[Nivalis Silverfrost]
Standing just outside the entrance of their small, snow-covered hut, Nivalis watched the forest darken, the shadows stretching long between the pine trunks. The soft glow of the fire from within spilled over her shoulder, painting the worn fabric of her clothing in flickering shades of orange.
The cold made her shiver, wind weaving itself through the threads of her tunic as if they weren't there, but she refused to go back inside just yet. "That stupid little..." she whispered, her voice trembling as she kicked at a pile of snow, her arms crossed tightly over her chest in a vain attempt to keep warmth in, but only managed to push her breasts up.
Taking a step forward, she sucked in a painful breath of air before calling that boy's name, her voice hoarse and thin, barely carrying beyond the trees that surrounded her. "Aster! Get your little ass back here right now!" The words echoed once, faintly, before the forest swallowed them. The pines stood motionless, their branches heavy with snow. The only sound was the slow, lazy shift of wind moving through the pines, and her own uneven breathing. No answer came.
Her shoulders slumped as another wave of shivers coursed through her; there wasn't a part of her that didn't have goosebumps. "Asty!" she called again, a little louder this time, her voice cracking halfway through. Still nothing. 'He's in so much trouble when he gets back,' Nivalis thought, rubbing her arms fiercely and jogging in place just to keep the blood flowing.
— "I'll spank some sense into him, I swear I will. He won't be able to sit for a week," she muttered under her breath, her face twisting in anger, somewhat ruined by her red, runny nose and cheeks flushed from both fever and the cold. "For two!"
Again and again, she called out his name, each one met with nothing but the sighing wind. It was her fourth time doing this, her fourth time stepping out into this biting cold, only to hear nothing in return. For a brief moment, she even considered going out to search for him, to track him down and drag his disobedient butt back to the hut herself.
But no matter how much she wanted to, Nivalis knew she wasn't in any condition to do so, not to mention she couldn't leave her daughter all alone in here, who was even weaker than her. 'Dammit, Aster...' she sighed, her old boots crunching in the snow as she made her way back to the entrance.
Slipping back inside, into the warmth and humidity of their small den, it immediately brought more color to her nose and long ears. She pulled the branches closed behind her before shuffling over to the fire, not even bothering to take her boots off or shake the snow from them. "Is he back yet?" came a weak whisper from the bedding, and Nivalis turned to see a small, miserable face peeking from beneath a thin cloak.
Silvia's golden eyes were barely open, her long silver hair matted with sweat and stuck to her forehead and neck, her youthful face glistening in the firelight. "Not yet, sweetie," Nivalis muttered, sitting next to her daughter and tucking the cloak tighter around her, the outline of her naked, childish, bony frame visible through the worn fabric. "I'll try again after I warm up a little," she added, reaching out to feel the girl's forehead with her palm. It was burning hot.
Silvia let out a small whimper at her touch, mumbling a quiet, "What a doofus... you should totally spank him when he gets back... I will help..." before she fell silent again, her eyes closing, breaths growing slow and even as she dozed back off to sleep. Nivalis didn't answer and just kept watching over her, her thumb gently stroking the softness of her flushed cheek.
Sighing heavily, Nivalis turned her gaze away from her daughter and toward the small pile of wood that Aster had brought in the day before, taking another handful from it. With a quiet grunt, she tossed them onto the dying embers, stirring the fire with a long, thin branch, sending a shower of golden sparks upwards. The flames roared back to life, their tongues licking at the wood, casting shifting shadows all over the hut and her worried face.
For a few quiet moments, Nivalis sat with her hands held out toward the crackling flames, letting the heat sink slowly into her cold fingers. Her blue eyes stayed locked on the bundle of branches that served as their door, every fiber of her being straining for the sound of his return in the growing darkness. The sound of her own breathing, shallow and uneven, was barely noticeable between the soft snores of her daughter and the hiss of the fire as it consumed the young pine.
With each passing minute, her anger gave way to a cold, creeping dread. One thought kept surfacing from the depths of her feverish mind, a thought she tried to bury each time with more difficulty. 'What if something happened to him?' The image of her stubborn, foolish, reckless little boy kept appearing in her mind, lying somewhere in the cold with that blindfold covering his eyes, hurt, alone... or worse. "Dear gods..." she choked out, rubbing her face with both hands as tears began to well up in her eyes.
Every other minute, she dared to hope. Hope that he would push aside the branches right now, a big smile on his face, holding a fat bird or a squirrel in his hand, with a loud, "Look what I got!" And she would be angry for a little bit, yes, but then she would just hug him, and everything would be okay. But when that minute passed like all the others, the heaviness in her heart grew.
Making sure Silvia was still wrapped tightly and sleeping peacefully, Nivalis struggled to her knees with a pained grunt. "This is not funny, Aster..." she whispered, her voice trembling as she crawled back to the entrance. With a hesitant hand, she reached for the branches and pushed them aside just enough to slip outside into the biting cold. "Please..." she breathed, the white cloud immediately forming in front of her face.
Once more, her gaze scanned the pines, bathed in the last rays of the setting sun, finding nothing but the same quiet forest. In the distance, clouds were gathering on the horizon, dark and menacing, promising heavy snowfall later in the night. That made her worry ten times worse. She took a deep, ragged breath, gathering as much air as her weak lungs would allow. "A-Aster!" Nivalis screamed, her voice cracking with the force of it, turning the name into a raw, desperate cry.
This time, it echoed a little better, bouncing from tree to tree before fading away. She listened for an answer, but all she could hear was the whistling of the wind that had started to pick up, tugging at her tattered tunic and pants. Closing her eyes, Nivalis then used her Blessing, an intense buzz filling her mind, growing louder and louder until snapping into a blurry painting of the forest around her.
Hundreds of steps in any direction, every tree and bush, every rock and mound of snow appeared in her mind in shades of gray, a chaotic mess of swirls and shapes. And in all that, not a single sign of a small silver-haired boy.
When she opened her eyes, the world transformed back into an evening forest, and the buzzing in her head faded. "Aster, please...!" she cried out again despite feeling awfully dizzy, her voice getting more and more high-pitched and desperate. Still, there was nothing. Nothing but silence.
Standing there in the falling snow, Nivalis kept calling his name, over and over, without stopping and not sparing any breath. She called until her voice gave out entirely, until a thin blanket of white covered her fragile shoulders, making her tremble like never before in her life. When the last bits of daylight disappeared behind the trees and the night finally swallowed the forest, tears began to flow down her cheeks... uncontrollably, silently. The kind of tears no mother should ever have to shed.
Wiping them off with trembling fingers, Nivalis muttered to herself, "H-he's just a little bit lost, yeah... I-I... I need to make a fire... like he said," and stumbled forward, toward the bush near their hut. She didn't have her knife anymore, as Aster had taken it, but that wouldn't stop her from making a fire. With a desperate grunt, she grabbed the biggest branch that she could find and bent it with all the weight her feverish body could muster until it snapped with a loud crack.
Another branch, and another, and another followed, each one testing her already-limited strength to its very limits. She collected them into a messy pile right in front of the hut, going back and forth many times, coughing and panting all the way. Her eyes kept darting to those ominous, dark clouds in the distance every chance she got, her heart sinking lower and lower each time. 'It's getting closer... too fast,' she thought.
Her movements grew more desperate and frantic upon realizing that. Her hands grabbed at the branches with feverish intensity, ignoring the sharp pain that shot up her arms with every snap. Only when her fingers grew too numb to feel anything, her limbs too weak to snap even the thinnest branch, did she finally slump down in front of the pile with a tired, wheezing groan.
With the last bits of strength in her body, Nivalis crawled back into the hut and took a burning branch from the fireplace before rushing back outside again. Silvia remained soundly asleep through it all, not even stirring once. Then, with trembling hands, she lit the pile with it, whispering small, "Please... burn... please..." under her breath.
For a terrifyingly long moment, she waited for the flame to grow as the wind kept trying to blow it out. But it grew, ever so slowly, after a while of protecting it with her hands, casting a warm glow that illuminated her tear-streaked face. "Now... Now he will see the fire... and he will... find his way back..." she stammered, huddling close to the flames, holding her cold hands out to the warmth, her eyes scanning the dark forest for any sign of movement.
A minute, two... ten. The fire burned now, strong and bright, but there was still no sign of him. The hope she had built up, the tiny flicker that kept her going, began to waver. She kept glancing nervously at the dark clouds that had finally reached their little corner of the forest, hiding what little light the stars and moon might have provided beneath their thick, heavy blanket, plunging the forest into near-total darkness.
When snowflakes began to fall, gently at first, then heavier and heavier, turning into a full-blown blizzard within minutes, her hands clasped together in prayer, a desperate, whispered plea to whatever gods were listening. "Please... just let him be safe... bring him back to me... please," her voice cracked as fresh tears streamed down her face, immediately blown away from her chin by the wind.
And just a few heartbeats later, as if in answer to her prayer, a distant crunch of snow reached her ears, barely audible over the howling wind. Her elven ears twitched slightly at that.
Her breath hitched in her throat, her head turning so fast she almost gave herself whiplash. "A... Asty?" she called out, and without waiting for an answer, she pushed herself to her feet and rushed in the direction of the sound, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Through the blinding snow, she could just make out a small figure moving slowly toward her, golden eyes glowing weakly from beneath that stupid blindfold. "Aster! Oh, thank the gods!" she cried, almost falling on her face but managing to keep her balance, stumbling forward with her arms outstretched, ready to pull her son into the tightest hug of his life.
And hug him she did. The very moment his tired face, covered in snow, was close enough to reach, she shoved it against her chest and squeezed him so tightly that his ribs creaked. "...hey, mom," came a muffled mumble from her bosom, his voice weak and barely audible over the roaring winds, their silver hair whipping wildly around them. His arms sluggishly hugged her back. "I brought you something," he added, before his body went limp in her arms and he started sliding down to the ground.
Letting out a shocked gasp, Nivalis immediately dropped to her knees in the snow and held her boy's body tightly, her eyes widening in horror at the sight of a huge and badly burned boar lying on the ground behind him, slowly being buried under the rapidly accumulating snow.
There wasn't much fur left on it, only blackened, bloody skin with two broken tusks sticking from it, by which he dragged the beast all the way here. "W-what... in the world...? What?" she stammered, her voice trembling as her gaze shifted between the monstrous creature and her pale, exhausted son, a tiny snore escaping his parted lips.
...
[Aster]
The smell of roasted meat was the first thing to greet his nostrils, a rich, savory scent that could've woken the dead, making his stomach growl so loudly that it would have been embarrassing if he weren't so exhausted. And yet, he struggled to open his eyes, his eyelids feeling as if they were glued shut. Every single muscle in his body screamed in protest at the mere thought of moving.
Memories of stumbling through the snow, dragging that huge, blackened carcass behind him, flashed through his mind. How he got lost in the blizzard, fell more times than he could count, and used every last drop of his mana and every bit of his strength to make it back before collapsing in his mother's arms.
And the fight before that... the screaming, the running, the squealing, and a lot, a lot of blood. "Mom...?" Aster's voice was a hoarse whisper, his eyes finally cracking open to the blurry shape of a woman sitting by the fire. Her naked back was turned to him, curving slightly as she leaned toward the flames, silver hair cascading all the way down to her wide hips.
She turned her head toward him at the sound of his voice, a tired, relieved smile spreading across her face, her eyes red from crying. "Hey, sweetie... I'm here," she whispered back, putting away the stick full of meat she was roasting and crawling over to him on her hands and knees. Her large breasts swayed hypnotically under her with every movement.
He pushed himself up to a sitting position with a quiet grunt, her helping hand on his back steadying him. And then, without a word, she began showering his face with soft kisses—on his forehead, his cheeks, his chin, his nose—making Aster blush and giggle, pine needles beneath his naked body rustled softly as he squirmed.
When she was finally done, the boy heard a quiet, "Hey, little bro," from his right side, and turned his head to see his sister lying there, just as naked as the two of them, a feverish but happy smile on her face, her golden eyes half-lidded. She stretched her arms above her head with a lazy, contented hum, giving him a perfect view of her pale, flat chest and perky pink nipples peeking from her silver locks. The bony outlines of her hips and shoulders cast sharp shadows in the firelight.
Gently touching her forehead with his scarred palm, Aster mumbled, "Hey, sis... You're awake," only to get a "Mhmm..." in response as the girl nuzzled her face into his hand, her soft, slightly wet skin pressing against his ugly one. "How long was I out for?" he then asked, his golden eyes shifting to his mother as she sat down next to him.
She took the blindfold from the floor and gently helped him cover his eyes with it before answering, "Probably an hour or so. Not too long." His eyes still peeked from under it, just like how it was when she took it off earlier.
Humming in response, Aster sniffed the air a few times, his nostrils flaring wide as he took in the delicious scent of their dinner, his stomach growling in anticipation once more. "Let's get this thing cooked, I'm starving," the boy said, rubbing his hands together excitedly before pushing himself to his knees.
He swayed dangerously, his vision swimming, a wave of pain, dizziness, and weakness washing over him, but he fought it off with a pained grunt and forced himself to crawl toward the fire. But just before he reached for the meat-filled stick that his mother had put on the ground, he noticed something in the way his mother and sister both stared at him, their eyes not leaving his face for even a second.
— "W-what? Why are you looking at me... Is there something on my face?" he confusedly asked, his scarred hand reaching up to wipe his cheek, finding nothing but a bit of sweat there. "Better?"
A brief moment of silence followed, the crackle of the fire and the ongoing snowstorm outside being the only sounds. "What do you mean, 'what', you doofus?" Silvia finally broke the silence, her face scrunched up as if he were the biggest idiot in the world. "There's a huge, dead, burned boar outside our hut. Mom said it weighs more than her. Just... how?" She shifted her position to get more comfortable, making the bones of her small, skinny frame stick out even more.
His head tilted back in realization. "Ahh, you mean that..." Aster said, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly, a shy smile forming on his lips. He paused, for the dramatic effect of it, taking a deep breath before continuing, "I promised mom a boar, so I just went out and got one," as if that was the most normal thing in the world.
Ignoring their burning gazes, he reached for the stick on the ground, only to find that it was way too heavy for him in his current state, without a strengthening spell active. The stick thumped back to the floor with a wet smack against the pine needles.
Nivalis let out a deep sigh through her nose before shifting forward on her hands and knees to reach him. Her fingers wrapped around the stick, gently prying it from his weak grip as her eyebrows drew together in disapproval. "Go sit, I'll take care of it," she said sternly, moving the stick over to the fire again.
Leaning closer to the flames, the flickering light caught the side of her face, and Aster couldn't help but notice the faint blush coloring her cheeks, brought by his words about getting her a boar. The kind of blush that appeared whenever they did something naughty together, the kind he liked seeing so much.
It made his mouth tug upward in a stupid, pleased grin, the memory of him humping her butt just after that promise was made briefly flashing through his mind. Noticing him noticing it, an incredibly cute "tsk" escaped her lips, right before she turned her head away with a snap of "Talk," that sounded anything but furious to his ears.
Silvia's golden eyes narrowed at him from across the fire, her head resting on her palm as she stared at him expectantly. They were waiting for him to talk, to explain how in the world he managed to hunt down something that could've easily turned him into a bloody smear on the snow. "Gosh, just start already," she urged when Aster continued just to sit there, smiling.
'I tried to kill a bird but missed and accidentally hit a sleeping boar instead, which then woke up and chased me around the bushes until I ignited enough mana,' wasn't exactly the heroic tale he wanted to tell. That sounded incredibly, utterly lame. So he decided that he could twist a few details here and there, not by much, juuust a tiny little bit to make it sound more impressive. After all he went through, he kind of deserved to have a cool story.
— "Alright..." Aster mumbled, but instead of starting, he raised his hand, and a pale-golden mist began to swirl from his scarred palm, dancing lazily between the three of them. The air around them grew noticeably warmer, earning him satisfied hums from both his mother and sister. He then took another completely unnecessary yet very dramatic pause, their expressions growing more annoyed the longer he waited.
Just when Silvia opened her mouth to snap at him, Aster began, his voice dropping to a hushed, serious tone, "I remember it so clearly, as if it happened just a few hours ago..." He fixed the blindfold as he talked, letting the fabric rest a bit higher on his forehead than usual, just below his silver hairline.
Both his mother and sister rolled their eyes, almost in perfect unison. They shared a quick look with each other—Silvia's silent, begging one, "Do something," and Nivalis's understanding one, "Just let him have it, sweetie"—after which they sighed, crossed their arms, and listened.
Taking a single pine needle from the floor, he brought it to his lips and held it there, trying to look thoughtful. "...there was this bear I was tracking for hours, you see. A big one," he started, stretching his arms as far apart as possible to show the size. "Bigger than that, probably like this entire hut. I could smell its fear..."
Another wave of eyes being rolled, another quiet sigh from the girls. "Every broken twig it left behind was a message for me to read, a story only I could understand," Aster continued, his childish voice lowering further as he tried to imitate a seasoned hunter. "Even though I felt terrible, barely able to stand, I kept going. Kept tracking, and tracking... But the bear was too fast, and the snow too deep. By the time evening came, I lost it..."
He sighed sadly, shaking his head ever so slowly. "I get that it's not the kind of story you wanted to hear. I could've made up something to make myself sound better, but... I won't." Aster then threw the pine needle into the fire, watching it burn instantly. "...that's how it was. That's how the truth sounds."
Nodding slowly, "Sure... uh-huh..." Silvia murmured, her fingers twitching as she resisted the urge to smack her own forehead. Their mother, being more patient, just cleared her throat quietly and forced a smile, the kind of it one might give a toddler showing off their very first painting. All the while, she kept slowly turning the stick, watching as the fat dripped onto the flames, making them sizzle and rise.
Aster didn't notice any of that. "I was just about to give up... head back home with nothing, but..." His hands suddenly clapped together with a loud smack, making both girls flinch. "...while I was tracking the bear, something else had been tracking me." He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "When I realized it, it was already too late. Our eyes met. It stood maybe... thirty steps from me." He paused again for dramatic effect.
"R-right..." his sister snorted, fiddling with a stray lock of her silver hair while giving him the most skeptical look possible.
Nodding at her, Aster continued, "Yeah, I couldn't believe it myself. We stood there for a minute, just... staring at each other. We both knew one of us wouldn't walk away from this. The snow started falling more and more, the wind got stronger... but we didn't move." Aster's dramatic storytelling was interrupted when a plate made of bark suddenly appeared right under his nose, filled with steaming pieces of meat.
Nivalis had finished roasting enough for all three of them while the boy was talking. Aster gulped, nodded gratefully, and took the plate she was holding for him. Silvia got her share a moment later and immediately started devouring it before it even settled in her lap, making the cutest little groans as she chewed. "Oh my, that's..." she whispered to no one in particular, her golden eyes rolling back in pleasure.
Aster took a bite too, the hot meat burning his lips slightly, but he didn't care and started chewing, his own groans coming next. "Soooo good," he hummed after swallowing, his stomach rumbling for more. The scent, the taste... it was almost as divine as that rabbit they'd had the other night, if not better.
Nivalis nodded as she chewed on her own piece, a faint smile playing on her lips as she watched her two hungry children eat their fill. For the next few minutes, the only sounds in the small hut were the quiet chewing of the three of them and the howling wind outside.
After swallowing her fourth piece, Silvia wiped the grease from her chin with the back of her hand and asked, "I always thought boars eat roots and stuff... why would it 'track' you?" Her legs shifted under her, opening a little more than necessary as she sat cross-legged, giving a casual view of everything between them; his bite marks were there, too. Nivalis quietly chuckled at her question, her shoulders shaking slightly as she reached for another piece, a knowing smile playing on her lips.
The half-eaten piece of meat in his hand stopped midway to his mouth, his eyes darting left and right as he tried to come up with a good explanation for this major plot hole in his awesome tale. Licking his greasy lips, the boy cleared his throat, "Aaaah... you don't understand." He shook his head, a look of profound wisdom spreading across his young face. "When we looked at each other, there was like... a silent message. 'This forest is too small for the two of us,' his eyes were saying. Maybe this is why?" Aster took another bite, chewing thoughtfully. "Yeah."
The girls shared yet another look. "Sooo anyway, where was I... ah," Aster said after swallowing, "the next thing I remember, we were running at each other." He used the half-eaten piece of meat and took another fresh one from the plate to represent them, moving one from the left and the other from the right, until they crashed together with a wet smack that made a bit of grease land onto his face.
Right when they collided, he made a sound of explosion with his mouth—a loud "Bwooom!" that echoed in the small hut. "His muscles against mine! His tusks against my teeth! We wrestled in the snow, literally rolling around for dominance. He was strong, I'll give him that, so, so strong... but not strong enough."
He flexed his skinny arm at the last words, a pathetic-looking bicep forming on his arm. His mother bit her lip, trying not to giggle at that sight, covering her mouth with her free hand. His sister wasn't as polite. "Pffft... you? Wrestling a boar?" she snorted, bits of meat flying from her mouth. "Cut the crap, Asty! For real!"
Aster immediately put his plate down, leaned forward, and hushed, "You see this?" and pointed to a small scratch on his forearm, one he'd gotten from falling on a branch on his way back here. "He got me with his tusk right here. I barely dodged."
Silvia leaned in closer, squinting to see it better, a skeptical look on her face. "Oh, wow. A tiny scratch. Just tell the truth already—you found it already dead or something, didn't you?" she asked, crossing her arms over her flat chest.
Looking offended, the boy shook his head. "I wish. As I was saying, we wrestled and rolled in the snow. The fight was... savage. To the death kind of thing. I was losing..." Aster paused to take another bite from his plate, chewing thoughtfully before continuing. "But then... my rage just... took over. The next thing I know, I'm casting this new spell, this weird, fiery ball of oil, but made from mana? It just popped into my head. WHOOSH! Right in his face. Yep."
A long sigh left Silvia's pink lips as she closed her eyes for a moment, then took another bite from her now almost empty plate. "A new spell, seriously? Just like that, out of nowhere? Your story is getting more ridiculous with every word. What else, you flew after that, too? Maybe a unicorn showed up to help?"
Grinning from ear to ear, Aster whispered, "I'll show it to you tomorrow. It's pretty nasty." She squinted her eyes at him suspiciously as he took the last bite from his plate, chewed slowly and loudly, then carefully licked his fingers clean one by one.
After that, his expression grew more solemn as he remembered what happened next. This part, he decided, he would tell just as it happened, without those little additions of his. "I used it once, though. My usual fire did most of the work... I just... burned it until it dropped to the ground. But he... uh... he didn't just die. I kinda had to wait for a while. He was still twitching for some time, whining..."
The girls' expressions changed. They both stopped eating and stared at him, the playful mood gone. His childish voice trembled a bit as he continued, "I thought about using the knife, to just... end it quickly... but I couldn't do it." His eyes kept staring at the fire, as if seeing the boar in the flames; the brightness of it made them hurt, but he didn't look away. "Then... when he finally... stopped. I... I tried to move it, but it was way too heavy. So I had to... you know. Gut it first. Let the blood out so the meat wouldn't spoil, like you, mom, taught us."
Nivalis reached out and gave him a comforting squeeze on his shoulder. "You did what you had to do, sweetie... That's just how hunting is," she whispered as she let her hand slide down his back, rubbing it gently. "You'll get used to it eventually."
Forcing a small smile, the boy nodded and looked at her, "Yeah..."
Silvia also shuffled closer on her knees and gave her little doofus a hug from the side, her pink nipples brushing against his arm as she did so. "What happened after?" she asked quietly, resting her head on his shoulder. Her big, golden eyes looked up at him, long eyelashes fluttering ever so gently.
The story of dragging the huge body through the deep snow, through the snowstorm that had come upon him so suddenly, was also true. From the very start, all the dramatic flair disappeared as he talked about how he tripped and fell more times than he could count, how he got lost, and how he kept using the strengthening spell without stopping, how he almost ran out of mana because of it. "...and then I saw mom's fire and... well, you know what happened then. By the way, thank you for making it, Mom," he whispered, receiving a little nod from her. "I actually walked past our hut and had to go back, haha..." He laughed dryly, only to cough awkwardly a moment later.
The girls didn't laugh. They just sat there in silence for a while, processing what they had just heard amid the muffled sound of the snowstorm coming from behind the ice. "The beginning was totally made up, wasn't it?" Silvia eventually asked, breaking the silence with her sweet, childish voice, looking at him from the side.
That brought a smile back to his lips. "All true, every word of it," he nodded, resting his hand over his heart. "I swear on my father's name. May the lightning strike him down if I lie," he said with all the seriousness he could muster. At that, both Nivalis and Silvia couldn't help but let out a quiet giggle that lingered for a little while.