I was a mess. A pile of all kinds of emotions pulling me all over the place. Shock at Mesec’s new form. Confusion that Mesec was here at all. Surprise when Tembovu came upon us, his weight and shadow and thick scent falling on all of us at once, blanketing us with his presence. And a creeping feeling of overwhelming claustrophobia at the continued growth of our search party.

*Monster!*

I turned to the super-white chick who had said that, the slender snow pixie that had come running at the King’s heels. Her pale eyes were narrowed darkly, staring suspicious daggers at Mesec. At my Bro.

*That man can't be trusted. He's violent - he tried to attack me once! Why did you let him join the Edge, Tembu?*

Bitch, I’ll show you exactly what a violent monster looks like.

Do you really have so little faith in the judgement of your goddmaned King? Bitch, please.

You say one more shit about my big Brother and I’ll bust the limp out’cho kneecaps. Fuck with me.

The beauty of it was that all of those things tried to leave my mouth at the same time, choking my throat and rendering me mute. All I could do was cast a furious, sparking glare at her sputter indignantly before Bro caught the scent and bounded away. I followed him close, and my seething at these accusations was doing nothing but making the inner turmoil that much harder to handle.

We came to a glacier (of fucking course), walking gingerly across its slippery surface until Mesec caught something. *The scent is stronger here. Help me, but be careful!*

Fuck it.

I drew Sparkmarrow with a kruKOW as the blades snapped into place. With one, powerful thrust, I sank the blade into the ice’s depths; a deep, echoing crack sounded all throughout the ice, a crevice opening under Mesec’s paws, making it easier for him to break through the thick ice.

MAUJA!, Mesec screamed, and in a flash of billowing shadow my Brother was gone, having teleported down into the cavern. I leapt into the space he had just vacated, looking down into the crevice of ice--

--looking down, down, down, at a pile of white fur, white bones.

“LEE,” I screamed, my throat going raw, but I couldn’t help it; things were crashing in my ears and something like a fulfilled prophecy was nodding its head like “I told you so” at the same time it strangled my lungs. I could feel my entire body poised to leap in there after Mesec, even though it there wasn’t space, even though it wouldn’t work--

*He breathes*

--but then, with a muttered word, I remembered that I wasn’t alone.

I froze, because my body repelled Tinkey’s presence (that’s his name, right?), wanting to wash his words and his breath and his…presence from this place. Holy crap, just go, what are you even doing here. But it was a knee-jerk reaction because I was remembering that, duh, I wasn’t the only one here and there were even more people coming behind us, a King and an idiot, who were just as concerned and who were just as qualified to be here.

And besides, Tina was right. He did breathe.

I stared down at the silvery puffs of vapor that misted around a mouth that was black as death. I clamped my mouth shut. He was alive, and here was a welcoming committee for him, a whole team come to take him from the ice, to deliver him home. One of them was missing a son--but what did that matter? Lee--no, Mauja had been in danger, and everyone had to drop everything to fix that shit.

Now I was biting my lip.

Here I go, I was feeling the thing again. That...that thing I felt about being in a group like this, as though the ache in my heart was a shared thing and that it didn’t matter how it was twisting my insides like this, whatever, fuck it, this was a community exercise and all at once I felt it pressing against me, them, their presence here, their shared concern, drowning me, stifling me, and I reached for the one thing that grounded me when it was becoming too much too much too much--

...but I had left him behind.

Oh no.

I swallowed; I took a step back from the crevice, to allow someone else to come forward and look down upon the corpse that wasn’t a corpse after all. He was breathing. He was gonna be fine. He was found; I’d done my part. And here was a whole cavalcade of people to help thaw him out of the ice. I kept backing away; I quietly turned around, and headed south.

I mean...fuck it. It’s not like they needed me anymore.

Quit Hollerin' "Why God?", he ain't got shit to do with it.