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Damshe Ralke was not one to fear the cold. For him, the reasons were obvious. For others, it would be a complete mystery as to how he could manage to wear the same leather jacket and blue jeans in any sort of weather without so much as a shiver or a sweat. Damshe, of course, kept this secret smugly to himself.

He had been on a long hike traversing a large portion of the Reserve, a large backpack slung over one shoulder to carry his necessities. The glistening, snow-covered landscape had been the subject of many of his recent sketches in his sketchbook. Sadly, he'd been unlucky in actually seeing any of the Reserve's inhabitants to add to his wintery sketches. He just assumed that they didn't like the cold.

Damshe himself would have been slightly thrilled by the idea of being in a snowstorm, but even he would have problems navigating his way back to his car, which was located just off the boundary of the Otter Oasis. He decided to go ahead and build a shelter for the night. Besides, the actual camping would be a nice change from his usual arrangements sleeping in the car.

Gathering several stout branches, Damshe soon had a sturdy lean-to constructed underneath a grove of pine trees. He'd made it much too large for himself, although he'd kind of intended to do that just for the sake of showing off to nobody in particular. Also, although he wouldn't need it, he'd kindled a large fire in front of his shelter's opening. It was quite the quaint, little campsite.

Sitting underneath the roof, Damshe gazed out through the storm, admiring the swirling torrents of flakes that it brought. The winds began to pick up, bringing moresnow and making it harder to see. Still, his sharp eyes just managed to perceive a living being coming by.

It was an otter! What was she doing out in this storm? Surely, she'd freeze to death. And, of course, Damshe wasn't going to let that happen.

"Hey, over here!" he shouted, waving his harms at her. "You're gonna catch your death out here! I've got shelter! Come to me!"

The otter had come bounding over to Damshe's encampment without much hesitance, which surprised Damshe slightly. But what surprised him more was the fact that it was the same otter that had given him a flask of alcohol on the day that he'd extracted another otter from the window of the Ranger's Station!

Damshe remembered her as being quite the character. Though, at the moment, she looked to be quite miserable. Her chitters and squeaks seemed a bit thick in their pronunciation and she was sneezing. She must have had a cold. And what with the extreme weather and her lack of preparation for it, it was no wonder!

She looked so pitiful that Damshe couldn't help but feel extremely sorry for her. Taking off his leather jacket, he draped it carefully over her to act as a buffer against the cold. It wouldn't be perfect, but at least no wind would penetrate. He could suffice without it.

"Nice to see a familiar face hereabouts," Damshe said to her with a laugh. "But you sure chose one Hell of a bad time to be seeing me again. Don't know if you noticed, but we're in the middle of a fairly severe blizzard!"

Damshe then began rummaging through his supply bag, taking out some things that he now deemed necessary for use. Among these were a steel water kettle, some MRE's, hot chocolate pouches, and a couple of fish that were freshly caught and thoroughly frozen. Damshe filled the kettle with fresh snow and held it over the fire to boil.

"Lucky you, I was out here... You could have turned into an ottersicle! Ha, ha! Now, don't you worry. I've got enough supplies to last the both of us for this storm. You just stick by me and we'll make it through this alright!"

As he said this, Damshe noted that the snow drifts were getting higher. He stood up and began shoveling snow away from the encampment to help keep them from getting buried.

"Are ya hungry?" he asked over his shoulder. "I'll fry you up some fish if you are. And we'll have some hot cocoa to go with it, too. How do ya like the sound of that?"

Having dug out their camp site, Damshe returned to his bag for a few more things: a frying pan and a special batter mixture that he'd prepared for the fish. After thawing the fish over the fire, he took out his knife and cleaned them up. Afterwords, he dipped them both into the batter and soon had them frying in the pan.

"Now, you should enjoy this," he said as he periodically flipped the fish in the pan. "Good thing I went ice fishing before this storm. Otherwise, we would have had to share MRE's. I've got plenty of those but I doubt that you'd like them as much as these. Ahhhhhh, I think they're ready."

Damshe removed the frying pan from the heat of the fire and set it in front of the otter. The fish had been cooked to a crispy, golden-brown.

"Now, you can go ahead and eat that all in one go if you want," Damshe said in a cautious. "But unless you want to be eating MRE's like me, you might eat them a bit sparingly. Of course, I could try fishing again but I doubt that I can find my way to the lake and back in this weather. Oh, and careful; they're hot."

Damshe then poured the hot water from the kettle into a couple of thermos he had and added the hot cocoa mix to both. Aftering mixing both, he set one in front of the otter.

"There ya go. You can have some marshmallows with that if you want. Just mind that you sip it carefully or you'll scald your tongue. My name's Damshe by the way. That's Damshe Ralke."

Usually, Damshe would go by his false name but he doubted that an otter would give him any trouble over his identity. She probably didn't even care. Even if she did, he wouldn't be able to hear her name in return... if she had one.

Sighing, Damshe dug out his sketchbook and pencil and proceeded to create a portrait of his guest.

Damshe had barely put the pencil tip to the paper when the otter suddenly snatched the wring utensil from him and began scribbling on the page. Shocked as he was by this unexpected maneuver, he was even more astounded when he saw what she had written.

"Anna?" he whispered contemplatingly. "Is that your name? Anna?"

Although Damshe had encountered a few of the otters from the Reserve before, none had ever thought to give him their name. This was quite the rare gift for him.

"Anna," he said again, smiling down at her. "It's my pleasure to meet you!"

And indeed it was. Damshe felt elated at knowing the name of this new aquaintance. He felt like he'd made some sort of connection with her, a bond of sorts. Or maybe even (dare he think it?). a friendship. He felt so happy about knowing her name, he felt that he might chance another ice fishing trip, storm or no storm.

"Well, Anna, why don't you go ahead and try that fish? I'm sure that it's plenty cooled off by now. I'll bet that you've never tasted anything better!"

Damshe then took back his pencil and sketchbook and set to drawing again with a will. Now, he was even more determined to get a great drawing of his guest. Right next to her name: Anna.

Damshe watched Anna eat with a satisfaction that he'd rarely felt. Taking it easy with someone was something that he just hadn't done in a long time. He looked down at his sketchbook and continued to carefully draw her form on the paper.

As he glanced up to get another look at her, he noticed that she wasn't eating anymore. She was standing right next to him, monitoring his work. Automatically, he turned the page away from her view, his face flushing slightly from embarrassment.

It wasn't that he thought she'd mind him drawing her. He was just afraid that he'd lost his touch after all those years of other engagements that required him to give up the calm life for a while. He was afraid that he'd drawn her badly.

Still, he figured that she had a right to see what he had done. Smiling cheesily, he rotated the page back towards her.

"Heheh," he laughed weakly. "I'm not really that good. It's been forever since I've drawn much of anything. I've lead a... busy life..."

Damshe quickly picked up his own thermos and distracted himself with drinking hot cocoa.

Inwardly, Damshe sighed with relief at Anna's approval of his efforts. Outwardly, he laughed at her modeling antics. Apparently, his memory of her being an interesting character was correct.

Still, he felt honored that she would invite him to do another drawing. Having finished the first one, he went ahead and flipped to a clean page to start the next. He whiled away the next few hours of the snowstorm, carefully moving his pencil across the paper in small, controlled movements. Once again, he wanted to be sure that he depicted his subject right.

By the time he was done, so was the blizzard. Gone were the furious clouds of stinging snow. Now, only a few odd flakes floated gently on the winter breeze.

Damshe stood surveying the new winterscape the storm had left in its wake. High snow drifts were everywhere, but he didn't think that they'd be a problem to traverse. However, it was also getting late. He looked down at Anna again.

"Storm's gone away," he said quietly. "It's getting dark. I imagine that you'll be wantin' to get home soon..."

Try as he might, Damshe was not 100% sure that he had kept the reluctance out of his voice.

Damshe smiled a little as he read this next message. It seemed his cooking was more successful than he had anticipated. It was the work of a moment to write the recipe out on a piece of paper from his pocket. This he pressed gently into Anna's paws.

"Now, don't you go tellin' anybody else this recipe," he said with mock severity, tapping Anna's nose with a finger. "I like to keep lots of secrets. My recipes included..."

Glancing about again, Damshe assessed the weather one last time. Still pretty freezing. He knelt in front of Anna again.

"You can keep that jacket if you want to. I know it's a bit large for you but it'll help keep the cold off your back. I don't really need it and I can always afford another one..."

Here Damshe trailed off. He was at a loss of what to say next, which was something of a surprise to him.

He stared at the ground for a moment, twiddling his thumbs. Then, he looked Anna in the eyes.

"Get home safely..."