Welcome to Gaia! ::

Damir felt the frigid sting of the snow that was just a little too wet to be snow. Shivering, his hooves ached, and his nostrils burned with every breath he took. He hadn't seen this storm coming, and cursed himself for not seeking shelter when Eliron warned him to. The small bird was tucked in his hair, trying to keep itself from freezing to death out in the open.

Phantoms always seemed to shift in and out of sight within storms such as these. Csitri was heading back home--there was no sense in staying out when it took the insane or the extremely lost and unfortunate to stay out in such conditions. Even for such a young mare, she knew her way well, and she surged through the snow with her will pit upon getting home. The cold would get to her, soon, she knew. For now, she was fine, but she didn't want to tarry.

As used to the paths as she was...as used to seeing spirits dance and play their tricks in blizzards, it came as a sure surprise that the form swirling in the snow solidified before her.

"Huh..." Her breath misted and was swept away with the wind. Her ears pinned back, as much in caution as to prevent the wind from howling into them. She moved forward, lifting her legs high in the snow. She wasn't tall, though she was a bit taller than her mother. She took a breath, deciding to try to be friendly, first. Fighting, if it came to it, would come second.

"Ho, traveller!"

Damir's ears perked at the voice that was clear through the sound of the cutting wind. He slowed, seeing swirls of yellow, pink, and some black off in the not so far distance. He wasn't alone! Damir reached around and nudged Eliron, hoping he could ask her where there was shelter. It was getting more dangerous, and he wasn't too sure if they would survive without the help of someone else.

Eliron groaned, not wanting to be disturbed, but then realized he had heard a voice too. Fluffing of his feathers, he came to perched on the shoulder of Damir, tweeting and fussing about the wind and snow. "Hello!" His sing song voice called, quiet compared to hers. "Please, could you direct us, fellow traveler!"

He was, she thought, pure white. It was no small wonder she hadn't thought he was real until hshe was nearly on top of him! Emerald eyes - the colour of Spring that had no place in this snowstorm - took him in...and the bright red bird that was fluffing its feathers. It spoke instead of his companion.

She had to get closer to hear him, but caught the tail end of his chirped words.

"I can... Do you speak for your companion, always, little bird?" Her eyes flashed, not in anger, but an intense curiosity. Chances were likely the bird would give her the information she needed to know about his companion. She needed to find out something before she either helped them to one place or took them farther.

Eliron immediately felt the need to be on edge with this mare. He sensed she was cunning and inertly sneaky, but tweeted, more subdued than his normally chipper and excited self. "Yes, yes, misses, he is mute." Eliron huddled against Damir's warm fleshing, hoping to go back into his hair as soon as possible. "Please, misses, can we seek shelter? We are peaceful and will be out of the area as soon as the storm passes."

Damir on the other hand only smiled a friendly smile, trying to ignore the bitter cold. The mare was interesting and wild looking. Her bells were lovely, he noted, And her scarves and feathers. He'd never seen anything like it.

Excellent; she did not want to ask whether this stark-white soquili with his unicorn tail and hornless head was male or female, nor had she wanted to look to find out. It would only make it seem suspicious. At the bird's words she lifted her head to feel a fresh gust of wind, ears pinned back a bit.

"You are lucky we happened to meet, then. There are not many places unless you know them, here. Not for miles." She angled her head away from the wind and biting cold and stinging snow that was whipping around them before nodding, the bells on her head muted in sound. The ones adorning her hind legs were muffled with snow and didn't sound at all...though the bells at the end of her mane gangled in the cold wind, still.

"Come along with me, now. You missed such a place, back this way."

So, lifting her dark hooves high, she plunged forward, undaunted by the drifts despite her smaller stature. It was about ten minutes of walking...or plunging, in her case, before she angled sharply in a switchback obscured by both rock and snow. Easy to miss for outsiders, even without the snow. But once along this path the wind wasn't nearly so bad...though that couldn't be said for the snow that had drifted in and piled up in places along the way.

"It's still a ways away, but," She said, breathing out harshly after bursting through another mound, "Easier with the lack of wind. This is really no place to stop--you both look like you could use some rest...and the weather is nasty this time of year. Especially here."

Damir nodded at her instructions, his expression keeping friendly and open despite the freezing wind and snow. Relief flooded him when she agreed to escort them, and began to lead the way for shelter. He was a little amused her manner of walking, but realized it must not be easy for someone so short. He was tall for his breed, towering over his parents both. This mare was about a head shorter than him, at the least. Her size didn't help with this visibility either, and he followed her closely, afraid of losing her in the blizzard.

She had no way of knowing he was paying attention to anything she was saying, but he nodded anyway, brushing against her hip every once in a while. Usually he was very distant from others, having his own bubble, but the fear of being lost in this storm allowed his space to be shared quite easily.

When the wind finally stopped, it was heavenly. He shook his hair, forgetting Eliron had been using it has a nest. The angry bird came out tweeting, and pecking at Damir. "Careful, careful!" He shook and made a burr noise, going to sit along Damir's back. "Thank you, thank you misses!" he said in a sing song tune. "We would have been goners for sure!"

Damir wasn't the only one with a like for their own personal bubble. An ear was kept cocked back after the first brush against her hip; some part of her dimly surprised - and pleased, as he would likely be amicable, at least, for everything else she would later do - at his nearness while the other was trembling in nerves. Her mother and sister were smaller. Dainty. Definitely more feminine than her much larger self.

She felt gangly, more fit for the patrol and defence of their home in the mountain springs. But she was shorter than this one. And for that, at least, she was grateful. Maybe...even if she wasn't feminine...

She shook her head and pushed her way through another snowed-in portion of the pass, glancing back with those glittering green eyes of hers.

"You're welcome." She huffed out a chilled breath. But it was plenty warm, for it still misted in the air. She shook her head a little bit and faced forwards once again. "We still have a ways to go before we can dry up and rest. I'd bet you'll be staying with us for a while."

Damir cocked his head an reevaluated the mare. She wasn't short at all. The blizzard must have been concealing her large form. She was about his height, he now realized, shocked. And muscular, too, but in an attractive way. His face heated up again, for having thoughts he wasn't sure he had before. Well for many others, besides one... he shook his thoughts out, playing it off as his hair again.

Eli glared at Damir's hair with vengeance, before perking back up brightly towards the mare. He didn't trust her nearly yet, but he was grateful all the same. "A while, you think?" he tweeted in thought, looking the way they had come, and realized the snow was piling up awfully high...

Damir turned his eyes on the same direction as Eli and came to the same conclusion. Pinning his ears back in worry, Damir glanced at the mare, hoping he wasn't going to become a nuisance, or worse, be kicked out because it was hard enough surviving by their self, let alone with another mouth.

Eliron, like a mind reader piped up. "Misses, are you sure we are not intruding? We would be just content to wait it out here, this is quite shelter enough" he bounced about on Damir's back, always a ball of energy, never ending.

Damir stared up with probing eyes, unsure of what this stranger would do. Sentence them to the cold, or maybe enjoy their company for a day or so?

The mare's swept-back ear caught the bird's tweeting. She didn't find him annoying... Or at least, not yet. It might be difficult to separate him from Damir--and she thought maybe she might be tempted to just snap at him if he got his feathers in a fluff over keeping a lone Damir company.

She continued on, apparently seeming to even enjoy plunging through the drifts that swirled and piled higher. It was just passed one of these points that the bird trilled his concerns and she stopped to crane her head back so she could look at them.

For a moment she stared before she let out a sound of amusement.

"If you two would like to become a snowdrift, you're welcome to stay in this passage. You're not intruding. If you were, I wouldn't have offered you to come back here."

It was as simple as that. They traded for what they needed that they couldn't gather or grow. Her eyes glinted and her lips curved.

"Come along. I don't think either of you would do well as a snow creature."

Onward she plunged!

Damir hated not being able to speak the right words. He felt a pang of awkwardness, not knowing how to ensure his gratitude is known, but not offend her hospitality. When the mare turned away, he nipped at Eli, irritated. He glowered at the bird when he tweeted angrily, pecking and nipping at the white stallion's ears and hair.

Ignoring his persistence, Damir followed the mare, keeping a safe one foot distance from her.

Eli tweeted angrily still at the stubborn mule of stallion he traveled with, but watched the mare, if she peeked around to see what the comotion was about, he'd stop immediately. It wouldn't do well to show weakness between the two of them. Especially with a stranger in her own territory.

Damir pretended Eliron wasn't there, though he wished the bird would strike up conversation. He wanted to know more about their guide.

Like he was able to read his mind, Eliron piped up. "So misses... do you live here alone, or are you a part of a herd ?"