It only took a few steps into the frozen forest outside of the cave for Aysel to know that she was home again. The whisper of a gentle wind through bare branches, the peaceful stillness all around her, broken only by the quiet crunch as her boots broke through the top layer of snow... if she had closed her eyes, she might have thought that she was back in the wood surrounding her home, on a hunt or a simple walk with her brother. Her heart ached to walk with him again.

She shifted her pack on her shoulders; her heart wasn't the only thing aching. If her count was right, this was the sixth day of hard walking and the third of no food. Her legs and her stomach resented her for it. When she had voiced her concerns about how Letters needed food in order to survive, Dunyasha had scoffed and said, "You can live for a bit in an empty belly, can't you?" but then softened and said she'd see what she could do.

"What she could do" turned out to be a trio of rabbits, which dangled limply from her hand as she walked towards Aysel. "Here's your food, since you complained so much," she grouched jovially. "They were hard to catch, with all the noise those nets strapped to your feet make, but I got them just the same. You're welcome," she said, tossing Aysel a rabbit.

"Thanks," she said, shaking one snowshoed foot at Dunyasha. She plopped down on the snow, ready for some fire-roasted hare.

"What are you doing?" Enrick asked. "No time for sleeping, lazy Letter."

"I'm not sleeping," she replied, confused. "I'm cooking."

"No time," Enrick repeated, and to Aysel's horror, slit open the rabbit with one finger, pulled off the skin, and began to eat it raw. She watched, transfixed, as he tore into the wiry hind leg, breaking tendons and muscle with his thick teeth.

Dunyasha laughed. "Letters cook their food, Enrick."

"Always?" he asked around a mouthful of raw meat.

She chuckled. "Yes. Look at her face."

Aysel quickly closed her mouth, which had dropped open in disgust. Dunyasha laughed again. Aysel noticed that while her laugh was as deep and rough as the rest of her voice, it had an almost musical quality to it, like the large bell above the entrance arch into her village.

Enrick managed to roll his eyes and wipe his mouth at the same time; he had made quick work of his meal. "Fine, then cook. Quickly. I don't know if you've noticed, but we have places to be."

Aysel was already gathering sticks and twigs from the undergrowth above the snow, piling them into a triangular mound. She nicked her arm with her blade and let the blood flow onto the kindling; it lit with barely a thought. Soon she had a cheery little fire.

Dunyasha crouched down next to her, her already-skinned and cleaned rabbit in hand. "Mind if I share the fire?" she asked.

"If you clean my rabbit as well," she answered, tucking some of the pale, flaky bark from the tree next to her into the flames.

With a curt nod, Dunyasha prepared Aysel's share of the meat. Aysel tried not to watch; although she was an experienced hunter herself, the sight of skinless flesh brought back too many memories of what had happened in Beyrn. She pushed them down. She couldn't face it right now.

By the time Dunyasha had finished preparing both her and Aysel's rabbit, Aysel had finished fashioning a pair of woven broilers from some of the more flexible twigs she found on the trees. Dunyasha placed the pieces of meat-- the hind legs, the shoulders, and the back-- upon one of the broilers. "We're going to have ourselves a little feast," she muttered. "You should have waited, Enrick."

He gnawed angrily on his picked-clean rabbit femur in response.

As their meat sizzled tantalizingly over the fire, Aysel leaned back against the tree and let herself relax. Yes, it was almost like everything was normal... except this wasn't a hunt with her brother for some stew ingredients but a dangerous journey through perilous territory for reasons she still did not know accompanied by people who a few days ago would have been happy to hurt her.

"So," she said as casually as she could, edging her meat a little bit closer to the coals. "What's the plan?"

Enrick walked over and crouched down between her and Dunyasha. He brushed smooth a patch of snow and began drawing in it with his bare finger. "We're here," he said, dotting the snow. He drew a sweeping line, then a squiggle coming off from it. "This is the sea to the west, and this is the river just south of us. We need to cross the river in order to get where we're going."

"Which is where, exactly?"

"I don't think that concerns you," he said quickly, though Aysel noticed his finger hesitating over a point that, on his map, would be somewhere in the southeast. Dunyasha's eyes were fixed on it as well, though in her gaze there was grim recognition. She knew where they were going, at least.

"That's not the problem," Dunyasha said. "The problem is the river, and all the Letters that live near its streams. The streams are easy enough to cross; they're shallow, and besides, they should be frozen. But the river is a problem."

Aysel nodded. The main river was glorious, but she had never seen it up close, only from high above. Ages of rushing through the valley had caused it to burrow into the ground, cliffs forming up above it. It was as beautiful as it was dangerous. "It's impossible to cross except by bridge."

"Right." Dunyasha looked up at her. "You're from around there?"

She nodded. "From Crossing, which would be about... here." She drew a dot near the line representing the river. "We live near one of the two bridges across the gorge." She added a line to represent Crossing's bridge.

"And the other one is right here, a day and a half from where we are," said Enrick, drawing a short line across the river.

"Westbridge," Aysel said.

"Whatever it's called, it's suicide to go there," Dunyasha said to Enrick. "But we won't be going there, right? Even you aren't moronic enough for this to be your plan."

"That's my plan," Enrick said brightly.

Dunyasha blinked slowly. "Stars. I didn't know you hated me so much you wanted me to literally die."

"We won't die," Enrick said. "We'd die trying to climb down the cliffs, or avoiding the river altogether by walking over the sea, which I'm assuming were your alternative suggestions."

"Why not the sea?" Aysel asked.

"It's a wasteland," Dunyasha answered. "Nothing lives there except whatever's under the ice. Personally, I don't want to find out." She turned back to Enrick. "I also don't want to find out what they do to Beasts that try to cross their bridge, or the Letter who helps them do it."

A chill ran up Aysel's spine. She knew what happened to those who betrayed her people and Ancient Ones, but she didn't want to think about it.

Enrick shook his head, sending his pale hair swaying. "It's the only way to get across, unless we want to wait for the thaw. And I don't have that kind of time."

Aysel's thoughts turned back to her brother's wan, haggard face. She didn't have that kind of time either.

Dunyasha pursed her lips. "Fine. Fine. Guess we'll die, then." She snatched her meat off the broiler and stalked off between the trees.

Enrick sighed and turned to Aysel. "Ignore her. She just doesn't like situations without any good options."

Aysel nodded slowly, thinking of all the things that had happened in the last few days. "Neither do I, but I've been facing quite a lot of them."

Enrick bared his teeth at her in another of his mocking grins. "And yet you always keep your head up, don't you?" he asked, reaching out as if to touch her chin.

Aysel smacked his hand away, blood boiling. "Don't touch me."

"Aw," he pouted. "Dunya really is your favorite. I'm hurt."

"Dunyasha isn't my anything," Aysel said. She lifted up her broiler and took her cooked rabbit off, even though it burned her fingers through her gloves. She stood. "Let's go. You seem to have somewhere to be as well, don't you?"

His eyes hardened. "Do you really need to know that?"

Aysel set her jaw and stared back at him. "Yes. I want to know what's going on, where we're going, and why."

"That's not part of our deal, little Letter," he said, standing and sweeping his coat dramatically around him.

"Me saving your life wasn't part of the deal."

He sneered, but it was halfhearted. "Hm. You know I'm doing you a favor, right?"

"You dragging me through the mountains to run my wrists dry and get attacked by wild animals is hardly a favor," she said, still looking him in his yellowish eyes. In the back of her mind, she wondered where this determination was coming from. Maybe Dunyasha was rubbing off on her.

"Not that," he said, waving a hand in the air as if to brush the thought aside. "Not telling you is the favor."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Sure it does. You help me get where I need to go. No complications, moral or otherwise. Everyone goes home happy to their families, the end."

Her brows twitched together. "Would there be a moral complication if you told me what we were doing?"

"Does it matter?"

She opened her mouth to protest yes, it does, then closed it. She remembered Elkin, his cheeks sinking in, his lips cracking, his heart beating slower with each passing day. What would she be willing to do to save him and the others lost in sleep? What lines would she cross, if she had to?

Enrick smiled at her hesitation. "See? By not knowing, you don't have to answer. You're welcome."

Aysel marched past him and his smug smirk. "I'll thank you once my brother is healthy again," she said.

She could hear the eye roll in his voice as he said, "You're very one-track minded on that, aren't you?"

"My brother is dying," she said firmly but passionately. She remembered how he had looked when he and the others had been carried back to the village. They had been found unconscious in the first snow of winter, surrounded by footprints and a broken spear, but with no visible injuries. If not for three of the ten being dead on arrival, and the others unable to wake, they would have been in perfect health. Aysel remembered looking at Elkin's face, still so full, ruddy, and strong, and thinking that he would surely wake up in a day or so. But then a cycle had passed and the first of the sleepers had died. Another cycle, another two dead, and all the while, Elkin growing weaker and weaker without Aysel being able to do anything... until now.

She turned back to look at Enrick, who was strangely quiet. He was staring down into the snow intently, as if he was counting the flakes. "Brothers die all the time," he said without looking up at her. "It's just the way of things."

"Your brother... he died, didn't he?" Aysel asked.

Enrick raised his head and smiled widely at her, but it was a fragile thing, as delicate and cold as the thin sheet of ice that firsts forms over water. "Does it matter? You don't care."

"I care," Aysel said, realizing the did. Even though she didn't like Enrick, she didn't want to see him in pain, even if he hid it behind a cruel smile and his trailing furs.

"Well, since you care so much, I'll give you the short version: his name was Ondrey, he was better than me in every way, and because of me he got his windpipe ripped open by Letter blood. The end." He raised his eyebrows. "Lovely story, isn't it? Just the thing to tell to the kiddies at bedtime."

Aysel's lips narrowed. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

He laughed humorlessly. "Aysel, I don't even want to tell myself, but then you come along, with your dying brother, and it makes it really hard to forget."

"Is that why you hate me so much?"

He shrugged. "I don't hate you. I think you're an annoying nuisance who does nothing but slow me down and complain, but I don't hate you." He gave her an overly elaborate bow. "I reserve that honor for myself," he said with another toothy smile.

He fixed Aysel with a strange look; he was searching for shock in her eyes, perhaps, but he would have found only pity. Even though Enrick was rude, arrogant, and selfish, he had gone through the same thing she had. He had once been on the verge of losing his brother too, had felt the same fear of the hole in his heart that death would leave behind. Perhaps he, too, had tried desperately to save him, only to fail in end. There was pain here, badly hidden beneath false smiles and dramatic sweeps of his fur coat. She looked into Enrick's chiseled face and wondered if she would turn into the same bitter, brittle mask of a person if Elkin died. She hoped she would never find out.

"Enrick," she said quietly as she walked through the snow. It was beginning to fall again, and in the air she could feel a blizzard forming. "I'm sorry about your brother."

"Yeah," he sighed behind her. "So am I."

It was then that Dunyasha rejoined them, walking towards them through the skeleton trees as silently and forebodingly as a woodland ghost. An odd feeling flickered to life in Aysel's chest, and it took a moment for her to realize it was joy. It had been such a long time since she had felt simple joy like this, the kind only a friendly face can bring.

However, Dunyasha's face at the moment looked anything but friendly, Aysel noticed as she got closer to them. Her thick eyebrows were drawn, her forehead was wrinkled in concern, and the lines of her mouth were pointed resolutely downwards. "What happened?" Aysel asked as soon as she was within earshot.

"I found what I think is an old Letter hunting camp," she said. "I checked the fire; they must have broken camp this morning."

"They're not hunting us, are they?" Enrick asked. Aysel could hear an edge of fear in his voice.

Dunyasha shook her head. "No; they have no way of knowing we're here. We're just going to have to be careful."

"No," Aysel said, suddenly struck by an idea. "We need to find them."

Enrick raised an eyebrow. "I think we broke our Letter, Dunya."

"I'm not your anything, thank the Ancients, and I'm not broken," she shot back at Enrick. "These hunters are going to get us over the bridge."

Enrick shook his head sadly and said, "Poor, sweet, insane Aysel, she doesn't even realize--"

"I realize--"

"--that asking Letters to take us over the bridge would end the same way as asking them to pitch us off of it."

"But--"

And in case you're too crazy to figure it out--"

"I'm not--"

"--both would end in our deaths," he said, finishing his interruption.

"Stop talking and listen to her," Dunyasha growled. Enrick raised his eyebrows and smirked at her, but fell silent.

"Thank you," Aysel said to Dunyasha, who seemed to be the only person who could get Enrick to be quiet. "We need to get over the bridge to get across the river to get to whatever thing on the other side you refuse to tell me," she said, giving Enrick a small scowl. "And so far all the options I could think of to get over the bridge have been bad. We could try to sneak across, but it's guarded, we'd be caught, and then we'd die. We could try to fight our way across, but it would be three against at least fifty, and then we'd die. And of course, we'd never be able to walk across normally, because you're Beasts to them and I'm a traitor to my people."

Dunyasha grunted. "Seems an accurate summary of the situation. What's your new plan?"

"They're going to let us walk across, because we're not going to be a couple of Beasts and a Letter traitor. We're going to be a small Letter party out hunting who just wants to get across to the other side."

They were both silent for a moment. "I take it back. You are insane," Dunyasha said flatly.

"I'm not! It's easy! We disguise you both as Letters and just stroll across!"

Enrick cleared his throat. "Aysel, perhaps you were too busy admiring my facial beauty to notice, but Letters have very different bodies than the People do," he said, gesturing down at his pawlike feet, short knees, forward-leaning torso, long arms, and permanently bent neck. "I don't think we'll pass."

"You will if you're bundled up in four layers of winter clothes like I am," she said. "You'll just need to stand a bit straighter. And if you have boots on, no one will notice your feet."

"And our faces?" Dunyasha asked. "Those are quite different as well."

"We'll all wrap scarves around our faces, and wear hoods," she replied. "A storm is coming, so it won't seem so very odd."

Dunyasha bit her bottom lip. "Heavy clothes, hoods, and scarves in the middle of a snowstorm still won't be enough. We need a way for them to immediately recognize all of us as Letters. Something that can't be imitated."

Aysel ran her hand through her hair... then ran it through again, letting her fingers tangle with the auburn curls. She wouldn't like it, but to save her brother, she would sacrifice anything... wouldn't she?

She raised her head to look into Dunyasha's yellow eyes. "I think I have something."