❄

When the cottage door harshly creaks open, the intense smell of honey makes the guests cough as they enter the dark-lit room. The chilly wind also slips in, stinging Rozell's wounds under the mantle. He has to bite his tongue to stop himself from writhing in pain and risks his injuries to rip open once more. After all, they haven't recovered yet.

"Rozell?" Mielle's teeth chatter as she guides the limping Grandpa to the couch next to Rozell. "Why does this place smell like honey? Are you hurt?"

Rozell quirks a weak smile at his sister, which looks like a sneer under the lantern's dim light. "Just a little scratch." With Grandpa next to him, his lies keep on shifting groggily in his tongue. "Ma?" He nods at the third silhouette sneaking through the door: a woman dressed in a tattered overcoat and a wide hat to cover most of her face. "Why... why are you here? Is there something wrong?"

"Do we only visit whenever something's wrong?" His mother plops on the couch next to him, gently rifling through the snowflakes clinging to her hat. "But in this case, you're right. Another tragedy has struck Mountkirk, and the entire Avoridge knows the poor soul well. We can't help but visit to find out if it's the truth."

Even with the warm glows of the lanterns and the candles, the cottage becomes a lot colder for Rozell. He puts his arms around himself and tries to hide the pain searing through his exposed skin.

"We know him by Tesfaye the Courier. He always sends the meat orders from his mother's customers in town," Mielle chimes in from the dining table as she searches through the drawers and chests. "Say, where are the mugs? I'm going to make some hot tea. The winter is getting worse these days, isn't it?"

Rozell's blood runs cold inside him, filling his eyes with pooling tears. Memories of his last moments with Tesfaye, along with their brief encounters, rush into his head. Including the one where the slightly older man mentioned to his fellow hunters about Rozell's skill with paintgraphs.

Rozell bitterly sighs at himself. Tesfaye's mother—the butcher lady—had once scorned the half-sincere mourners at Opus' funeral. How will she fare in her son's upcoming one?

"The villagers said the local beast did it." Ma nonchalantly shrugs out of her coat and approaches Mielle with steady steps, her deft fingers quickly retrieving the mugs and the tea ingredients. "I think it's possible. After all, there were three puncture marks on his neck. Like he was stabbed or clawed until he ran out of blood."

Mielle sits on one of the dining chairs and watches the mugs with a blank expression. "The Day-Lynx is innocent. That thing has been around for ages, yet it hurts nobody—"

"Until today," Ma says in a finalized tone. "I knew its switch would turn off one day. All beasts do. And I heard from the poor lad's mother that the Day-Lynx was put into that hut all day after the hunters caught it in Borealm. It must be too desperate to escape. And Tesfaye was the one guarding the hut too..."

"But it doesn't make sense. If it was so desperate to escape, why should it kill Tesfaye as well? It could've pounced on him and left."

Ma clicks her tongue. "Maybe that was what happened? No one knew—besides the beast and the poor lad, of course. None of us knows how animals see things. Anyway, Tesfaye had mentioned something to me yesterday." Ma stops fiddling with the teapot and the mugs as she turns to both men on the couch. "Did the Day-Lynx break into this place a few days ago?"

Rozell has lost the strength to answer. His head becomes a giant puddle of mess, and his heart is already battered and beaten to its core.

Tesfaye died after saving me. It could've looked like I killed him by accident. But my claws are broken; I couldn't stab anything else. Or maybe the cracked ones are still sharp enough?

Did I kill him? Was I the last person to see him alive?

How could I do such a thing? I don't even deserve to live off someone's sacrifice! Or did he kill himself to cover his mistake? Did he mean to throw the blame all over to me?

Why am I even having terrible thoughts about a dead man? Dead or not, I owe him my life. If only I could exchange mine with his.

"I'm not sure about it," Rozell murmurs. "Maybe Grandpa knows more."

❄❄

The thick gloomy clouds filter the moonlight, allowing only a streak of it to fill the darkness of the woods. And so Ma and Mielle decide to stay the night in the cottage, even when Da will return from his latest job in a few days. The family always prepares something good to welcome him back, like a feast or a massive cleanup.

But since there are only two available rooms, they will have to take turns to occupy the beds.

Rozell doesn't even mind Mielle having his bed all night. He doesn't feel like sleep is going to visit him, after all.

Tesfaye's demise hits him worse than Opus' did. The little kindness he did to the others around him, even Rozell, still leaves an imprint in his heart. Like how he cared to notice Rozell and his paintgraphs; how he was always the first to try and convince Mr. Clam to give up his hunt for the Day-Lynx; how he bothered to inform Grandpa and Ma about the beast's break-in into the cottage, even though he wasn't a part of the family.

They may not know each other personally, but Rozell already sees him as a trusted ally. Better than the emotional-driven Oxen. And closer than his too-busy-to-return-home Da.

And with his departure, the hunters will soon arrow my head through one of the tree barks. Somehow I don't fear that happening anymore.

"Ahem."

Grandpa's stern tone snaps Rozell out of his bubble. As the older man shambles with a mug in hand and heads out of the door, he silently nods to Rozell as if beckoning him to tag along. With his grief for Tesfaye still clinging to him, Rozell trails behind Grandpa and accepts the pin-sharp gust from the outside world with a shiver.

The seat on the porch squeaks under Grandpa's weight. He grumbles a few words under his breath as he dusts the snowflakes and ice lacing against the chair's arms. Rozell quietly takes the seat next to him, unbothered by the freezing chair's surface, and wraps his hands together to stop them from quaking.

The pair sits in a tensed silence, staring at the gloomy scenery. It's like the two's heads weigh more than the piling snow on the branches, which causes some of them to crack under pressure. And it's like the rest of Borealm are listening to them, for the forest lacks the natural voices it always has.

"I know that look on your face." Grandpa's hands cup the mug and threaten to spill the tea—which reeks the smell of beer—all over his winter coat. "You have the look of guilt. Like you're responsible for someone's death. Am I right?"

"I don't understand what you're talking about, Grandpa." It comes out harsher and shakier than intended, and it draws a heavy sigh from the older man.

"How dare you lie to me? I've seen that look in the mirror all these years. And I still do."

Rozell sneaks a glance at Grandpa while his hands continue to fiddle with his mantle until the threads are too loose to sew back. "You don't understand."

"You are the one who doesn't understand. I've seen my grandfather pinning down a moose's head against tree bark. And I was there when my brothers—now dead—were practicing their knives' aims on a hatchling."

Rozell shivers in his seat. His arms are aching thanks to the freezing breeze's pecks, but his palms are sweating until he feels like his bones are soaked wet. No matter how hard he arranges his words to come out, the truth will never include itself. "So what makes you think I have something to do with Tesfaye's death?"

"You've stayed in a lot lately. Something I never thought possible in these sixteen years," Grandpa says gruffly. "And on the first day of your returning habit, someone in the village died. I don't think it's a coincidence."

Rozell sucks in a huge breath, which pains his chest. Anger starts to mix with frustration in his guts. "It could just be one. You don't know where I had been all day either."

"But that's why I think of the possibility more. And you didn't even go home until the news had been announced all over the woods."

"I had a rough day hunting for berries, okay?"

"But where are those berries? You didn't even bring anything home!" Grandpa almost leaps off his seat as his tone becomes a storm. Rozell merely shrinks on the chair. But the mental wall building inside him refuses to budge. "You keep acting like you're the busiest person to live. And you keep everything hidden from me! I am your grandfather. I am responsible for your entire being!"

"How many times are you going to bring this up?" Rozell asks bitterly. "How do we get here again? I already told you it isn't time yet."

"And I've mentioned how one of us will be dead by then." Grandpa grits his teeth. "You are selfish. Everything you do shows me that we're just strangers forced to live together due to a circumstance."

Rozell tightens his fists until his cracked nails draw lines of blood from his knuckles. His tears blur his vision, and the world looks worse than all the realms in his nightmares. "It was purely my choice to keep you company after Grandma's disappearance. All I did was trying to make you happy. And do you still think that I'm selfish for keeping all these burdens to myself?" His voice cracks at the edges, resembling a whimpering bird. "It's a miracle I haven't gone crazy."

"And it's a miracle I still spare you a room in this place," Grandpa growls.

Rozell explodes with cold tears as he sobs into his palms. The breeze caresses his head lightly, but it does little to console him. It's like his world is slowly crumbling into pieces, like those cookies he had eaten the other day.

How dare he say that? So does that mean he has wanted to kick me out all along?

Does it mean that I only make his life worse? Would things be better between us if I hadn't come here and offer myself to keep him company after Grandma's disappearance? Would he be better off without me then?

He's yet to wipe the pool of tears staining his face when a sniff comes from Grandpa. He can only stifle his questions when the older man buries his face between his palms. His soundless state makes Rozell think he might be sleepy, but the unsteady rise-and-fall of his back shows his actual condition.

Grandpa is weeping for their relationship too.

"You don't know how it hurts to figure out things by yourself. For sixteen years, even." He dabs the corners of his eyes with his coat's sleeve. "You might think that what you keep hidden is safe." For the first time in the night, Grandpa gazes at Rozell straight in the eye. "But no human nails—or a bowl of paintbrushes—would be able to pierce through the wall-mirror that deep. And no humans would be able to remain under the blanket as long as you do in the morning without grumbling at their bad breath."

Rozell's jumbled mind turns into a messier mush at Grandpa's conclusions. His limbs lose all their strength; it takes all of his self-control to restrain himself on the chair without fleeing into Borealm.

Grandpa has known and seen too much. Yet, he keeps his clueless act well enough.

"But most of all," Grandpa continues in a hushed tone, "all these years, I've seen that any stray beasts that come into the cottage are always after the treats I leave on the dining table. But Tesfaye had mentioned that the latest intruder was lurking around the storage box. To a stranger's eye, the box looks empty and unimportant. And it stops the meat and spices' smell from leaking out, so it wouldn't attract any beasts." Grandpa pauses, drawing a heavy breath. "And I remember exactly how I had left some mint cookies on the dining table for you that day, but the creature didn't touch any of it."

Once silence embraces them again, Rozell's body stops reacting. His head becomes numb to all the emotions he has felt through the night. It's like huge-mouthed darkness has sucked all of them in, leaving Rozell into an empty carcass.

"Why did you have to keep it all in, boy?" Grandpa's voice cracks worse than Rozell's did. "It would be easier if I had known all along, wouldn't it? And why did you turn into—"

"—a beast?" Rozell bitterly spits out. "I was supposed to die all along, Grandpa. I wasn't even supposed to age until twenty-five." He turns to his elder and tries to stare straight into his eyes, but it barely lasts for three counts. "I was supposed to leave at nine."

"Nine?"

"I was trying to save a bird from a hunter's trap, but it got me as well." For a brief moment, Rozell's ears prick sharply at Grandpa's hitched breath. "I had struck a deal with Death back then since it said I wasn't supposed to die yet. My name wasn't on any of its lists either." He slightly chuckles at how silly the bargain sounds out of his mouth. "So it turned me into half a beast. But I don't know why I look like that." He gulps down with discomfort while imagining the dead beasts poking out of his Day-Lynx skin.

"How could you convince it?"

"Convince it?" Rozell echoes uncertainly. "Did you mean convincing it to resurrect me back to life?"

"Here's something to help you remember: at nine years old, you swore to me that nothing mattered more than keeping your family proud. Especially your old cottage buddy."

Rozell's tongue stiffens as Death's voice seeps into his mind like smoke. "All I told Death was that I needed to make my family happy. And you too, Grandpa. But I don't see how being the Day-Lynx might make you happy, so I hide it all this time." Rozell slowly leaves his chair with unsteady steps. "All I want is to recover your wounds after Grandma's disappearance, but all I can manage is disappointing you instead. So finally I've proven that my second attempt in life is somehow unworthy."

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Total Word Count: 32,425