Cold-Blooded: A DC Universe Fanfiction (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 47: Yukie, Rose: The Deep Cold

The wind and the angle of the slope made it impossible to walk upright; she would topple like a tree. Instead she would have to climb like a monkey. Yukie would have given a great deal to have her gloves, now lost along with her jacket and phone, not for protection against the cold, but against the rocks and the jagged edges of the ice.

She tore off the sleeves of her thermal undershirt instead, tied them around her palms, and climbed. That helped. So did being in her stocking feet; her toes found better purchase than they could ever have in the clumsy ski boots. Up. Left hand, testing the strength of the handhold. Left foot, easing her weight on it.

Right hand, scrabbling over the ground for something to fasten on. Right foot, wriggling into the space between rocks. Would they shift or would they stay? She was almost glad this would be so difficult, glad of the pain that wracked her spine. It meant she could not think of Rose nor of Slade, nor of Victor and Nora, nor Haruko and Ichiro, and not of her family's betrayal. Climbing encompassed all her attention.

Left hand. No thinking, no grieving. Left foot. Just the climb. The snow flung itself into her face, cutting like tiny shuriken, the wind tore at her garments, ripping the hat from her head and flinging it away. Right hand, raised to keep the snow out of her eyes. Right foot-slipping, clawing, sliding several feet back down the peak. Jolting, panicking, biting her tongue hard enough to draw blood-stopping her descent. Spitting out blood which was solid before it hit the snow, seeing it shatter like stained glass. Starting up the slope again.

Yuki-onna. Yuki-onna. The snow woman. In childhood, she wanted to be one so she would never be too hot again. Or else a kawahime, a river spirit, living in the water. But being either of them meant-No. No thinking. Climb. Climb.

The wind lashed her hair around her face, screaming around her ears, buffeting her as though it sought to tear her off the mountain and smash her into pieces at the bottom. Of course. The wind was not merely wind. It was her. The Yuki-onna.

Persevere. Climb. Left hand, left foot. Right hand, right foot. How long had she been climbing? An hour? Several hours? The pain in her back was nigh crippling, her fingers were cramping. And she was hungry and weary already. Drugged sleep was not true sleep, not restful sleep. It was a cheat and a trick. She had not eaten since that morning, more than twelve hours before.

There! Above her, twenty feet above, perhaps, three juhyo grew close together in some pocket of soil. She could wedge herself into the space between them and the mountain, rest for a time, use an energy gel. She could do it. Right foot, left hand, left foot, right hand. Inching her way up a slope that would have been only a moderate hike, were it only summer or fall.

Finally, she reached the trees, except they were not trees. They were miko statues, and they were not simply sitting on the mountain, they were carved into the mountain. But there was a place above and behind them where she could rest without fear of sliding back down. She could rest...

Again, she dreamt.

It came from the Deep Cold, though what the Deep Cold was, it did not know. Outer space? Another dimension? The Arctic Circle? The part of her which was Yukime stood outside of it, observing and analysing, while the part of her that was part of it lived it. It was a very simple organism at the start, very small and very simple, more like a virus than anything else, except that it did not reproduce, either asexually or by mating. It was little more than a shimmer of icy air, a quick snow flurry, but one which was self-aware. To a degree, anyway.

In the winter, it was free. Free to play, to dance, to rejoice. Free to fly here and there, skating-sylph-like over ice, going where it pleased. But when the Long Heat began, it needed a host if it was going to survive. It found one-a mouse. Traveling into its body in the form of cold air, it went into the creature's brain and stayed there. It became the mouse. It ate what the mouse ate. It did what the instincts of the mouse told it to do. But it was not entirely a mouse. It did not age or die. Then the winter came again, and it yearned to be free and do all the things it loved best, so it ripped itself free of the mouse-body, taking with it all the vital essence of the mouse, leaving only a little fur and a few bones.