Chapter Text
Lumine was struggling to catch her breath as snow came rushing at her from every direction.
She had been walking for so long that it felt like hours had passed, even though it had probably only been a few minutes. And yet, despite the freezing cold sinking into her bones and the wind constantly whipping against her face, the cold had, strangely enough, been the first thing she had stopped truly feeling.
It had bitten into her fingers and her cheeks, then slowly made its way beneath her clothes, which were clearly not meant for the harsh climate of Snezhnaya, with a cruelty she had never experienced even in Dragonspine. By now, however, it had become such a constant presence that her body and mind were beginning to grow numb.
Lumine turned around and took a few steps back, trying to catch sight of anything familiar that might tell her which direction she had come from, but everything around her looked completely unfamiliar. There were no landmarks, no trees she recognized, no road, no buildings in the distance. Nothing.
The snow had covered everything, and the blizzard seemed to have swallowed the entire world, leaving her there, all alone.
Lumine lowered her gaze to her hands and, for a moment, almost failed to recognize them. Her fingers were trembling uncontrollably, her skin becoming paler by the second while the tips had started to turn a worrying shade of purple.
She curled her fingers into fists and forced herself to keep walking.
Snezhnaya.
The word still felt almost unreal to Lumine. She had spent so long following her journey, gathering information and chasing clues that always seemed to lead her closer and closer to the truth, that finally reaching Snezhnaya should have felt different. She should have felt closer to her destination.
Instead, she felt farther away from everything.
There wasn’t even Paimon beside her to fill the silence with one of her usual complaints, because Paimon was lost.
They had been separated only a short while ago, when a particularly strong gust of wind had sent her falling down a cliff, and now Lumine had no idea where she was. It had been her fault. She didn’t know if Paimon was safe, if she was hurt, if she was somewhere nearby, but, most importantly, she had no idea how she was supposed to find her again…
“Paimon, can you hear me? I’m here!” Lumine shouted, hoping to hear something in response other than the roar of the storm, something even remotely similar to the familiar, high-pitched voice she knew so well.
“Paimon… please, answer me.”
She needed to hear her, even just for a second. A whine, a complaint, anything that would tell her that she was alive, that she was close, that she was okay, and that Lumine was going in the right direction so she could finally find her and hold her again.
Then, suddenly, something actually reached her ears.
Lumine stopped and quickly looked around, trying to figure out where the sound had come from, but all she could see was white. The snow kept hitting her face, forcing her to squint as she tried to see through the storm.
“Paimon?”
Then she heard it again, this time, it was clear enough to distinguish from the howling wind: a bark?
Lumine froze for a moment, almost afraid that moving would make the sound disappear. She wondered if she had really heard it correctly. Could there really be a dog out here, in the middle of a storm like this?
Maybe she was finally losing her mind. Maybe it was just the wind passing through the snow, creating a sound that happened to resemble a bark. But just when she was almost convinced that she had imagined it, a human voice reached her through the chaos of the blizzard.
“Tugarin! Don’t wander too far!”
Lumine let out a breath of relief she hadn’t even realized she was holding. A voice, a human voice. Someone was really out there.
“Hey! I’m here!”
For a moment, she stood completely still, listening, her heart pounding against her chest as she desperately hoped her voice had reached whoever was on the other side of the snow.
“I need help!” Lumine squeezed her eyes shut, trying to see through the curtain of snow as the wind swallowed almost every sound around her. “Please! Is anyone out there?”
But nothing came, only silence and, if anything, the snow seemed to be falling even harder. Lumine looked down at her feet and realized that, during the few moments she had spent standing still, the snow had already risen above her ankles. She tried to take another step, but her leg sank heavily into it, and the effort was enough to make her lose her balance and so she fell hard.
Lumine immediately tried to push herself back up, planting her frozen hands against the ground, but her arms were trembling too badly. They gave out almost instantly, leaving her there, unable to find the strength to lift herself again. The cold snow gathered beneath her body, slowly surrounding her, while the snow falling from above continued to cover her, ready to bury her beneath its weight.
Lumine felt the panic began to rise inside her, while a thought she had been trying desperately to push away became harder and harder to ignore: Maybe I’m not getting out of this storm. Maybe, despite all the dangers she had faced, despite everything she had survived that would have terrified anyone else, this was something even she couldn’t overcome.
What if I stayed there? What if I couldn’t find help? What if I never saw Paimon again? What if…?
“Please…” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
And just when Lumine was beginning to lose the last of her hope, another voice suddenly broke through the storm.
“Tugarin, go!”
Lumine lifted her head slightly. A few seconds later, a dark shape appeared through the snow.
A dog came toward her without hesitation, immediately beginning to inspect her with its nose, brushing against her legs before gently nudging her side as if trying to make sure she was still okay. Once it seemed satisfied that she was alive, the dog turned toward the storm and began barking, not at her, but toward someone she still couldn’t see.
Lumine felt what little strength she had left slowly slipping away. Her eyelids grew heavier, and her vision began to blur as, somewhere in the distance, a figure made its way through the snow. She couldn’t make out their face, but she could see two golden eyes emerging from the endless white. They were strangely gentle, reassuring. And Lumine found herself clinging to them, as if those eyes were the last thing in the world capable of giving her hope.
The figure reached her quickly and dropped to his knees in the snow. One hand gently brushed against her face, moving a few wet strands of hair away from her forehead, while the other settled on her shoulder, holding her up.
“Hey…” he murmured, carefully checking that she was still conscious and breathing.
His fingers moved to her cold neck, as if checking her pulse, his touch surprisingly gentle despite the urgency in his movements.
Then a deep, soft voice reached her.
“I found you. It’s going to be okay.”
Lumine tried to keep her eyes open, clinging to his face, to those golden eyes that seemed to promise her I won’t leave you alone. But most of all, she clung to the warmth she could barely feel anymore.
But her strength abandoned her completely in the end while the darkness slowly swallowed her whole.