Winter was back.

The best season. The season when cold took the land and death swiftly followed many. The time when his friends vanished the most slowly and stayed by his side. He was getting bigger. Much bigger and very quickly and that meant his friends were getting bigger too. Still occasionally the boy would clutch a rat or sea bird in maw, today he clutched a hare. Sometimes he had bigger things, but still the boy was fairly small. Unable to yet carry the bodies of Foxes and Coyotes and, yes, even the occasional loner that he found drifted away in t free lands. Hare’s were his current favorite followed by foxes that might forever hold the number one spot once he was bigger, or small wolves pending on his feeling, but hares were perfect right ow and there were so much more to them that he liked. Their eyes were large and expressive, their fur soft to the touch. Their feet padless making them so different from his own and their ears were long and fun to place with but they seemed to usually be the first thing to slowly rot and go. Winter though… winter changed everything.

Erebos had spent most of his year growing considerably. His mother had vanished and many of his other siblings had as well. He thought he smelled the faintest wafts of his mother but after she vanished he hid himself in a rabbits hole and since expanded it to his needs and now it was a treasure trove of the dead. He was getting big enough now that no one could take them but time unless he was away for any amount of time. No, he was bigger than even some adult wolves now. Heavily mis-shapened and gangly with paws far bigger than fit his body but it didn’t mean he didn’t know how to snap growl or hold back anything from touching what was his. Not when he was almost 30 inches tall at 2 years old… Thickly built like a tank. He was doing fine on his own mostly. He hunted when he needed too and picked up friends along the way. Right now though he was simply… walking. Happy with his fresher friend, though there were parts of him that were open slightly… however the cold made it stiff and little could harm his new friend unless someone wanted to eat him. Right now it was his.

He moved himself through the thin layer of snow stopping only once he could hear the faint sound of the river near by before setting his friend down and setting himself up to hunt. He moved along the taller brush scaring out some ducks that didn’t want to be in the icy cold water and managing to kill two after quite a bit of time at work. Returning to his friend with his prizes he set one down before the dead brown hare and the other he began ripping into ravenously. ”You do not like it?” He says halfway through his meal, feathers all over him and the area surrounding him. But it did not reply, not out loud anyway. So the dark boy rolled his shoulders and continued eating. It wasn’t like they often ate what he gave them anyway so he usually ate it after he was done with his first kill as long as they didn’t want it and so it would be the same this time.