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Chapter Two - Late Night Snow

Morning arrived but it wasn't the dull grey sky that woke me. I woke due to the cold seeping into my fur, and the fact that I was only awake for a couple hours since I last slept. Without bothering opening my eyes, I curled up tighter and kept my tail close to me while trying to scoot closer to the warmth I felt beside me.

Sore, but no longer needing sleep, it was difficult for me to ignore my full bladder. I lied there for a moment, taking my time to open my eyes.

Snow had piled up around the gazebo, a good ten centimeters or so. Still more flakes fell from the sky, and I worried that if it continued snowing then I'd have trouble moving around in it.

My eyes now open, I decided to uncurl myself and sit up. I glanced next to me to see the black wolf curled up with his shorter tail hardly providing enough cover from the cold. While our fur kept our own body heat from escaping, our bodies were close enough to keep out the cold and allow a little heat to be trapped between us. Now with me sitting up, that trapped heat disappeared and was replaced by the cold air.

I stood and stepped out of the gazebo before softly stretching my sore and abused muscles. Walking over to the edge of the roof, I looked out over some of the buildings to see few of them having smoke rising from their chimneys.

From last year's experience, I knew that the market wouldn't be busy while it snowed. In any attempt to steal food there was significantly riskier because there was no crowd to hide among. The first snows were always difficult to find food in.

After leaving a puddle of yellow snow at the corner of the rooftop, I climbed on the roof adjacent to the abandoned building we slept on. Up there I had a better view of the unfamiliar district of the city Midnight had brought me to. This rooftop was barren, nothing on the top of it other than a few boards and stones.

The stone keep on the cliffs bordering the ocean was easily seen from here, along with many other large buildings. Glancing toward the rising sun, covered by thick clouds, were the docks I was more familiar with, along with the district of the city where most residents couldn't even afford a single gold tail[1]. With snow still falling though, my vision was limited so that I could only see the vague silhouettes of the city's walls and nothing beyond.

Trying to explore more of the city with only my gaze, I felt the slightest rumble through the soft snow that my hindpaws stood upon. It was the most unnatural feeling but whatever it was caused for my fur stand straight up and the urge to flee almost overwhelmed me. Before I could decide what to do next, a dull roar filled the city just moments before the building beneath me started to shake, adding to the roar of the city.

I didn't know what was going on but my heart rate quickened while I felt the instability of the earth beneath the city itself. I stepped away from the edge of the roof while the shaking calmed and the roar dulled away. Unclear of what just happened, I hurried and jumped back to the abandoned rooftop where Midnight was.

The naked and awake wolf was standing a step from the gazebo shaking snow from his fur.

"Did you feel that?" I asked running up to the wolf.

"Yes, what was that?" the wolf responded after he finished shaking. He turned around and grabbed his clothes from inside the gazebo.

"I don't know," I answered. The wolf was well protected from the falling snow. I wondered how he became covered in it, but I didn't ask because my stomach wanted to know the answer to a different question first. "Is there any bread left?"

"One loaf left," answered Midnight as he was pulling on his rough shirt. He again turned to the inside of the gazebo and pulled out the basket of bread he stole from the night before. There was only one loaf left inside, but he broke it in half and offered me the smaller piece.

I greedily accepted it and immediately bit into it, only to find that it was hard as a rock. Still, I gnawed on the bread until I had fully devoured it. Midnight finished his half quicker than me and had returned after turning the color of snow to yellow as well.

"Follow me," said Midnight. He walked to the edge of the roof, his paws crunching the snow as he went, and started to climb down. I obliged and followed him, while he continued to talk. "I'm still hungry. Last year there was this building that dried fruit and meat for the winters, and they'll sometimes hang some out near the windows if they have enough, but they are always watching so it's hard to steal from."

We had reached the street when Midnight started to tell me all about how he managed to take a few strips of dried meat last year. After he told his story, he told me to stay close while we walked through the snow-filled streets. There were guards, the occasional orphan and rarely a resident out but otherwise the streets were barren. We were ignored by all.

"...hate this cold!"

Walking pass one of the many taverns throughout the city, I overheard a guard yell his complaints to his companion. When I glanced over at them, they were heavily bundled in clothes that the only visible part of them was their eyes. That was enough for me to recognize them as Reptillians, natives to southern, warmer provinces.

"You better get used to it Takla," said the second guard. "We're staying to protect our investments in this forsaken city. Until they're secure, we're not leaving."

A few more complaints were heard but I was soon too far away to distinguish what was said. I followed Midnight through the streets by listening to his breathing and paws crushing the snow but my eyes were distracted by the new part of the city. The river now had stonewalls to guide it through this part of the city with buildings erected on either side. Some buildings were tall and pointy, others were square but decorated in bright colors and smelled strongly of flowers.

I was too distracted to notice that Midnight had stopped and I walked right into him. I tripped and fell into the snow but the wolf merely stumbled.

"Watch where you're going," he barked, scolding me.

I felt my ears go back in shame. "Sorry," I muttered in response, picking myself up. The wolf wasn't paying attention to me and was staring across the square we stopped in front of. In the middle of the square was a fountain but across from that there was some sort of shop. On the ground outside the entrance was a stall much like those that were in the markets. This stall had food hanging from the top. The food was small and withered and I recognized it as dry food because I've seen it sold in the markets before.

Rather than someone standing behind the stall, the merchant was in front of the food trying to sell it. It wouldn't be so easy to sneak up and try to steal anything from it since there were no blind spots for the merchant.

"The snow that fell on me this morning gave me an idea," said the wolf, looking around the square. "I'm going to go on the roof, and try to distract the merchant. Then you can sneak in and take some food. You won't be seen as easily as me because you blend in with the snow better."

"How will you distract her from the roof?" I asked, looking up at the wolf.

"I'm going to push a bunch of snow off the roof and onto her," boasted the wolf. He smiled at the thought, but I was more worried about being caught stealing again. "You wait around the corner of the shop. Remember to grab enough for both of us, then run to the river. I'll find you there."

Midnight looked down at me and pointed across the square to the corner of the building that sold dried food. Without saying more, he turned around and walked back the way we came. Left alone, I felt more vulnerable but agreed to just do as I was told.

Walking across the square, I again felt those hateful eyes on me.

"No handouts, keep walking" the merchant growled while I walked by, but I ignored her and rounded the corner. No longer in the square, and in yet another alleyway, I crossed to the far side of it and away from the building. Staying in the shadows, I tried to backtrack to gain a vantage point on the merchant and her stall.

It took me a few minutes but hiding in the shadow of an unoccupied stall, I was at the edge of the square and could see the merchant tending to the food. She placed some in glass jars while an assistant of hers brought out more to hang up.

Sitting with my knees up to my chest, arms and tail folded around my body, I waited for several minutes. Occasionally I glanced up at the ledge, hoping to see Midnight emerge but he never did.

Near ten minutes had passed when a sudden realization came to me. If Midnight found me more of a burden than help, he might have abandoned me here. If he did, then there'd be no way I would know. I suddenly grew worried but the only thing I could do was sit there and wait. I tried to push it to the back of mind but it still lingered there in my mind.

Several more minutes passed with my worry never leaving me. After a few minutes of watching the merchant, a customer came up and offered a few copper tails in exchange for half a dozen small strips of a dried fruit. The whole time the merchant was careful to not be neglectful of her stall, and there was no chance for me to grab some food. By now the snow that was falling from the sky had thinned quite a bit.

It took me a moment to realize that I only just now realized that was because a sudden flurry of snowflakes fell from the roof of the merchant's building. The merchant either ignored the flurry of snow falling or didn't notice. However, I looked up to see a shadowy image disappear from the ledge that I knew it to be Midnight. He finally found a way to reach the rooftop of the building.

All thoughts of him abandoning me washed away from my mind. A minute passed before Midnight appeared again, with a snowball in his paw. He held it out over the ledge, trying to aim it above the merchant's head before dropping it. The snowball disintegrated and only the flakes of it fell around the merchant. The plan to drop snow on her wasn't working but I still knew I had to wait. Either Midnight would think of something else, or he'd come get me. For now, my job was to wait for an opportunity.

I watched the rooftop ledge for a few minutes but Midnight remained hidden. I seriously started to wonder if he was going to abandon the idea, and that we'd have to search somewhere else for breakfast. It wasn't for another five minutes that I saw a large snowball, about as big as me, rolling up to the ledge. Realizing what took the wolf so long, I squinted my eyes up at the snowball. The wolf's paws were holding it still while he glanced around it and looked down. He adjusted the snowball a few times, small flakes of it falling off before finally letting it go.

The force of it falling stripped away the outer layers, like the last snowball but this one was much larger. It missed the merchant but impacted less than half a meter from her. The snowball pancaked to the ground, covering half her hindpaw. She jumped and yelped as she was startled, but her yelp was only meant with the wolf's laughter. She looked up with wide eyes. Now was my chance.

I quickly got up hurried toward her stall while her gaze was fixed on Midnight above them all.

"What are you doing?" she yelled, her tone sounding very angry. "Get down from there! You almost hit me, you brat!"

I reached her stall, grabbed two strings of dried food hanging up and sprinted back down the alley, my furry hindpaws not making a sound in the snow.

"Hey! HEY!" she screamed. I knew she saw me but I didn't stop as I rounded the corner and bolted straight for the river.

My heart was pounding in my ribs, and although I heard no one coming after me, I kept on running with the food hugged to my chest.

Unfamiliar with this part of the city, I had to rely on my memory to reach the river. Unfortunately I managed to get myself lost a few times and had trouble avoiding panicking but before I was too terribly lost, I came across a familiar tavern where the two Reptillian guards were standing at earlier in the morning. They were gone this time, and replaced by another guard and a large polar bear.

"...n't care what you do, just keep those Reptillians out of my pub," the polar bear demanded, his voice raised. "I don't want them preaching to my customers how we should live our lives. That is not up to them!"

"I will talk with my Captain," said the guard. The pine marten in the guard uniform glanced over at me while I walked by with that distrustful glare. "We had to deal with a band of them all summer but there's little we can do."

"Great Lord Mika is trying to do something about their overzealous preaching," the polar bear said, his voice calming and fading while I walked away. "Freedom is not freedom to oppress..."

The snow had nearly stopped with only a few flakes still falling here and there. With the snow no longer falling, the streets have come more alive with traffic.

"Pure salt," I heard a merchant yell from his back alley stall. "It'll melt all the snow around your house."

"I'll take four kilograms."

In the streets were the owners of shops and houses with shovels while they pushed the snow away from their property, towards another for someone else to shovel it all back. The snow had just fallen and everyone was eager to remove it away from them, but all they were doing is managing to turn it brown and black with dirt, mud and rocks.

"That's not a Velox sword." A customer disagreed with a merchant. "Velox swords are only sold by the son or the master himself."

"No, an adventurer bought it from the young Velox but was killed by..."

While the snow did prevent a large portion of the population from going out in the streets, there were still plenty of customers for the merchants to try to sell their product. The weather hardly affected the daily lives of the citizens in this city.

Finally I made it back to the river that was enclosed by stonewalls. I went away from the heavily used bridge and stayed secluded in one of the nearby alleys while I waited for Midnight. Glancing at what I held in my arms for the first time since I stole them, I saw that one was a string of meat and the other was a tangy fruit.

I tried to estimate half of the fruit and half of the meat and I started to chew on some for myself. There were four pieces of meat and five pieces of fruit, but after eating one strip of meat, and two of the fruits, the hunger had subsided enough for me to wait for Midnight.

Growing bored while I waited, I looked over the stone edge at the river. The river was flowing rather low and it was moving slow enough that the edges of the river were forming ice crystals. I gazed at the flowing of the river while my mind wandered, happily imagining all the different ways Midnight and I could steal some food together.

My paws held onto the string of dried food, and when they were suddenly yanked away from me, I lost my balance and fell to the snow. Still holding onto the food, I looked up to see a lynx who was almost twice my height.

Standing back to on my hindpaws, I stared the taller lynx in the eyes but I held on firmly to the food.

"You can't eat all this yourself," said the lynx, pulling harder on the food. I dragged my paws through the snow, refusing to let go. "Where'd you steal them from? Maybe I should go tell the guards."

"I'm sharing these with someone," I said. The thought of Midnight returning and I had lost the food he had worked for made me fear that he'd be angry with me. We had both worked for it and if Midnight didn't recieve any of the benefit, then he'd figure that I wouldn't be worth bothering with and that he'd do better on his own.

I couldn't let go.

"Let go!" The lynx barked and he raised a paw to strike me.

I ducked and reflexively raised my paws to protect myself, the fear of being struck again across the head overriding my fear of disappointing the wolf. In the moment of fear, the lynx yanked the string of meat and fruit from my paw.

"No! Please don't!" I begged, but the lynx ignored me and turned to walk away. Frustrated with myself, I could feel tears welling up as I stood back up and saw the lynx walking away triumphantly.

A black blur fell from one of the nearby rooftops, and tackled the lynx to the ground in a mixture of growls and snarls. Midnight was rolled over and the lynx was on top, using his claws to swipe at the smaller wolf. The black wolf kicked him off and they both stood again facing each other with the food being dropped in the snow.

"Grab the food," ordered Midnight, standing with his own claws exposed and his fur raised.

The meat and fruit was lying near where Midnight had tackled the lynx, between the two of them now. I hesitated just for a moment, but I did what I was told and bolted straight for the food. When I ran for it, the other two moved as well. The lynx went for the food as well, and the wolf moved to intercept him.

I grabbed the string of food and turned to run back behind the wolf. I took my eyes off the fight but I could hear that Midnight was roughly pushed aside and the lynx made it pass him. I only made it a few paces before I was tackled into the side of the building. I twisted in midair and fell back on some wooden crates, breaking them and I was pinned down with the lynx's eyes staring right into mine. He raised a paw again.

"Stop." Afraid to be struck, I raised my paws to defend myself again. My paws did not block the blow from the cat efficiently enough and the cat struck me across my head. The single hit made me dizzy, reviving the dull wound from being struck the night before.

I felt another weight suddenly add on top of me, pushing out the air from my lungs. Glancing up I saw Midnight had jumped onto the lynx's back and was trying to pull him off. The lynx's head turned to face the new threat and bit down on the black wolf's wrist. Midnight howled and reeled back but the lynx intended one keeping his bite and sank his teeth further into the wolf's fur. When he had turned to bite the wolf's paw, one of his ears was placed near my muzzle.

Desperate to get him off of me, I did the only thing I thought of. I leaned forward, opened my muzzle and bit on the ear as hard as I could. The lynx screamed out in pain, and pushed himself off of me and he ripped his ear out of my muzzle, tearing it more and leaving a taste of blood and fur on my tongue.

Reaching down I grabbed the food again but I was slow to get up, still feeling dizzy from being struck in the head. Before I could stand up myself, I felt Midnight grab me by the paw and drag me along. I followed as best I could, just trying to keep my hindpaws underneath me while keeping a grip on the strings of food.

After a dozen meters away from that alley, my daze had faded and I was able to better keep up with Midnight. We ran for a few blocks before slowing down, and I noticed that the wolf was keeping one of his paws close to his chest.

"Are you all right?" I asked after we slowed to a walk, a hundred meters from the river.

Midnight stopped and turned to look at me. I could tell that he was trying to resist crying but tears still glazed his eyes over. I couldn't see the blood on his black fur but I could smell it. I knew his wrist was bleeding from where the lynx had bit him.

"I'm okay," he said. He held out his uninjured paw. "Can I have some now?" I held out the strings of food for him, and he ripped off a piece of fruit and started to chew on it. "He bit really hard. Thank you for making him let go."

"He was mean," I said, making the connection that me biting the lynx's ear had made him let go of Midnight's wrist. "He said he'd tell the guards that we stole this food."

"He was lying," the wolf said, leading them through another alley. "I know that he steals food too so he'd never go to a guard to tell on us. You did a great job grabbing the food from the store by the way. It was hard trying to get the snow to fall on that merchant. The first two snowballs didn't even reach the ground and there wasn't much snow to work with up there."

Midnight continued to tell me the perils of him trying to roll a big enough snowball, and then he backtracked a bit and started telling me all about how difficult it was for him to navigate the rooftops. The wolf sure loved to talk, and since I was the only one to share food with him, I assumed I was the only one he could talk to. Near the end of his story, he had eaten a lot more from the strings and we were nearing the familiar building where we slept the night before.

"And I didn't even see you after she yelled at me," Midnight said. "You don't even crunch the snow when you move, and you blend right in! I barely caught a glimpse of you because of your clothes and she was screaming at you but otherwise you're just another snowflake. Hey! That's what I can call you, Snowflake!"

"Snowflake?" I repeated, stalling back a bit unsure what to think of the name. Well, it wasn't so much the choice of name that made me hesitate, but the fact of having a name at all. "You mean, I can have a name too?"

"Of course you can, Snowy! That's what I'm going to call you anyway."

I couldn't help but to smile. "Thank you, Midnight."

I had a name.

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[1] Tail: The small coins that are made from the soft metals of copper, bronze, silver and gold that are used as currency throughout the realm.