Unana couldn't believe what she was seeing. The ice capsule contained something that was becoming increasingly human-like.
"I froze him to eat later," the bear girl explained. "He seemed kind of weird to me."
"Dad is so disgusting that even the blue-white bears, which eat any meat, don't want to eat him," Unana thought.
"It wasn't quite like that, actually," the bear girl scratched her ear with her "paw." "I found him here. He called me something and wanted to take me home. So I decided to freeze him. I usually freeze food that interests me, but I decided to freeze this one so I could eat it when the food ran out. Then many years passed, and the food never ran out, so I didn't eat him."
The bear girl slapped her stomach with her paw, closed her eyes and continued in her bear language.
"This is very strange," Unana turned to her brother and waved. "We need to break this ice thing, but how? This bear girl won't like having her prey taken away."
Yueret stood in front of the magnifying screen on the shore, carefully observing what was happening in the center of the lake. He immediately noticed the sign his sister was giving and understood its meaning.
"When Unana was a child, she made these gestures in the forest so that the animals wouldn't know what she was talking about. She thought animals understood human language."
Yueret also waved to his sister.
"Yueret understood," Unana rejoiced and thought. "He hasn't forgotten what I showed him as a child. Of course, later I learned that animals don't understand human language, but when I met this bearry girl... Now I think differently."
The bear girl didn't notice these gestures. She sat in the snow, stroking her belly and thinking, of course, about food.
"Is she asleep? Her hand is moving, so it's too early."
Unana cautiously took a few steps toward the shore, and then confirmed that the animal wasn't reacting to her movements.
"She's probably thinking about eating ice cream made from human arms and legs. The main thing is that she doesn't run out and go for more."
Unana took a few more steps back and bumped into something solid. It turned out to be her brother's shield; the very one they had flown here on.
The bear girl didn't notice anything again. She continued to stroke her belly, but now her hand moved more slowly.
"She's falling asleep," the brother and sister thought simultaneously.
Soon the bear girl was lying on the snow, and her hand made a final, very slow circular motion across her belly.
At that moment, Unana realized she had to act. A bow with a red, flaming arrow appeared in her hands, but this time the archer was able to draw the bowstring properly and release it…
The sound of the blazing fire was so loud that the bear ears didn't notice it in time. The arrow struck the center of the ice capsule, then went out and fell into the water of the ice hole.
"Uh..."
Unana's heart seemed to stop. The archer stared at the ice capsule, hoping to see it disappear.
But the capsule did not disappear. At that moment, the bear girl's ears finally noticed the strange sound and began to twitch...
Unana was gripped by fear, just as she had been when she saw the hand with the eye emerge from the ground. But this time, the threat was too obvious. The girl feared being frozen and never leaving this place again.
Luckily, the bear girl didn't have time to wake up. Her hand began stroking her belly again, but in the opposite direction and very slowly. It seemed as if the creature was repeating its own movements, but in reverse.
The fear level subsided slightly, and the archer was able to fire another flaming arrow. This time, the arrow hit the top of the capsule and…
…the capsule shattered into a multitude of fragments, like glass. A man in black clothes with brown hair, suspiciously resembling her big brother, fell into the snow.
"Ahh…" Unana couldn't comprehend what was happening.
A large rectangular-oval shield, surrounded by a purple aura, flew toward the man, imperceptibly lifted him onto itself, and carried him to the shore...
Unana watched as the lake grew further and further away, and after it disappeared into the white mist, she realized she was flying upward.
The purple energy aura, which the archer had barely noticed, carried her to the edge of the cliff, where her descent into this icy location had begun.
"The bear girl can't reach us from here," Unana thought out loud.
"Yeah, we did it," a familiar voice said from behind. "She can't fly. Probably…"
Unana looked around. The snow was gone, and the air seemed much warmer. Only the grey-violet sky, combined with the pointed tops of the coniferous trees, indicated that winter could return at any moment.
"Yueret, I think we've forgotten something," Unana looked at her brother, who was standing next to her.
"What?"
Unana pointed at the shield. It was still covered in purple energy, but the brown-haired man was no longer there.
"We lost him..." Unana looked into the basin, but saw nothing but white mist.
"He was here," Yueret approached the shield. "Maybe he wasn't real?"
"What?"
"It's an ice mannequin. It was cold down there, but it's warm here, and it disappeared."
"So quickly…"
"It reacts well to heat, and disappears when the snow and ice around it melt. That explains why it was kept in an icy shell."
"But it gets warm down there. Trees grow there. They don't grow when it's cold. You said so yourself, bro."
Yueret sat down on the shield and bowed his head.
"I thought Unana called me brother, like when I was little. She hadn't called me that in a long time. Then she learned my name and called me only by my first name."
"It's okay, bro, we'll find dad," Unana sat down on the shield and snuggled close to Yueret. "He's bound to be somewhere. We showed up somehow, after all." "Did I imagine it again?"
Yueret felt something warm brush his cheek, and only then noticed his little sister's face, her nose buried there.
"Unana, you're not Kimchan," Yueret said, cupping his sister's head in his hands and smiling.
"I don't do it with my tongue," Unana answered in a childish voice. "If you use your tongue, I might stick."
Yueret released his sister's head and carefully lowered the headphones down her neck. Unana closed her eyes.
"Do it. I'm your little sister who is a bear cub."
"Yeah," Yueret placed his hand on Unana's head and began stroking her from top to bottom. "And I'm your big brother bearry."
"All we need is a mom and dad. Bears need parents. Bears are living creatures."
"Don't worry. Maybe dad will show up. He's not gone forever."
"But we've come so far, and dad's not here. Did he deceive us?"
"No. I think he's out there somewhere, just hiding. He's probably in a very complicated situation that can't be easily explained."
***
The Metal Bird approached the snow-capped mountains. Now they occupied more than half the sky and seemed to hang over the plain covered with coniferous forests.
"These things are too big," Kyotyoryon looked out the side window. "Even my metal can't cut them."
"These are mountains," Halankuo explained, sitting next to her in the back seat. "You've seen them before."
"The other things were rocky and not so thick, but these are a little white."
The flying machine reached a pass between two snow-capped mountains covered in coniferous forests, and then began to descend.
"Are we there yet?" Halankuo asked.
"No, I just found a place to park," Itinit explained. "There's fog beyond, so we can't fly."
The dog-girl tormentor wasn't lying. There was indeed fog ahead, and the slopes became too steep. The Metal Bird ski-landed on the only level spot on the pass.
"These white things are actually water," Kyotyoryon looked at the snow. "She's hiding from me again so I can't cut her. But I know it's actually water. She can't escape me now."
The wing-shaped door slid open. The metal spirit leaped from the flying machine and suddenly fell neck-deep into her "enemy."
"It seems I chose the wrong place to leave here," Itinit looked out the window. "But I can hide the Metal Bird here."
"You've already hidden it," Halankuo looked at the head with metal horns sticking out from under the snow.
"Now Kyotyoryon can be with her metal… The main thing is that she doesn't take it too far."
Halankuo pressed herself against the seat in front of her so that Kyotyoryon wouldn't overhear her, and then quietly asked:
"Do you want to leave her here? She'll come looking for us."
"No. We'll go together. But first, we need to get out of here somehow. Are you dressed properly?"
"Yeah..."
Halankuo summoned a mirror.
"If you forget to put anything on, you'll freeze," Itinit turned to his friend. "We're so far north that even I don't know how cold it is here."
"Then you look."
Itinit looked first in the mirror, then at his friend, but did not notice anything unusual. Halankuo was wearing winter clothes, consisting of a dark purple hooded jacket, pants, and black boots.
"Everything seems to be in place," Itinit's gaze settled on the bulging part of the jacket. "Even the pants are there. Is this your first time wearing them?"
"Yeah, it's cold in Yenekit in the winter, but I wore fur stockings and shorts. But I thought it could get even colder, so I bought pants. But it never got any colder. Yenekit has a very predictable winter."
"So you didn't forget to put on everything you needed. You're just wearing this for the first time."
"Yeah, but I'm somehow not used to it. It's like wearing shorts and stockings at the same time, and socks too. Oops..."
Halankuo reached down to her boot and soon felt something fluffy.
"There's one. Maybe there's a second one, too?"
There was also a sock under one of the boots, which Halankuo checked by touch.
"It's weird," Halankuo looked out the back window, where she saw a steep, snow-covered slope lined with coniferous trees. "I've stopped forgetting what to wear. It... Started happening after that incident in the cave..."
While Halankuo was talking to her friend, Kyotyoryon's head sank into the snow. Only a barely noticeable hole remained on the surface.
"There are no messages from Noru and Kimchan," Itinit opened the chat screen. "Have they forgotten about me?"
"When they run out of food, they'll remember. Tuot always did that."
"I'm feeling like I've acquired pets, not a character."
"Do you like animal girls like Tuot?"
"No. I'm a normal person, and Tuot is an abnormal dinosaur. He doesn't even eat dogs."
"It would be funny if he hunted your little animals."
"Then Tuot would no longer exist. Noru would have roasted him and given him to me to eat. I didn't really want to create characters, but I was forced to. One creature that came to me in a dream..."
Itinit didn't have time to finish. Two bright red dots appeared in the sky, one after the other.
"Looks like your little animals are out of food," Halankuo said.
Itinit didn't know what to say, so he simply watched as the two dots first transformed into comets, then abruptly changed direction and began to rapidly grow.
"Looks like they're heading this way," Halankuo continued.
"Yeah," Itinit put his finger to the control panel. "But I don't think we'll make it in time."
A dome-shaped barrier of translucent blue energy appeared around the Metal Bird. Moments later, two fiery comets crashed into it, painting almost the entire surrounding area red, yellow, and orange.
"I forgot that Noru and Kimchan can sense energy from a distance," Itinit looked at the snow, which now looked yellow. "That's why they found me easily, but they still haven't learned how to fall properly."
The fire from the comet explosions vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The air filled with sparks, two of which were suspiciously large.
"I can already see them," Itinit looked out the side window.
"Where…" Halankuo also looked out the window.
"You'll see now."
Large sparks reached the snow, disappeared there, and left behind two holes.
"Now comes the most interesting part," Itinit warned.
As soon as the creator of the dog girls said this phrase, the holes began to widen, after which steam began to come out of them.
"Ahh..." Halankuo's mouth dropped open in surprise, making her look like her pet and childhood friend.
"See, they're hot girls."
Gradually, the steam increased, and the snow thinned. It seemed to deflate and form a depression.
"They're not hot, they're too hot," Itinit sighed. "They must have been flying for a long time. If this continues, the Metal Bird will have nowhere to hide."
These words made Halankuo remember her character. The creator looked through all the windows, but still couldn't see Kyotyoryon.
"Oh…" Halankuo placed her hand on the glass. "I was just a little distracted. Why is she always running somewhere?"
Meanwhile, four brown spots appeared on the white snow. Itinit opened the camera screen and waited for the right moment to take a photo.
"I hope Noru doesn't do anything to me because of this."
The creator of the dog girls didn't know he was being watched, too. On the other side of the front window, two reddish-brown eyes peered out, covered by a white-blue hood, blending in with the snow.
Halankuo, too, was oblivious to the surveillance. She searched for any trace of her character and soon discovered a strange depression in the snow right in front of the door.
"Kyotyoryon is heavy, so she fell in there," Halankuo thought, a wrench appearing in her hand. "This thing won't work, of course, because it's linked to vision, but Kyotyoryon will definitely sense 'her metal' and crawl out."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the flying machine, four brown spots transformed into two pairs of dog ears, poking out from under the snow. Itinit's finger landed on a large black button, turning it red for a moment.
"Now they should come out, but for some reason they're not," Itinit's anxiety level rose slightly. "And the snow has stopped melting. Where are those dogs?"
The creator looked at the cloud of steam and noticed a dark, eared silhouette in it.
"Is that Noru or Kimchan?" Itinit looked at the silhouette's head to examine its hair. "Looks like Noru."
While Itinit was trying to decide which of the "sisters" was in the cloud of steam, something large crashed into the flying machine's window.
"It's Noru," Itinit saw the dog-girl's face on the glass in front of him, her long red tongue sticking out. "She almost succeeded."
The next moment, her "little sister" flew out of the cloud of steam, but avoided the glass and caught her teeth on the wing of the Metal Bird.
"It's Kimchan."
The silhouette of a large, round object appeared in the cloud of steam.
"What is this?"
"Creator, go away!" Kimchan looked at the silhouette with fear.
A large stone barrel emerged from the cloud of steam, but it didn't reach the flying machine. The barrier once again surrounded the Metal Bird.
"What's that?" Itinit managed to notice how a large yellow object collided with the wall of the barrier and disappeared into the snow.
"This is the horned girl you wanted," Kimchan appeared behind Itinit and even put her hands on his shoulders, like a real dog.
You speak as if I collect all sorts of strange creatures.
"But the creator... you wanted her, didn't you? Only she..."
"Fell?"
"Yup…"
"I saw her fall. That creature can crawl into its barrel and hide there. How did you get her here?"
"Uh, creator... you didn't tell me where to put this girl, so I put her inside myself. You won't puuunish meee, will you?"
Itinit turned and looked at Kimchan. The dog-girl lowered her head onto the back of the seat and looked pitifully at her creator.