The Jaded Leopard

Chapter Ten

And thus we arrive to the double-digits. *cackles*
Time to see if anyone died.... but I have a little surprise for you guys, so... enjoy >:D
□□■□□■□□■□□■□□■□□■□□■□□■□□■□□■□□■□□■□□■□□■□□
"Roksana!" Nickolai dug wildly through the snow, heart beating in his throat.

It had been several hours. She could still be alive, somewhere in this waste, or her body frozen forever beneath the snow.

Nonononono, she cannot be dead, Nickolai thought to himself. I cannot have it on my conscience that the last thing I told someone before they died was that they were a brat. He dug some more, his breath coming out in breathy pants, forming frozen clouds before they were drifted away by the wind.

The storm had lessened, but it hadn't stopped snowing. At this rate, she could be completely buried in the snow before he and Kuzma found her. He turned towards the leopard, who was scrabbling wildly at the snow several yards away. He was letting out slightly mewling sounds, sapphire eyes wide with worry as he dug wildly through the snow.

"She could be anywhere, cat." Nickolai sighed, kneeling in the snow. The wind beat at his face, and snowflakes stung his eyes. The leopard hadn't stopped digging.

The avalanche had left a wide swath of disaster, debris carried down from the very top of the mountain. Nickolai had already found a pair of frozen snow hares among the chaos, and had slipped them into his pack for food. But his appetite was gone. Why didn't she listen to me? He groaned mentally. They'd never find her. They'd never finish the journey. There was no point in going on-from what little snippets she'd told him, both she and Kuzma were essential to the quest. What quest, he didn't know. But if she was dead there was no use.

"We'll never find her, cat." He moaned to the leopard. Kuzma turned to face him and narrowed his eyes at him , hissing before continuing I to dig in a different place than before. Huge chunks of snow flee from where he dug wildly, his massive paws shoveling the snow and debris easily out of the way. His legs burned from digging for so long, but he refused to stop. Annoying as she'd been at times, the leopard had grown attached to the child. Their journey couldn't end like this-her locked in some frozen grave while Russia remained in great danger. The leopard paused in his digging, panting slightly. Leopards didn't have the capabilities to cry, but the leopard roared his grief to the heavens. His roars echoed through the mountains, and even the simple people along the lowlands could hear the distant cries. Chills traveled down their spines as they paused in their works, eyes to the mountains, before muttering a prayer that whatever demon had cried so would not prey on them today.

Kuzma kept digging, throwing snow this was and that. Where are you, child? Are you alive? He asked mentally.

The was no reply, and Kuzma kept digging.
------------
Roksana blinked her eyes open, her vision blurry. She blinked some more, and as her vision cleared she took notice of her surroundings. If you could call it a surrounding, at least.

She was trapped in a tiny pocket of of air, snow enveloping her everywhere. The air was thin, and Roksana suspected it wouldn't last long. She tried to move in the small space, and immediately regretted it. Pain flashed up her side, and her head throbbed. She had a strong suspicion she'd broken a few ribs, and her legs were trapped beneath the snow, almost crushing them in place.

The only thing she felt was cold. Nose biting, fingers freezing, mind numbing cold. Despite her mittens, her finger felt frozen together, and her face stung with cold. She had no notion of time, and couldn't tell up from down. Was she near the top of the layer of snow? Or was she slowly being crushed beneath it all? She had no idea, and was too cold to even try thinking about it.