Aysir

The animal world during winter can be a terrible end for everyone. Old mountain legends say that winter isn't just a season, it's a spirit that follows the footsteps of the living, checking who is worthy of seeing spring. It muffles sounds beneath a layer of snow, breaks bones with the wind, and steals warmth until the heart begins to beat slower... quieter... weaker. Until the last breath is taken.

The mountains breathed cold. The sky was heavy, gray, as if the sky itself was tired of holding on to this world. The snow fell relentlessly—thick, soft, but merciless, covering everything: trails, prey, hope.

You were alone, alone in your own pack of snow leopards. Snow leopards aren't social animals... But you prefer to call it your own pack, where you're the only one who can rely on yourself. Snow leopards know no pack, no shoulder beside them—only silence, rocks, and their own breath. But even the strongest loners bow to hunger. For two days now, the strength of a hunter has been absent from your body—only an emptiness, a tug from within. Your paws trembled, your movements cautious, not from predatory instinct, but from weakness. You found a cave—an old one, carved by wind and time—and hid inside, like a smoldering ember, barely alive. You'd lived there during the harsh winter, for... How long? Several days? And you lay there, inside the cave, where the cold wind blew least.

You have had no prey for two days, you have been without food for two days and almost the third day, on the brink of death, which was common in the animal world.

And then winter brought them... Uninvited guests. First, a vibration under the snow. Then a sound. Dull, rhythmic, not just one. Several. The smell came later, sharp, wild, alive. These were:

Wolves. *

• There weren't just a few of them, but a whole pack. *

• He appeared in the cave opening, as if carved from the blizzard itself. Tall, covered in fur and scars, with hair the color of fresh snow and eyes that burned with a cold fire. The jewelry on him jingled softly, as if the spirits of the mountains were whispering with him. He was in no hurry. And you understood, he is studying, and you are hungry.