~𝒩𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝐿𝑒𝓉 𝒴𝑜𝓊 𝒢𝑜~

16. Who is the Prey? (Republished)

[Had to republish this chapter so I could edit and add another 400 words of information and fix the chapter ending. This chapter is very first draft style but it's been sitting in my Google Docs for months so I thought I should finish this and post this anyway. I'm sorry for the lack of chapters. My goal is to post three chapters over the summer.]

...........

Wind whistles softly between the pine trees—the chilled current more of a humming gale than anything. Snow crunches under my boots, with the white mounds up to my mid-cafe. Olaf and I have been out in the woods for about an hour judging from the movement of the sun in the sky, yet there has been no other sign of life. Not even a footprint or a snapped branch. Not even a single tweet of a bird.

It's as if Death has already come to the forest, and collected all life. Replacing what should be at least a chickadee chirp with morbid silence.

After packing the remainder of the supplies for hunting—Elsa even supplied me with an ice-crafted bow and a quiver of ice arrows which are stored on my back at the moment.

Olaf and I embarked down the mountain and bracing the winter elements.

In the meantime, Elsa is bracing the isolation of her castle. For at least half an hour while traveling down the mountain, every time I glimpsed behind me to the castle, I saw Elsa watching on her castle balcony. Then even when she was out of my sight, I felt her eyes on me in a haunting, disturbing, and erotic way.

There is no snowfall and the air is warmer in contrast to starting my journey to the ice castle. It's as if Elsa is allowing her powers to rest for us, even if faint clouds of my breath remain visible in the air.

Pine tree after pine tree Olaf and I walk, searching for some sign of esprit.

I look behind me, for at least the dozenth time, and the castle is barely visible in the distance between the cliffs. Olaf remains quiet at my side, his footsteps quieter than mine despite his larger size. We haven't spoken for a while, both too focused on the hunt. Or rather, my mind was too focused on a bit of everything except the present.

The snowman had said earlier we needed to find life. Search for it as life seems to gather in one area. Like calls to like as Olaf had quipped,

"You find one living thing, you find the rest."
When traveling across Arendelle's fallen borders, only going through the forest, and avoiding the castle and capital, I noticed the struggle for survival and sanity in the absence of life. A desolate world of wonder where death comes alive in its chilled beauty but not much else.
Hushing in my ears is the chilled wind of what seems like secrets of wisdom in another language. Nevertheless, I understand some of gale's enigmas—and its own questions.

For almost four years these woods have seen endless snow, the animals made for hibernation only once a year, spiraling into an endless slumber or a starved and frozen death. And will the land of once prosperity remain coated in hoarfrost?

When Elsa dies, will the land become fertile and the liveliness return, or as she decays, her powers leech into the land?—the world an endless winter.

At the thought of her death, my chest aches. I let out a sigh, and my the inside of my cheek.
I know Elsa wants me to stay with her, and I can't—I won't unless it's out of my own free will—but—but there's always been something about Elsa.
We almost kissed once and she's already behaving—protective?—loving?—-possessive?
Something I know in my sane head of a warning bell; so why am I tempted to stay and test my luck?

When I first came to her castle a week ago, My intentions were to understand the legend of the snow queen. That's all I had planned, learn, get the story, and leave. That's how the plan was to remain, yet now especially after this morning, I'm not even sure of my own intentions or wants for Elsa.