Story of Seasons: Fire and Ice

The Hunt

The new world quickly proved to be everything Yuna imagined. Permanent frost covered the land with even the warmer days sometimes reaching near zero. Animals were abundant, both predator and prey alike. It didn't take long for the goddess to acclimate herself to her new environment. Within a week, she found herself among a pack of wolves that slowly came to accept her presence as she melded into their social circle. They wandered across the land, hunting game as needed and frolicking in the snow.

Before long, the winter goddess had completely forgotten about her plans to return home, enjoying herself far too much to give it any real thought. She had finally found a place where she could thrive. No humans, no suspicious gods, and no prayers wishing for her departure. But nothing could last forever. Even in this new world, the danger of a close encounter was always lurking. She was an outsider in a foreign land. She didn't belong there... and she was about to suffer the consequences of forgetting that.

Snow crunched beneath their paws as the wolves moved swiftly through the forest. Their noses worked tirelessly, following the trail of a large boar that they had decided would make a good meal. The game was large, outweighing all of them by a substantial amount, and was covered with a thick layer of fat to protect it from the elements. Such prey would easily feed the pack for nearly a week. Taking the lead, Yuna crouched low to the ground as they spotted their quarry grazing in a forest clearing. Its tusks brushed the ground as it slowly chewed on large frozen blades of grass.

Behind her, the others began to fan out, hugging the tree line and surrounding the unsuspecting animal. They were going to surround it and herd it into the trees where its movement would be inhibited. The boar stood nearly three times their height at the shoulder, and its legs were solid muscle. Attempting to attack the creature head on could prove deadly, even more so in the open where there were no obstacles to slow its charge. One wrong move could easily crush any one of them, or worse, impale them with its four-foot tusks.

Communicating silently, they began to move in, slowly drawing closer. Their fur camouflaged nicely, keeping them out of sight as they got into position. Yuna signaled to her wing wolf, ready to begin the chase. The moment she bent to pounce, the sound of a snapping branch filled the air and echoed through the clearing. The boar raised its head and huffed, spewing a large cloud into the air. The sound had alerted it to their presence and revealed their position. They were too close to correct their mistake. Spotting them, the boar roared and scraped its hooves across the ice. Its massive head dropped low to the ground, prepared to charge.

Its hooves thundered through the clearing as the boar rushed them, sending the pack scattering in different directions. With their current position, they were still far too separated to launch an organized counterattack and had no choice but to beat a hasty retreat. Yuna herself narrowly missed a nasty blow from its tusk as the rampaging animal careened past her. Attempting to rally the pack, she barked into the air to get their attention. They needed to regroup quickly if they were to have any hope of salvaging their hunt. It was then that she noticed something moving in the trees. Something foreign that was not a member of her pack. They walked on two legs instead of four and carried weapons ranging from crossbows to battleaxes. The wolves were not alone.

As the men shouted to one another and rushed in her direction, their intensions became clear. They were after their boar as well. It seemed that a hunting party had been tracking the same animal and had also followed it to their location. The gods must have been the ones that disturbed the brush and alerted the prey. The situation had just become a lot more dangerous. Yuna racked her mind for a solution, weighing her options. It had been a few days, and the pack were growing hungry. They could not afford to simply give up their precious meal. On the other hand, challenging them would result in a territorial conflict. Such a commotion could possibly reveal her identity, forcing her once again to leave the realm in search of a new one.