Winter Whirlwind

     Everything was blinding. The sky was blocked out entirely by the storm, making everything dark, foggy, and awful. The streaks of snow struck Algor and his brother’s pelts, trying to hold them back so they would perish. Despite the winds howling in their ears and their vision being gone, the two continued on, using their large paws to traverse the thick blanket of snow. When one’s hind hoof fell through the other stopped to pull them up, and when the dark clouds above touched the ground they huddled together under the nearest rock to hide away.

     This was as far back as Algor could remember. He did not know how the two had gotten there, why they were out in the storm, or where they were going. He only knew where they ended up, after hours of trudging and hiding, and who they walked with: no one. Algor and Cirro had been alone as long as they remembered. Neither could explain why. They always both knew that all they had was each other, ever since they were young pups. It was two little kirunhound against a vicious, cold world. It was one they would have to conquer alone yet together.

     Algor was in the lead, paving the path for his smaller brother, Cirro. They went on in silence, for the winds did not permit them to cry out, and any voice they had was silenced by louder shrieks. Cirro instead gripped Algor’s tail in his jaws so the two knew whenever they had been split apart. Following footprints in a blizzard so powerful would be impossible, and the two feared that if they moved separately then they would both be blown away. While neither knew where they were going, they knew they could not stay out here; their quest for a cave was their first adventure, and their most dangerous, too. No large bird of prey could make off with one of the little ones, as the winds and snow were too strong, but the avalanches and sinking clouds and sudden hundred-foot drops were perilous enough. They were barely conscious of life, and already at risk of losing it.

     Eventually, after what seemed like many nights spent beneath the safety of boulders, they stumbled upon something promising. Algor saw a spot of darkness in the mountain’s cliff edge beside them, and he took the chance of entering it. Cirro followed step by step, and for the first time they could remember, the brothers were out of the storm. The winds were behind them, howling at the cave’s entrance, and the snow still rushed in, but most of the particles passed right by the pups’ newest escape. They had slipped away unnoticed, and for the first time they could see each other’s faces. Cirro released Algor’s now-aching tail, and they both shook the snow from their pelts, and they felt they could finally relax. The two curled up together to preserve their warmth, and fell asleep in the pit of the cave where the curling tendrils of cold could not reach them from the outside.

     When the brothers woke up, the sun shone through the entrance of their cave. They exited curiously, having not seen the sun before, and were nearly blinded by the difference in light. The landscape was finally clear; giant formations of rock jutted out from the valley below, many times larger than either pup, and some peaks reached the clouds. The clouds were now white instead of grey, and they remained in the sky, slowly drifting across the blue pool of air. A thick blanket of white draped over everything, and footprints of creatures large and small could be spotted now that the storm had passed. For the first time, the brothers saw the Kotakaii Mountains in their normal, life-filled yet frozen end-of-winter state. Small plants were breaking through the blanket, and the two now had a new goal, one of their own creation: they set off at once to reach the valley below.

     There was no need to walk single file to fight against the snow, so the brothers walked side by side. They made paw-hoof-prints in the snow and their prints remained, a sign of their existence, their living. The little pups clambered into the valley, and they breathed in the scents of vegetation for the first time. The grasses poked through the blanket, and the bushes shook the snow off, and the trees stood higher than either brother could imagine, towering above everything except the mountains themselves. A sweet scent emanated from the tops of the trees and from the cores of the bushes, drawing the pups towards the vegetation with growing curiosity.

     Algor sniffed the closest tree, and flicked his head upwards towards the branches, and Cirro took note of the sweet scent as well. Algor turned around and kicked the tree with all his might, and the tree withstood the blow so that there was not even a rustle of the leaves. Cirro joined in, and the two kicked the tree together. The tree moved not, and its leaves barely rustled, and nothing fell from its branches. The pups would have to wait before finding out what grew at the tree’s peak. So Algor huffed, and whimpered, and turned his attention to a sweet-smelling bush instead of the tree. He padded towards it, Cirro right behind him, and sniffed the branches. There was no doubt that the little black specks on the bush were what smelled so good. Algor bit down on the bush, and his mouth filled with both irresistible sweetness and a sharp pain. He immediately released the bush, revealing crushed berries and red-tipped thorns. Cirro looked at Algor, and then at the bush, at its spikes. Carefully, he took one oversized paw, and attempted to gingerly pick a berry from its spiky bramble prison. When he just barely succeeded, Algor followed suit, and the two enjoyed their first meal together. It consisted entirely of the blackberries from a single bush, and their small bodies would need much more to grow, but it was what they had, and it was the only thing they knew they could have.

     The two returned to their cave-den, as it seemed to be the only place safe from the storm that plagued them before. Even if the sky was clear and the snowy blanket was thinning, the two knew not of weather patterns, and feared the violent snow may return when they woke up. So the brother pups Algor and Cirro curled up together in the cave, their paws and faces still stained from the bright juice of blackberries, and the young ones drifted back to sleep for the next few hours. Their first nights had been treacherous, and why they were out in the storm they did not know either then or now, but they still looked back on the experience as if it were bittersweet as the berries they ate.

     It was when they found Home.