“Yes,” Korik replied, his voice coming out shakier than he meant it. “Predators especially, I can get a strong sense of their... thoughts and feelings. But it’s like I’m in their body with them. Like it’s my body, too.”
Varen was silent as Korik finished his work. When he cleaned the blood away, the wounds were closed, now marked only by fresh, pink scar tissue.
“How does that feel?” Korik asked faintly.
“Better,” Varen replied, his voice soft. “Korik, I didn’t... I suppose I didn’t realize what it’s like for you. I’m sorry I asked you to do that. I’m sorry you had to feel the things it felt.”
Korik couldn’t bring himself to look up at the elf. It had come down to choosing between the cat or their lives, so of course he too would choose their own lives. But it was a bitter choice, and Varen’s remorse made no difference.
“It’s alright,” Korik finally replied, rubbing his eyes one last time. “I think... I think she might have had kits. That was why she was so aggressive.”
“Kittens? This late in the year?” Varen repeated, sounding surprised.
“It’s possible. A late litter, maybe,” Korik said, shaking his head. “She was hungry. Ravenous. If she’d been trying to feed her young and herself... It could explain her behavior.”
For a moment, the elf didn’t respond. Then he let out a deep sigh and staggered to his feet.
“I’d say let’s bury her before the smell attracts other predators, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to dig deep enough without shovels,” he said, his voice hollow. But neither moved; they both sat there, looking at the still body of the razorfang cat and the pool of blood that had spread out around it. Korik’s mind felt blank. The creature that had just been fighting against him so fiercely, full of vigor, was dead. What did it matter what they did with the body?
“I’m going to see if I can find the young,” Korik finally said, pressing his hands down into the snow again. Beside him, Varen frowned, starting to protest; but Korik was gone before he could say anything. His awareness raced outward, spiraling further out from the place where they were, trying to find any signs of life.
He snagged onto little songbirds and lemmings and a family of snow foxes before he finally found what he was looking for: a razorfang kit in a dark den with at least one sibling. The kit mewled in surprise as he entered its consciousness, and though he felt it was afraid, it was too young still to fight against him.
Korik projected calmness as much as he could to keep the creature placid as he rifled through its short memory. The dark, cozy den was all it really knew. There were a few flashes of poking its head out of the den as its mother left; but the outside was bleak and blinding white, so they never ventured out after her. They still tried to nurse, but their mother’s milk had slowed to a trickle, and they were hungry. She had brought them lemmings, and once, a rabbit to eat; but the kit could sense its mother’s hunger, too. The den was warm, and relatively comfortable, except one of the other little ones had stopped moving and was growing cold—even though it and its sibling still huddled close to keep it warm. And it was starting to smell strange.
Korik urged the kit to leave the den; its mind shuddered with uncertainty, but its little body obeyed. The kit crawled through the den and up into the opening—it was really just a hole in the ground, tucked beneath the roots of a tree. A large tree with exposed roots, Korik thought, which would be hard to miss. The kit shivered in the cold as its paws touched snow. Korik had it walk a few paces out before scurrying back, to leave paw prints he could try to find. Between those and the big tree, he was sure he could find them.
I’m coming to protect you, he thought, though he didn’t think the kit could understand him well.I’ll bring food and warmth. Don’t be scared.
There was no response from the creature, so he released his hold on it and rushed back into himself. He stumbled to his feet before the disorientation had completely worn off, but stopped when his eyes landed on Varen, who had dragged the body of the mother cat further away.
They didn’t have the tools to bury it, but Varen had started to pile snow on top of it. It was probably the best they could manage with what they had; the snow would keep the body cold and slow down decomposition, minimizing smells that would attract other predators until they were long gone. He wondered if Varen had taken one of its fangs as a trophy before burying it, but somehow he doubted it—the elf seemed almost as regretful about killing it as Korik felt.
“I found her young,” Korik said, clearing his throat. “I found the den.”
“Help me with this, and we’ll go find it,” Varen replied, not looking up. The mother cat still had both her fangs.
Knowing time was of the essence, Korik summoned the magic around him and brought the snow up in one great pile, as he had done before with the dirt and earth. Once she was completely covered in snow, he placed a hand on Varen’s shoulder and shunted away all the moisture that had accumulated on his clothes. It all burst away from him in a puff of frost. Varen let out a dry chuckle, as Korik did the same to himself.
“Thanks,” he said, still sounding glum.
“Wet clothes kill,” Korik intoned, the same way his father had told him a hundred times as a child.
He turned in a slow circle, looking for the tallest tree in the area. To the south, it looked like there was a towering pine on a sloping hill that might have been what Korik was seeing—he certainly wasn’t spotting any trees larger than that one.
“There, I think,” he said, pointing at it. It was in the opposite direction of where they were going, but he started walking toward it, anyway. He didn’t wait for Varen to respond, but he heard the elf’s footsteps following him in the snow.
The tree was deceptively far. With how flat their surroundings were now, it was harder to gauge distances. What he had hoped would be a short walk away ended up taking nearly half an hour in the snow; but eventually he could see the tall tree with its gnarled roots, and a small circle of paw prints near the base that led back into the exposed tangle.
“Prints,” Varen said. At first, Korik thought he meant the short trail of prints in front of the tree, but the elf pointed a little ways away where bigger prints were still in the snow. They were from the mother cat, leaving the den in the direction they had come.
When they arrived at the tree, Korik knelt down and peered down into the mess of roots in the snow. He could just make out the opening of the den; further in, four gleaming eyes stared up at him. The two little kittens hissed and spat at him; but coming from such small creatures, the sound was more amusing than intimidating. They were even smaller than Roz.
“Careful,” Varen cautioned, as Korik stuck his hand into the hole. But he didn’t reach directly for the kittens. With a snap, he illuminated the den from the inside, so he could see better. The two kits blinked and yowled in protest, shrinking back. The den was barely big enough for the kittens and the mother; and, pushed toward the back of the den, was the body of the third kit that had passed away.
With his magic, he pulled at the earth and scooped the two kits up, bringing them closer to the opening of the den, despite their protests. When they were both close enough to touch, he quickly grabbed both by their scruff while they were still disoriented. The two kits looked to be a few weeks old: not quite old enough to survive on their own, but maybe after a few more weeks, they would be self-sufficient.
Held up by their scruff, they stopped struggling so much, still looking at him with wide eyes—their breaths coming in short, anxious bursts. Without their mother, they were completely helpless.
