The walk through the woodland is peaceful after the storm. The sounds of the forest is one of hushed, sleepy, tones. Ice coats the branches and gleams like gemstones in the morning sunlight. -- Anon Guest
The woods are relatively silent. Not dark, because the trees are bare of leaves. They are still deep, all the same. Currently, thanks to the freezing sleet storm the night before, they are beset with ice.
The whole forest looks like it is hung with diamonds.
The snow on the forest floor gleams, too. Glittering and glimmering with ice over the top of the powder. It is beautiful, and it is deadly. Hungry knows this. Hungry... must find somewhere else. There is nothing to eat here.
Hungry is reluctant to find buildings. People there tend to throw things. People don't like creatures like Hungry. They call him names. Devilborn. Demon-bred. Hellkin.
Better to try the buildings than the frozen wastes that are the forest in the middle of winter. Beauty could easily cost Hungry his life. He may be the only one fond of it, but that is one more than anyone else might care to count.
Ice cracks under his black hooves as he picks a direction away from the last set of buildings that were angry at Hungry. There's no point in trying to be silent. There's nothing here to hear him.
He finds a valley. A place warmer and greener than the ice-shrouded forests. He picks his way down, and follows his nose. Tracking the scent of something delicious.
To a little cottage with some small fields and pens. To a fire and an oven where the delicious smell is.
Bread in the oven. Smelling very good. It's hot in there, but heat had never bothered Hungry. He reaches in.
"It's not ready yet, bare-butt boy," says a voice behind him.
Hungry flinches into a defensive crouch. Arm up and ready against the first thing to fly his way.
"I got a pie that's ready for eatin' right now. Got some pants as might fit. Even with a hole in the seat fit for that tail," the speaker is big. Bigger than any other creature in Hungry's memory. "Better than nowt. If you want to stay, I have work you can do, and I'll share all the food I make. We have a deal?" A hand more like a paw, easily the size of Hungry's whole body. Offered in friendship.
Hungry's choices were to wander further and find food he could recognise, or stay and rely on this soft-spoken giant.
They weren't yelling and throwing things. That was, as the stranger said, better than nowt.
He put his hand in the stranger's, and changed his fate. Made it longer, to begin with.
[Photo by Jonathan Pielmayer on Unsplash]
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