The cold air stung. Like knives it raked its merciless fingers through the fur which gruffly covered the bulk of a body which trudges forth in the snow. Winter forcefully tugging at the body, golden eyes scouring every inch of the snow laden meadow for any sign of her. A thick cloud of vapor raises in his line of vision, unwanted but warm against the frigid cold that coats his face. Paw prints in the snow, trailing from edge to edge, in patterns from the edge of the frozen river to the copse of trees that demarked the exit of the territory.

Everything was cold, everything.

Like the flakes that flurried hurriedly at his sides, clinging to the coat, rising up and down with each breath, the whole terrain was nothing but a gentle reminder that he stood here alone. You are not alone, Osiris, the familiar lilt of the dragon's voice coos in his head, even as the little reptile waits patiently in the line of trees, a flash of purple and black against white. The poor thing had made itself a little bonfire, lit with a sharp flash of his own fire, a skill the wolf had not even been aware his bonded possessed. Comadre had grown over the years of their companionship, but the hybrid had felt as though he had been cut down at the knees. What was there to search for in this meadow if not his own delusions?

There was no gray pony here, no warm honey eyes to greet him. The whole of their tentative friendship, was it a lie? Virva, she had managed to come to Helovia, had she not? Had both he and Comadre seen her, felt her, spoke to her? Perhaps, it was that his own presence had driven her further still, further from the land that would be a safe haven from the creatures in her nightmares. The only nightmarish creature now was the monster standing in the middle of a frozen field, head dropped to the ground, yellowed grass whipping at his nose with each frigid gust. The only one who haunted her mind was me, the hybrid thought with a wave of self-hatred. The only one she feared was me.

A bitter laugh chokes forth from his throat as the wolf dances to life, suddenly, wheeling from his spot and back toward the river. That stallion was taking her to the river in the Thistle Meadow. After she came here, she left. She left, but they did not meet in the Foothills as she promised. They did not meet. What lies were told in a cruel tongue of a woman. Shame and pain could only be doled out in such quantities by the hand of professional, a thief who had unwittingly stolen the locked heart from his chest. The thief who was running now, wings caressing the wind a thousand times more gently than she had ever spoken to him.

"Bitch," Osiris mutters at last, a gurgling in his baritone voice as though tears had taken up residence in his eyes.