She's gone home. Canada. A place of forests and mountains and winters nearly as fierce as mine.
Good. The cold there will sustain the winter in her blood, keep our connection from fading too quickly. In a warmer climate, she might lose it entirely before deciding whether to return.
In the quiet evenings, I find myself drawn to the small emergency radio I kept from her pack. A foolish sentiment—keeping something of hers—but I cannot bring myself to regret it. I turn the dials carefully, mindful of my claws against the delicate mechanism, searching through static until I find stations in languages I understand.
One night, I catch a fragment that makes me go still as ice—her name, spoken by a news announcer. I adjust the frequency with painstaking precision, leaning closer to the small speaker.
"...photographer Freya Lindholm, whose miraculous survival in Iceland's recent blizzard has sparked international interest. Her photos of the region, taken just before her ordeal, are being hailed as some of the most evocative winter landscapes captured in recent years..."
The voice continues, discussing an exhibition of her work in a Canadian gallery, praising her "unique perspective on winter's beauty and danger." I listen, hungry for every detail, this small device becoming my window into her other life—the reverse of her camera that captured my hidden world.
Days pass. I hunt, patrol my territory, maintain the balance of cold that is my purpose. But always, I return to the radio, seeking news of her, fragments of connection across the distance.
Two weeks after her departure, something changes. The connection strengthens suddenly, like a plucked string vibrating with new intensity. I'm working on the cabin's roof when it happens, and I freeze, head tilted as if listening to a distant sound.
She's thinking of me. Not just fleeting thoughts, but focused, intentional. Looking at the images she captured, perhaps. Remembering.
I close my eyes, letting my consciousness follow the thread between us. For a moment—brief but electric—I can almost see through her eyes, feel what she feels. Longing. Confusion. A chill in her blood that human warmth can't dispel.
The vision fades, leaving me more restless than before. I abandon my work on the cabin and plunge into the forest, letting my form shift closer to my true nature. The skull mask emerges, antlers expanding to their full glory. I run through the snow on hooved feet, leaving no tracks, moving at speeds no human could match.
This is what I am. What I've been for centuries. I should be content with my purpose, my solitude, my dominion over winter.
Yet all I can think of is warm brown eyes and frost patterns blooming on human skin.
Another week passes. The connection between us waxes and wanes like phases of the moon. Sometimes I feel her so strongly I could swear she stands behind me. Other times, the thread grows so thin I fear it will break entirely.
During one of these thin moments, panic seizes me—a startlingly human emotion I haven't felt in centuries. What if the connection breaks? What if she forgets? What if the winter in her blood fades without her ever having chosen to return or stay away?
The storm around my domain responds to my distress, intensifying to a fury not seen since the day I found her lost in the snow. I calm it with effort, reminding myself that fear solves nothing. She will choose what she chooses. I have lived five hundred years alone. I can endure whatever comes.
Then, on the twenty-eighth day of her absence, everything changes.
I'm hunting in the far northern reaches of my territory when I feel it—a surge in our connection so powerful it brings me to myknees in the snow. Not just thoughts or feelings this time, but physical presence. She has returned to Iceland.
For a moment, I remain still, disbelieving. Then I launch into motion, racing south through my domain, following the pull of her presence like a lodestone finding north. The forest blurs around me, my form shifting fully to its true nature, glamour discarded in my haste.
She hasn't come all the way to my territory—not yet—but she's near the boundaries, in the foothills where human settlements give way to true wilderness. What brought her back so soon? The connection between us should have allowed for months apart before requiring renewal. Unless...
Unless she chose to return of her own accord. Not from necessity, but desire.
I slow as I approach the boundary of my domain, caution returning. The thread between us pulls taut, guiding me toward a hiking trail that winds through the lower slopes of the mountains. She's alone, moving steadily upward, following a path no human map would show.
She's following the winter in her blood, letting it lead her back to me.
I should wait. Let her find her way to the cabin. Give her the dignity of choice, of setting our reunion on her terms.
Instead, I find myself moving toward her, drawn by a need stronger than reason or restraint. The snow shifts around me, creating a path of least resistance. The wind carries her scent to me—familiar human warmth now tinged with something cooler, something that recognizes the winter in me and responds to it.
I glimpse her through the trees—bundled in winter gear, camera around her neck, moving with the confidence of someone who knows exactly where she's going even without a map. Frost mists around her mouth with each breath, more visible than it should be in the relatively mild temperature.
The winter in her blood has grown stronger, not weaker, with our separation.
I should approach carefully. Speak first. Give her warning of my presence.
I do none of these things.
One moment I'm watching from the trees, the next I'm standing in her path, glamour half-formed in my haste, more winter guardian than human man. Her eyes widen, camera forgotten in her hands, lips parting in surprise.
