Untamable [BXB]

13: first snow

Late October meant the arrival of snow.

      Silas watched the snowflakes pile up lazily on the outside windowsill in his room the following morning, just as he'd been doing all night. His eyes drifted to the alarm clock on the nightstand. Nearly 7am. The rest of the pack would be rising soon, unaware of his own sleepless night.

      After last nights' events, sleep wouldn't greet him without the scenes of bared teeth and crushing weight flashing behind his eyelids. Now even his nest couldn't comfort him, the den he'd made home no longer felt safe. Worried it'd only make the visions worse if he'd attempted to doze off again, he'd left his closetspace and laid, sleepless, on the bed for the remainder of the night.

Either way, It wasn't how he expected their meeting to go at all...

On any other day he would have been elated to see the gorgeous snowfall. Snow days were always his favorite— the one time he'd allow himself even an inkling of joy for angels shaped in the flurried sheets and snowball fights til his hands turned blue. Silas always felt more in touch with his inner animal during winter days.

      Nova would like it, too. He knew so.

But his wolf had been stone-cold silent since their encounter.

He'd figured since mending his connection with the wolf and destroying the barrier that separated them, she'd be incessant in clipping words and growling opinions. But since their fight, she'd been completely silent. The silence was unnerving now, he found. He was just getting accustomed to the faint voice and now it was gone again.

Although Silas had been afraid then, when they fought, he couldn't help but think that she must truly be hurting, even if he could not understand it, to attack with such desperation. Now, throughout the night, he found himself awaiting the pang of a headache just to hear her voice. He remembered Dr. Edurne's words, too— how it was possible for some people to lose the link on their animal. With a pang in his chest he wondered— would she want to leave him forever now? Or... was she just recuperating, adjusting to their open link?

Silas prayed it was the latter.

The alarm clock can only get out one feeble beep as it hits 7am before Silas's hand slams down to silence it. He hears it resonate through the walls of the other bedrooms. There's silence again soon after, where Silas stared listlessly up at the ceiling, deep in thought.

      Rune would get up alongside his pack shortly. He'd cook breakfast and deliver it for him, and then he'd have to get up to join everyone.

His assumptions on the daily routine are broken, though. "SNOW!", Silas hears suddenly, bellowing through all corners of the packhouse— Vale's voice— followed instantly by the creak of doors swinging and the pounding of weight on floorboards. Except, these quick paces aren't the familiar socked feet Silas had grown used to hearing. Instead, nails click on wood, the gaits are each uneven, and it sounds even more like elephants on rampage than what he's used to. He's startled out of bed before he realizes it, despite the sleepless exhaustion.

He flies out of his room and down the stairs, following the brief scent trail of his pack— and the various shedded garments sprawled across the house— pulled to them like a magnet. Beyond the kitchen, he notices the backyard sliding door left haphazardly open.

For the first snowfall of the year, it certainly fell hard.

      Silas wasn't expecting much when he'd seen the start of it come down at midnight, that the tiny snowflakes would pile into this. He trails out onto the raised backyard deck, the overhang protecting the hardwood stairs from snow and simultaneously protecting his bare feet from frostbite. The trees are blanketed in it, and the grassy landscape he'd seen a handful of times through the windows has been completely engulfed. He can't help but gawk at the spectacle he lays eyes on. The unusual crowd of animals before him leap and bound about in the thick of the snow, sending up flurries of it in their wake.