The viewfinder shows more than my eyes can see—a massive silhouette, crowned with crystalline antlers that capture light that shouldn't exist in this storm. For a second, I think I see a face—no, a skull—beneath those antlers. A deer skull, but moving like it's alive.
"Hello?" I call, my voice immediately swallowed by the howling wind. "Is someone there?"
The figure moves closer, and I feel the air change again—colder, sharper, but somehow more defined. The chaotic snow between us seems to organize itself, creating a tunnel of clearer air. The cold intensifies until it burns my lungs with each breath.
I take a step toward the figure, then another. My legs feel disconnected from my commands, wooden and clumsy. The cold has penetrated deeper than I realized.
One more step. Just one more. If this is a person, they can help. If it's a hallucination... well, I'm dead anyway.
The blue lights grow brighter. The antlered silhouette extends what might be an arm. I see fingers—too long, too sharp, tipped with what look like crystal claws. Not human. Definitely not human.
The logical part of my brain is screaming that none of this is possible. The survival part doesn't care—impossible help is better than freezing to death.
My camera's weight suddenly feels unbearable. My arms refuse to hold it up any longer. The last coherent thought I have before the darkness claims me is that I must be hallucinating. Because people don't have antlers made of blue light, and snowstorms don't part like theater curtains, and the cold doesn't sing with voices just beyond human understanding.
My camera slips from numb fingers as I collapse. The snow cushions my fall with a gentleness the storm has otherwise lacked.
The last thing my fading consciousness registers is the crunch of approaching footsteps, the snow compacting under what sounds like hooves rather than boots, and a voice—deep, ancient, resonant—speaking words in a language I don't understand but somehow recognize.
Then nothing but the white.
2
Vidar
Ifeel the human before I see her. Her warmth bleeds into my domain like a wound, her life force a beacon against the perfect cold I've crafted. My storm responds without conscious command, swirling tighter, colder. Hunting.
This is the third wanderer this season. The others turned back when the wind first changed. This one pushes forward, foolish and determined. I taste her scent on the air—female, alone, afraid but not panicking. Not yet.
I move through my storm as easily as humans move through still air. Snow parts around my form, ice crystals dancing across my antlers, responding to my mood. Curious. I should let her die. It would be simple. Natural. The white takes what doesn't belong to it.
And yet.
My hooves make no sound as I approach, glamour half-formed around me. No need for full disguise—she'll be dead or gonesoon. But something tugs at my attention. A rhythm not of my domain.
Her heartbeat.
Strong. Stubborn. Fighting my cold with surprising resilience.
I materialize at the edge of a ridge, observing. She kneels in the snow, a small black device in her gloved hands. Through the whiteout, I see her face clearly—concentration, not terror. Practicality, not prayer. Interesting.
Why do you not run, little human?
My storm intensifies without conscious intent. The cold sharpens to a blade's edge around her. I feel her electronic devices surrender to my frost, one by one. Still she doesn't flee, just shifts strategies. Cataloging resources. Making plans.
I should turn away. Let nature finish what I've begun. Her kind are temporary visitors in my eternal domain. Fireflies blinking in and out of existence while I remain, unchanging as the glacier beneath us.
And yet my feet carry me closer.
The wind shifts, carrying her scent directly to me. Something ancient and forgotten stirs in response. The antlers on my skull crown pulse with sudden light. Bright enough to be visible even through my storm.
A mistake. She sees me.
I freeze, halfway between forms—neither fully glamoured nor fully revealed. My true face partially visible behind the deer skull that is both a mask and me. My crystalline claws flex at my sides.
Run, human. It's not too late. Run from what you cannot understand.
She doesn't run. Instead, she raises a black box to her eye. A camera. She's photographing me? In the heart of a killing storm, at the edge of death, she seeks to capture my image?
