Chapter Text
The group had made it into the East Forest.
Or well, more accurately, two of the three had made it into the East Forest. Popgoes stood at the entrance that was lined with snow covered pine trees, arms crossed and ready to argue with the two standing in front of him, flurries slowly entrenching them in a layer of snow. “You two need snow gear first.”
“And you don’t?” Candy retorted, waving his arms towards the weasel.
“Unlike you, I can withstand most freezing temperatures,” Popgoes chided, “As long as I keep moving, I’ll be fine. I don’t believe the same can be said for you.” The weasel’s eyes drifted to Candy’s feet that shifted around the snow, hopping back and forth between them in an effort to keep them off of the ground and prevent any more searing cold-but-oh-so-hot pain from shooting up his legs. He crossed his arms and huffed in annoyance at the observation, but made no real effort to try to give a response; Popgoes was absolutely right. Rachel and Popgoes were more built to withstand this weather— they were always more equipped than he was in almost every way, it seemed— and Candy absolutely wasn’t. He thrived in warmer temperatures, which is why he hadn’t been wearing long sleeves today. How was he supposed to know that the place was absolutely swimming in snow in the middle of spring?!
Rachel snorted as Popgoes rolled his eyes and finally took a step into the line of trees. His tail gently dragged through the newly formed layer of snow dusting over top of the forest’s typical trail, leaving behind a measly indent line through the powdery mess in his wake. “If we walk just a bit further in, there should be a shop available,” Popgoes talked over his shoulder, eyes ahead where the path should be. It’s not like he would lose his way there without it, but it definitely gave him a sense of unease that he wasn’t really willing to confide in the other two about. He’s been through worse, he can handle it. It’s just a bit of snow. Pull yourself together. “As long as Holly’s there, that is.”
“What, I’m gonna have to buy a scarf and some boots, huh? With what money?” Candy supplied with a tinge of annoyance, clearly not taking the hint (as per usual). Popgoes rolled his eyes all the way into the back of his skull as he let his head go limp against his shoulder that was positioned closest to his feline friend, staring at him dead on with a tired look. Would he always have to spell it out for him? “With my money.”
Candy’s eyes widened and his mouth opened to immediately begin bickering, but Rachel simply slapped a hand over his mouth and began to tug him uselessly towards Popgoes, completely unphased as she held the squirming cat in her grip. Had they let Candy speak, they’d be here for ages. “Well, let’s get a move on, then,” She simply offered, nudging her head forward in an attempt to get the weasel to snap out of it. Thankfully, he caught on pretty quickly. “Yes, right.”
The trek to the shop wasn’t very long. Despite the rumbling unease that still sat in his gut at the lost sight of the path, the walk was just fine— Rachel was good at filling his thoughts and holding conversation when Candy had opted to angrily follow along in silence. Popgoes couldn’t really comprehend why he had shifted so suddenly. It was a simple left, then a good few meters straight before a short left directly into the brick wall of the building that stood out like a sore thumb among the blindingly white snow. Popgoes had never run into it himself, typically being ever vigilant, but he’s seen Blake take a face-full of brick after full-on turning directly into it before, and that was enough to keep him on his toes at all times now.
Popgoes took a glance over at Candy and grimaced at his bare paws shaking as he stepped into the snow. Should he have offered to have carried him there? He would do anything to prevent his friend from getting frostbite, especially after he wasn’t really expecting to even get such a thing at all at a time of the year where snow isn’t even a possibility. The idea of carrying Candy on his back, or over his shoulder, or simply just in his arms… Popgoes cleared his throat instinctively.
Walking inside, the three freezing (to various extents) creatures were quickly hit with a welcoming wave of warmth. Candy’s unusually tight and curled posture almost immediately melted away as he stretched into the warm air, almost glowing with pleasure at the much appreciated temperature shift. To Popgoes’ surprise, Holly was there behind the counter, unboxing and loading various miscellaneous items onto the shelves that sunk into the wall. The shelves lightly creaked in protest, just loud enough to get Popgoes’ attention as he quickly tiptoed over. “Hey, Holly. Good to see you up and well despite the storm.”
“Goodness, Popgoes,” Holly yelped in surprise, placing down a box on top of an ever growing pile of items left to stock, “What are you doing here?! Dont’cha see how much it’s snowing out there?” The robin slowly straightened her back as she leaned up to be at eye level with Popgoes as she scratched her head awkwardly in thought. “Or, well, I guess, dont’cha not see outside. I could only see white when I peeked my head out earlier this morning.”
“You’re telling me it was somehow worse earlier?” Popgoes cringed, glancing back quickly at Candy and Rachel chatting quietly with a sigh. “Lovely.”
“Hey come on, it’s not that bad,” Holly tried, “If it’s cleared up even a little bit since I last checked, that should be a good thing, right?”
Popgoes fiddled with his fingers anxiously. One of his ears twitched as he let the words sink into his skull for a moment, trying to figure out how to not freak out after hearing that the storm had been worse when he wasn’t awake and available to help anyone. Holly’s feathered arm leaned against the countertop as she gave an attempt to look into Popgoes’ eyes, silently asking Are you okay? with her eyes as the weasel quickly returned to his regular stoic state. He clasped his hands together and gave a taught smile. As if that would have eased the sudden spark of unwarranted nerves that filled the room. “Right. Well, I…” He turned around to Candy and Rachel once more. “They need some gear. I know it’s definitely out of season, but do you have anything that could possibly work for them?”
Holly pushed herself back from the counter with ease, gracefully ignoring the sudden mood shift. “Let me take a look at what I’ve got.”
Popgoes let his shoulders un-tense as he watched Holly scavenge through her boxes behind the counter. He let his hands fidget with the counter top, his fingers tracing the grooves and dips in the old painted wood. Thinking of all the other times he’d stopped by, Popgoes never considered just how homey and warm this place felt— maybe that was in part due to the bitter coldness of the outside right now, but still. It was nice. Popgoes quickly turned around upon hearing a quiet snort coming from one of the two only other people in the building.
Candy was hunched over in a giggling fit after what Popgoes presumed was Rachel telling a terrible joke. She loved to crack absolutely terrible jokes, which Popgoes vehemently could not stand, but Candy would double over at no matter what. The weasel stared them down as his mind was muddied with a slew of conflicting rapid thoughts. Main thought being: they were supposed to hang out today. Rachel and Candy came over to promises of a picnic and seeing familiar faces that aren’t even capable of being around anymore due to the sheer absurdity of the current weather conditions. While Rachel was able to (mostly) handle her own, Candy had been left a shivering mess in the snow as it drifted through the dry air and landed in his fur. Why on Earth did he decide to stick around when he very well could have just ran home and stayed warm with no risk of frostbite? Why had Rachel jumped in too? Surely they could be doing something better, something more appropriate, something worth their time—
A quiet satisfied chirp came from Holly as she gently shook something in her feathers and brought Popgoes out of his spiral. “Well, I think you may be in luck here.” The robin groaned as she tugged and pulled out a pair of boots from the box she had opened. “Should be a ‘one size fits most’ situation. Who needs ‘em?”
——
By the time the three stepped back outside— geared up much more than they originally were and much more prepared for a fight— the footsteps in the snow they had made on their trek to the shop had already been covered, leaving a flat expanse of snow that stretched in every direction around them. Candy frowned in uncertainty as he turned to look at Popgoes. “Where do we go from here?”
Popgoes didn’t immediately respond. He silently scanned over the area with his brows furrowed in worry, trying to figure out just that— Where do they even go from here?
Rachel cleared her throat, the sound barely audible above the steady whistling wind that filled the air. “Maybe we could start by checking the perimeter? See if the snow is getting through somehow?” The suggestion floated in the air for a moment before Popgoes released a long breath out from his nose. “Yeah, sounds like a plan.”
After a bit of deliberation— and decidedly not splitting up and getting lost— the three began their trek around the edge of the forest, doing their absolute best to try and find any kind of openings into the surrounding forests that could possibly allow such a blizzard to be created. Candy shivered and sniffled beneath his heavy jacket and new pair of boots, to which Popgoes offered him the scarf Holly had insisted he take with him— “Just to be safe”, as she would always say. Candy had hissed at Popgoes and told him to put it back on, to which the weasel sheepishly complied. At any other point in time Candy would have absolutely jumped at the chance to steal anything that would give him even a crumb of warmth, however, he had been trying to keep Popgoes bundled up as well. Maybe the worry had settled in the other two a bit more than the weasel had originally thought.
Rachel hopped and skipped just a few steps ahead, her ears peeking over the top of the treeline as she tried to find anything, to no avail. By the time they looped back around to the shop, it had been an hour and a half of wasted time. Rachel slowed and sighed as she looked over her shoulder and at the two men behind her. “This place is like a cage. Anything that’s in this neck ‘o the woods stays in here. There’s no leaks or nothin’.” She looked at her feet already being covered by snow. “Where could this possibly be coming from?”
Popgoes brought a hand to his temple as he walked through a rough map in his mind. The entrance, the Shop, the Inn, the bridge, the zipline, the path… he paused. “Maybe we could… check out the center of the forest? Just to see if anything is there?”
Rachel and Candy turned to look at him, Rachel’s face much less flat and unamused than the latter’s. “Like, by the ruins or whatever?”
“Exactly,” Popgoes reiterated, “I’m… not too sure what exactly could be there, but it’s worth a shot since it’s uh, probably the only spot we haven’t really fully checked on yet.”
Candy looked back and forth between Rachel and Popgoes. He gripped his arms tighter as a breeze slammed into his back and gently drew him forward, almost like the world itself was telling him to get a move on with the other two. He sighed. “Sure, fiiine. But once we’re done, I’m going back and taking a break in the Inn.”
Popgoes smiled. Candy couldn’t help but smile back.
They began their trek to the center on the path— or at least where the path should be— all while idly chatting about anything and everything they could to keep their minds off of the building bitter cold of the air. Candy ran a gloved paw over the edge of one of the surrounding pine trees and yelped as a mound of snow toppled down on top of his boot, which only served as something for Rachel to poke fun at him for.
Turning a corner, the three came up on the now forward-leaning wooden sign that was totally caked in snow, leaving the writing hidden and forgotten. Popgoes tore his eyes away from it as concern flooded his face. Rachel sniffled as a shiver ran up her entire body. “The wind is definitely getting stronger over here,” she observed. She twisted an ear towards Popgoes as he huffed lowly. “Yeah. Not good.”
“Noth— nothing good ev— ever comes from this ffforest.” Candy struggled to speak as he full-body shivered at the sensation of harsh cold winds blasting his face. The other two looked at him with equal amounts of amusement and concern. “Do you… want to just go back to the Inn?” Popgoes thoughtlessly placed his hands over Candy’s own as they gripped his arms in a completely useless attempt to give himself any more warmth. “No,” Candy quickly retorted, walking up to stand shoulder to shoulder between Rachel and Popgoes, “I got this. I can still— still help.”
Rachel opened her mouth to say something undoubtedly snarky, but Candy was already on the move. “We are on our waaaay!” He yelled, closing his eyes as he speeded into the clearing and heading for the direct center of the ruins. “Candy!” Popgoes yelled out after him, running and clawing through the quickly thickening snow to reach him. Rachel rolled her eyes and bounded in last, chuckling as she caught up to Candy’s body now planted face-first into the snow.
Candy had landed himself right in front of a giant mound of snow that sat motionless at the center of the ruins. The mound was tall and scattered with a bunch of branches and pine leaves, some simply resting at the very top, and some being stuck deep underneath several pounds of accumulated snow. There were undoubtedly a few broken trees stuck inside of it, which called into question the nature of how this mound even got here at all. It skewed to the left of the ruins in front of another path, almost as if it had been accumulated there in order to cover it entirely. Rachel glanced over at Popgoes— who was struggling to pick up Candy from the snow he was slowly sinking into— and then back towards the mound in front of her. “Toootally not suspicious.”
Popgoes grunted as he picked up Candy from the snow, the cat’s nose covered in snow. They both turned and looked at the hill. “D’you think we could dig through it?” Candy asked, fixing his hat. Rachel shrugged. “Dunno about that one, man. That could take hours. Maybe climbing it?”
“Too steep,” Popgoes countered. He walked up to the hill and carefully tiptoed around the ledge, seeing if he could just simply slip through the cracks, completely unsure how to go about this. He would usually have some kind of plan already brewing in his mind, but right here, right now, standing in front of his friends who he had already let down today, he was frazzled and unsure of what to do. He scanned the hill and decidedly gripped onto a thick branch and pulled. Maybe he could use it for something? It was somewhere to start, he supposed. However, the stick stayed stuck tight in the spot it was buried, and the hill began to shake.
The group of three quickly jumped away and stood defensively with Popgoes in front, quick to shield the other two from any possible falling snow. The hulking mound began to shiver and deform itself, chunks of snow falling down and quickly being sucked back up into the pile that grew to quickly surpass the height of the snow covered pine trees that stood behind it. Loud cracks and pops filled the tense empty air as the vague shape of an arm with long icy claws formed from one side of the mound. The pile kept on shivering and morphing itself to find some kind of steady footing as it formed legs and another clawed arm, holding most of its vaguely muscular shape with thick sticks and tree bark that it shifted around its body. A large round head formed at the top of the mound, more crackling filling the air as ice slowly and meticulously formed rabbit ears from deformed sticks and straight thin whiskers, some snow making room for empty eye sockets that shifted around until they eventually landed on looking at the group below it. It stared at Popgoes angrily before mindlessly forming a makeshift shovel in its hands out of more crackling ice and gripping it with intense force.
The snowy rabbit didn’t make any audible sound, but Popgoes already knew that this thing was fuming, and had the full capability to beat him and his friends senseless.
“You have got to be bloody kidding me.”