and at last it was able to extend. The process repeated itself as the body shifted and moaned. The sensation of another's touch was gone when it should have been the focus; in the numbing cold, he felt nothing. Nothing but a hatred for these beasts that surrounded him and spoke to him of impending death. As if they knew of death, if they saw it as a friend! Only six years of age with hundreds more to go and he longed for an end to this life.

How dare they deny him one. Hot breath expelled itself from his lungs and the same motion that lifted his massive draft form from the earth lifted his lashes to strike the frostfall winds. They called him an it as if he is a monster, or some hidden treasure they'd found and saved from a wretched face. He was no it, he thought with a grimace, and he had the genitalia to prove it. Still, they were foolish beings. First the frail looking mare and then the beast borne of mixed blood. Accompanied by creatures unknown to him, and shadowed by wolves. He looked at them all with an air of disdain and a sense of apathy. Yes, and he was the strange one.

With a groan he tried to take a step; to drag himself out of the bed of snow that had formed around his figure in the snow. But there was nothing beyond his will to stand. Strength had left him hours ago; pulled him to the ground and dragged him to the edge of hell. It would be quite some time before he would know such power again.