By most measures, this was the worst blizzard in nearly three years — though Yimi hadn't felt the cold coming. Maybe because the world she'd crossed over from had still been in spring.
Even for a person, moving through conditions like this was next to impossible. Snow above the knee turned every step forward into a small ordeal.
For the racers, the real danger was reading the terrain — distinguishing solid ground from the frozen rivers hidden beneath the white. One wrong step and both rider and mount could punch through the ice and disappear, no second chance, no race, and very possibly no coming back.
The only navigable path was a route the local indigenous people had reinforced themselves. Only they knew where it ran.
Yimi and the wolf pup didn't need to worry about falling through. But unlike humans, they still had to contend with snowdrifts tall enough to blind them and a wind that kept trying to bury them alive.
Even Yimi — who normally ran outside in any weather — would stay home and watch TV with Grandma on snowy or rainy days.
"Ooarrrooo..."
The wolf pup collapsed face-first into the snow with the energy of total defeat. He didn't even brace for getting hit. He was a miserable creature — separated from his pack, starving — and just when he'd spotted what smelled like a warm fluffy snack, he'd ended up hungry and doing manual labor for it instead.
Yimi gave him a withering look, then dove headfirst into a drift and began carving her own path in the direction she could feel.
Close. The next Corpse Part.
The wind picked up again — thick enough to make it hard even for a person to see the road ahead. Anything still for ten seconds would be painted white.
The wolf pup closed his eyes and let the snow fall on him. Dying of cold was the fate of half the wild pups born each winter. Without the hibernation instinct their prey had, pack hunters like wolves faced the season at full exposure.
"Meow."
About ten seconds later, Yimi came back. She dropped a wriggling mole in front of the half-buried wolf pup.
"Meow!" She nudged the white lump with her nose.
"AWOO!"
The wind and snow eased.
...
Good news: the next Corpse Parts were clustered — three at once.
Bad news: this was the middle of nowhere, and the location was far vaguer than the last find in a town. Yimi and the wolf pup circled the approximate area, three turns in each direction, and found nothing.
The energy she'd spent was starting to show. Drowsiness crept back in — something she hadn't felt in a while. By the time the snow fully stopped, she had no choice but to curl up against a broad tree root and sleep.
The wolf pup sniffed at her to confirm she hadn't simply died, then lay down beside her, pressing close for warmth.
Just pressing close to her seemed enough to ignore the chill in the air. The wolf pup didn't want to leave.
Hours passed. In the half-space between sleep and waking, Yimi's tail began to sway on its own.
Thwack.
She'd hit herself in the back with it.
"MEOW!" She startled herself fully awake.
She looked left. Looked right. Her gaze settled on the wolf pup, convinced the suspicious medium-sized cat had been up to something.
"Meow, meow, meow!" Yimi delivered a rapid series of paw-swipes to his head.
"Wuwuwu?" The wolf pup looked baffled and aggrieved.
Yimi shook her head and decided to get back to finding the Corpse Parts. But first—
She looked at the wolf pup.
"Mrow-mreow-mrow-mrow!"
"Ooo?" The wolf pup stared at the slightly smaller Yimi with total confusion, not understanding what the strange sounds meant. He bumped his muzzle against her head in a friendly way anyway.
Yimi was displeased. Uncle Nuomi could match "woof-wuff-wang-woof" with the right code — which meant this wolf and she were not the same kind of cat.
The rain that had come with the Spine. Today's blizzard. It seemed like unusual weather followed the Corpse Parts wherever they surfaced.
The area around the Corpse Parts' general location was quite a sight: an unfrozen spring, and pressed up against the slope beside it, an ancient tree of such size it must have been growing for a thousand years. Ten people with outstretched arms probably couldn't circle its base.
The snow hadn't fully melted. A little turtle that had come from nowhere was making its slow way along the spring's edge.
"Meow!"
A cat's paw shot out. Smack. The turtle went into the water.
Fun.
Strangely — in this below-freezing air, the spring's surface was perfectly calm. Not even a thin skin of ice.
Yimi sniffed at the air. Now that the drowsiness had cleared, the hunger was back — obvious and sharp. And with it, something else: a strange, dangerous sweet scent drifting up from somewhere. Like food, but nothing she'd ever eaten before. Damp, somehow. Her seven-year-old vocabulary didn't have a good word for it. She looked toward the spring.
She did not want to go in the water.
"Meow, meow!" She called to the wolf pup, who had wandered toward the roots of the ancient tree and was inexplicably digging a hole.
"Ooo?" He lifted his head. A hibernating rabbit clenched in his teeth.
"This guest..."
Without Yimi noticing, a small dark-haired girl had appeared directly behind her. She seemed to be addressing Yimi — but her eyes looked straight ahead, not down.
"It seems you've dropped something in the water."
"Meow?" Yimi rose onto her hind legs, trying to greet her.
"Arooo!"
The wolf pup, answering her call, didn't brake in time — and rammed straight into Yimi, launching her into the spring with a splash, paying for bullying the turtle just now.
"AWOOOO! AWOOOO!"
The wolf pup frantically dropped the rabbit and paced at the edge of the water, frantic.
"This guest..."
The girl spoke again. This time she was looking at the wolf pup — and two things had appeared on either side of her from nowhere.
"Did you drop this Siberian tiger on the left — or this perfectly harmless little cat on the right?"
On her left: a tiger that looked like it could bite a camel in half, looking around in confusion. The wolf pup immediately dropped his head and let out a low whimper of absolute terror.
Dangling from her right hand — by the scruff — was Yimi, freshly fished from the spring. All four paws hanging limply downward. Something in that sensation reached back through her memory to a time before she could remember.
"Congratulations, Host, for unlocking Achievement [Scruff of Fate]. Reward: Portal Energy +5%."
"Congratulations, Host, for unlocking Achievement [Golden Axe or Silver Axe]. Reward: Portal Energy +5%."
"Meow?"
Yimi flailed her limbs and dropped out of the girl's hand.
The girl clapped once, brightly. "Oh, you really are honest, aren't you. In that case, the Siberian tiger is yours as well."