AU: Tales of the Snowfields

Context: Sabre tells the story of how he ended up going through the portal in the first place.

Warning: Mentions of war, starvation, freezing, and death.

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[Sabre's POV]

The room is simple, just a bed, nightstand, and a table in a box-shaped room, a door across from the bed I'm sitting in. However, everything is clearly made for people much bigger than I am. Including the sweater that was given to me.

I was scared when I woke up at first, but the... odd people here made it very clear they weren't going to hurt me. Despite their intimidating size and strange animalistic features, they've actually been pretty nice so far.

Speaking of, the red one from earlier... 'Scout', I think his name was? Knocks on the door for a second before entering, and I sit up as he walks through the room. He has a warm smile on his face and enters slowly, I think trying his best not to startle me. He sits down on the chair next to the bed, folding his hands together. He's completely red, hair, skin, fur (that he has everywhere I can see except for his head, fingers, palms, and upper half of his neck for some reason??) and all his clothes, him wearing a simple t-shirt, pants, and boots at the moment. His hands seem clawed at the ends of his fingers, and as he smiles at me I see sharp teeth. There's red spots or splotches on his arms that match the color of his hair (not the weird fur) that are most frequent around his wrists, and fade as they go further up. His ears are a weird shape, also covered in fur and more like a wolf's or something.

"Hey. So, are you doing alright?" He asks. "Anything hurt, or feeling off?"

"No. Just still cold, mostly." I reply, a bit quietly. I feel nervous because he towers over me. And not just in the normal sense of it, I think I'd only reach up to his waist if we stood next to each other.

"Did the Darkness do anything to you?"

"The... what?"

"You don't know what the Darkness is?" He asks, surprised. "It's the thing that was chasing after you when we found you at that tree."

"Oh, uh... most it did was grab my leg. It just scared me."

"It grabbed you-?"

At that, Red almost gets up, looking concerned. I jump at the sudden movement. He stops and raises his hands in a non-threatening gesture, slowly sitting back down.

"Sorry, sorry. Just- the Darkness usually infects anything it touched." He explains. "It's dangerous. Do you know if it managed to infect you?"

"Uh... let me check."

I move the large blanket off me and cross my legs, lifting my pant leg up to see the one that was grabbed. The only thing that's there is a slightly reddish pink mark in the shape of a hand clasped around my ankle. It doesn't hurt, but it feels a bit colder than the rest of my skin as I run my hand over it.

"Doesn't look like it." I say, moving the blanket back over me.

"Yeah, it looks alright... you must still have a little luck with you." Scout chuckles at that last part. "Speaking of... I wanted to ask you something."

"What is it?"

"How exactly did you end up going through the portal in the first place? Or, at least, do you know how you got here?"

"I mean... it doesn't really make that much sense, but sort of?" I answer. "It's probably nothing useful or anything."

"Would it be alright if you told me? I don't mind."

"Uh, okay..."

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Winter had hit my town early at the worst time possible.

We had just been attacked because of a war going on, and the invading soldiers took almost everything valuable. And almost everything we had stocked for the incoming change in weather. Everyone was worried about surviving the cold. We had enough winter clothes and other ways to keep warm, sure, but the soldiers had taken our coal, our firewood, and most importantly most of our food. So of course, there was a shortage and we were told to ration what we had left.

Everyone was cutting down the trees in a panic to try and get enough firewood to last them through the snow, and some people worked themselves to exhaustion or... in some cases, death doing that. Soon enough, everyone had cut down the trees within a reasonable distance of the town. We had to start going out to the forest a few miles away to get firewood.

And then, winter came early. Much earlier than anyone expected. The overnight freeze itself killed a lot of people in worse housing since they couldn't insulate themselves properly, and the rest of the town struggled to find food. Hunting was a good option at first, but then people hunted too many animals and either got all the ones close to us or drive out the ones that were left. Some people tried ice fishing, but the few small fish caught were barely enough to feed one person, let alone a family. Obviously, we couldn't grow plants, and when people started trying to forage for food a few of them died because they ate the wrong berries or mushroom. The town was shrinking fast, and the situation wasn't getting any better.

Soon people were getting angry because of that, and started taking it out on the town officials, who were struggling just as much as everyone else. They tried to keep everyone calm, but nobody would listen and eventually people started vandalizing their stuff.

And then somebody took it too far.

The town officials were holding a meeting at one of their houses to discuss how to find ways to better the situation, when they went to start a fire in the fireplace, and the entire building went down. Someone had laced the firewood they had with gunpowder. All of them... didn't make it. It was never found out who did it, but there wasn't much time to think about it before a group of people appointed themselves as the new town council.

And they were... rough. They were more tyrants than anything. They kept everyone in line through fear and only ever sent other people out to try and find anything to support the town, while they stayed inside their newly acquired houses that used to belong to the last council and stayed warm with the hoard of firewood they collected from people as "tax". Some of the townspeople froze to death because they didn't have enough wood to keep a fire going, but they didn't care. And nobody could do anything about it because they seized everything that was or could have been used as a weapon.

I was selected one day to be one of the unlucky ones to be sent out. So I went with the group, and we actually managed to find something. A moose, died of a natural cause, and close enough to town that we could carry it back. It was enough to feed a lot of people, and everyone was so happy when we came back with it.

But the self-proclaimed council tried to take it, saying they'd ration it evenly. We knew darn well though that they wouldn't, they'd just keep it for themselves and only leave us scraps, so me and the rest of the group argued with them until everyone else joined in too and got them to back off. That night we actually split the meat evenly between everyone that was left, and for the majority of us it was the first time in a while we got a proper meal. Including me...

When I was asleep that night though, the new council forced themselves into my house, and the next thing I knew I was waking up to them dragging me through the snow with my hands tied. I didn't have any winter gear on, just the clothes I was sleeping in and I guess I was kind of lucky I put on my shoes when I went to go see who was at the door. But it didn't help much, I was still out there in the middle of winter with no protective clothing.

They found a spot in a forest and dropped me there, leaving me to freeze in the dark. By the time I got my hands untied, they were completely gone and I had no idea where I was. I guess they did the same to the rest of the group I was with, for arguing with them earlier.

I wandered for a while. It was still dark, and extremely cold. I didn't know where I was going or what was in front of me, but I could only hole that I would find some kind of shelter that would keep me warm. I started to freeze pretty soon, but then I found a cave with a staircase in it in the side of a hill.

I was just glad to find shelter, but when I went down the stairs I quickly realized it was a tomb of some kind. A large stone coffin sat in the middle of a small carved-out room, the entire place dilapidated and starting to fall apart. Whatever it was, it was really old.

There were a lot of carvings on the walls and on stone tablets that I didn't understand, but there was one on the coffin that I could. I tend to read out loud, so I did that, but as soon as I finished some weird stuff started happening.

First the temperature in the room dropped, and when I turned around the stairs back up were somehow blocked by dark blue ice that I couldn't see through. Then I heard a noise in front of me and turned back to the coffin, and I saw the lid of it was gone, and there was something pulling itself out of the coffin.

It looked skeletal and long dead, tattered clothes loosely fitting around it, and it was around my height. Its eyes were dark and looked hollow. The last thing I expected it to do was speak, but I can't remember what it said. Then, everything went bright.

Suddenly I was in a glowing corridor with weird black stuff on the floor leading towards a... portal-looking thing. I could barely see, it was so bright. The corridor was warm though, so I took a few minutes to warm up and try to make sense of what was going on.

Soon though, something like lightning started striking near me, pushing me towards the portal. I didn't have any other choice as it got closer to me.

So, I jumped through.

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"-And the next thing I saw was the snow, and... you." I finish. "Sorry for freaking out, by the way..."

"Oh... don't worry about it, Sabre." Scout says softly. He looks upset. "You were scared and didn't know what was happening, your reaction is pretty understandable."

There's a few moments of quiet. Then, Scout looks at me and points towards the door.

"You uh, said you hadn't had an actual meal in a while- are you hungry now?" He asks. "I could go get you some soup or something, if you'd like?"

"Oh, uh, that'd be nice, actually." I reply, smiling at him. "Thank you."

He smiles back, then gets up and leaves the room. I'm then left alone again, just my own thoughts to keep me occupied in this... oversized room.

...Why do the people here look so weird-?