An arctic bale blustered against their skin, waking them, leading them out of a heavenly surreal place, back to reality. Surrendered by the opaque haze, Lena's eyes were straining to see through the murk.

"Where is Pacu?" she asked when bright white was all she could see wherever she looked.

"Hold on," said Finn, nervously tightening his grip on her waist when the ice around them crunched and gnashed. "Don't——move——a muscle."

Her eyes were wide and ungiving. "Finn, please don't let us drop into the water."

"Don't worry," he said, unable to obey his own advice. "Let's just move calmly with caution."

Her body slid to his right side, slowly, as her every move caused the splits in the ice to multiply. Bundles of snow flew from every direction, carried by a rampant wind, howling and hissing. With her hands, Lena felt the vibration of Chione's skittish tramps.

"We're too heavy!" she cried as she watched a dispiriting crack zip in a zigzag line towards the hooves of her steed. "If Chione keeps clomping, she'll break the ice!"

Without forewarning, Finn pushed Lena away from the unstable zone. Feeling the many chipped fragments digging between his shoulder plates, Finn failed to identify a plan where he could move without falling into the lethal water.

"What do I do?" asked Lena, anxious to help.

"Just stay horizontal, don't stand up."

"Why?"

"Basic physics; if you put pressure on one point, it's more likely to break. You have to distribute your weight evenly over your body."

"Should I call for Pacu?"

"No," said Finn in a fast concern. "We have to reduce the impact on the ice, not add to it."

"Well, what do you want me to do then?"

"Where are the backpacks?"

"Secured to the saddles."

"Son of a breach," Finn whispered, then said to her, "That's alright. Can you take off your jacket?"

She did it without questioning his train of thought.

"Now hold on to one sleeve and throw me the other. Don't let go of it."

The tip of Finn's fingers reached the seam. He brought it close enough to gain a firm grasp and began to heave himself to solid ground. Water came through the ruptured surface, making it even more challenging to move without slipping.

Scratching pieces of ice came with every flake of snow, poking and spiking their bare skin.

"This is worse than acid rain!" Lena shouted, her voice competing against the uproar of the storm.

"We need to find haven!"

While shielding their eyes with their forearms, Finn and Lena proceeded toward the shore they could not see. Beneath the rapidly fallen snow, the lake slowly disappeared from sight, and with it the horizon line.

"I can't distinguish the ground from the sky!" said Lena, her legs struggling to withstand the forces of winds, and her cheeks suffering in agony.

"Just try to keep moving straight forward."

"What?" she could barely hear or see him.

"Keep moving!"

They called for Pacu but all hopes of his showing had perished. Finn knew that Pacu couldn't hear their screams, as they could hardly hear themselves. 

Heroya refused any demands and pulled himself free of the clench of Finn's fist. However, he did not run, nor did he act wildly. Heroya kneeled down on the ice, his head lowered, his eyes closed.

Lena could not see through the confusion. The world appeared as one shade of white, and she felt lost in it. The color quickly drained from her face, she whimpered, and her legs collapsed underneath her.

"Finn?" she cried.

"I'm right here," he replied, and blindly took her hand.

"I can't keep walking."

"I know. It's okay."

Finn crouched next to her, she stowed her face in his chest, whereupon he put his arm over her head. Heroya and Chione sat parallel to each other, bordering their riders, giving them shelter from both sides.

"They are covering us from the snow," said Finn, thankful for Heroya's actions. "We'll be alright."

"What's happening? How could the weather change this drastically?"

"It may be a blizzard. Let's hope I'm wrong."

"Do I even want to know why?"

He gave a hesitant explanation, "Blizzards can last anything from four hours to numerous weeks."

"Weeks! Finn, we'll die!"

"I won't let anything happen to you."

He towered over her. Both of his arms were protective of her face through the storm, leaving his own face exposed to the stinging dangers of the climate. He closed his eyes for a while, juggling too many thoughts in his head until he became too tired to keep up. The cold robbed their energy, their bodies wore heavy. 

After hours of chattering teeth and shivering shoulders, Lena and Finn could not fight it any longer and fell into a deep slumber, depriving them of their senses, letting them forget about the snow, the wind, and the thin ice below.

His shoulders heavy from the settled snow, his fingers numb from the cold, and his eyes too frozen to open, Finn woke up. He rubbed the ice off his face and looked around. The storm had passed, the sky was dull and dusky, and besides the pale mountains fading in the farness, all he saw was snow. Miles and miles of snow.

He shook Lena, longing the missing response. For the duration of a sharp heartbeat, Finn thought she may not awaken, but she gave a sign of life in the fullness of time.

Her head plodded wearily. "I know I've asked you this before, but—are we dead?"

"No, we're still alive."

"Barely. I'm so cold."

To generate heat, Finn rubbed his hand up and down her back and warmed her slightly. Meanwhile, he obtained orientation, and when he stood up, Heroya and Chione did too. From his backpack, he drew the map and found the lake they stood on.

"The good news is, we are halfway there."

"And the bad news?" Lena rose as well, her joints feeling damaged.

"No Pacu."

Lena skimmed their environment. The breeze had taken the lead in a passionate dance with the snow, like tiny young clouds, soft flakes were picked up from the flawless vast surface and spun and twirled across it.

"What do we do now?" she asked, feeling sorrow.

Finn grabbed the leash. "We keep going."

"Do you think he may have broken through the ice?"

"It's impossible to tell by looks. There are no tracks, and if there is a hole in the ice, the snow has covered it smoothly."

"Are you saying that any step we take could be on fractured ice?"

"Yes. Any step we take may be into water."

Thus they walked, one step at a time, while the night was surely approaching. The less light remained in the sky, the more challenging it became to spot the near mountains. But Finn led them all safely to the lakeside, where, after a long-lasting walk, their feet touched the sturdy ground. Lena was finally able to take a deep breath and know that she was parting danger.

"Soon the sky will have a loss of light, leaving us standing in the darkest of nights. And then? What do we do? We can't see the mountains and have nothing to aim at. How can I find coordinates with the given circumstances? Sunrise won't be seen for too long." While addressing Lena, Finn's hands stroke compassionately over Heroya's long neck. "I wish for nothing more than to tell you it will end well, to give you hope and make you smile, but I don't even have to say the truth vocally, for it is blatantly obvious by one look at my face, that all that is a lost cause. I don't know what to do."

"I do," said Lena. Surprised, Finn looked at her mounting Chione. "We keep going."

"Where to? We can't see anything."

"Oh, I see plenty," she said, smiling. "Look!"

Something bright arose to the rear of the mountains, overspreading its aspects with a fervent brilliance and an eerie contour. A familiar, yet peculiar silhouette was in a spotlight along the skyline, blessing the night with the rare blaze of a haloed orb.

"A moon," she said, her breath taken away.

"He's escorted," Finn said, drawing her attention to a second smaller moonrise.

"I have no words!"

His mind, his heart, and his stomach were all filled with the warmth of happiness, feeling grateful that Lena was able to see a moon as she had desired not long ago. He mounted Heroya, bringing his eyes on the same level as hers.

"Do you see the illuminated ring circling the higher moon?"

Keeping her eyes attached to the magical view, she answered in the affirmative, and, unable to resist the temptation, added, "I even know the term for it."

"You do?" he said, with a look of doubt.

"It's a moon dog."

Finn couldn't stop a chuckle.

"What? Am I wrong?"

"No, technically you are not wrong. The scientific term is paraselene."

She rolled her eyes at him, he tossed a smile at her.

"No one likes a know-it-all."

"No one likes a sulky pout."

"Oh!" exclaimed Lena, too flustered to continue.

"I'm kidding!" he said, seeing her expression becoming rather serious. "I think it's cute."

The color had returned to her face, and more vividly than ever. 

Finn and Lena steered Heroya and Chione forward, towards the mountains, and walked for a minute without speaking a word to each other. After the compliment, Lena found it to be her turn to respond, though she had no words and began to imagine that their silence was to last through the entire ride. At first, she was resolved not to break it, until fancying the possession of knowledge over the sporadic phenomenon.

"So, what causes a paraselene?"

"I wouldn't want to bother you with unbidden facts."

"You know I wasn't serious. I like being taught, especially by you. Besides, not to correct you, but this time I did bid for the facts."

"Who's the know-it-all now?" he grinned. "I hope you know, I wasn't serious either."

"Of course. Trust me, at the rare occasion of you joking, I can actually tell."

"You take that back! It's not that rare," he argued, unsure of its truth.

"It's rarer than a moon dog on Boreas!"

"Watch out, I'll push you into the snow," he warned, moving closer.

"If I'm going down, you're going with me," she laughed.

"Yes, that was proven to us by today's very unfortunate events." Finn's smile died with his words, and his mind thought of Pacu.

Lena, detecting his dejection, was determined to cheer him up and restated as an attempt the question about paraselenes. 

Finn answered, "They're caused by refraction and reflection from millions of tiny ice crystals. Since they are of visual appearance only, everyone sees them differently. The halo I see is not the halo you see."

"Where did you learn—"

Heroya suddenly fainted, fell to the ground, rolled to his side, and dropped Finn into the snow. Without delay, Finn jumped up to check on Heroya.

"Finn, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said, kneeling before Heroya. The animal's breaths were rapid and irregular.

"What happened?" Lena alighted Chione.

"I don't know. Help me take his saddle off, he has trouble breathing."

Once freed from the kit, Finn examined the snout. Dripped blood colored the snow beneath it. Finn looked up to Lena, his eyes speaking volume.

"What's wrong with him?" Lena asked, her eyes filled with water.

"I—I don't know." Finn pet Heroya's head while he tried to see why he was bleeding internally. He had no wounds and showed no other symptoms. His head lay still.

"Can you help him?"

"I—" Finn shook his head, "He needs a vet or a doctor of some kind. I can't help him if I don't know what's wrong with him." As Finn spoke, his looks wandered over the dying body and back to Lena, in horror, he stopped and stared at her. "Oh my god! Your eyes."

Like tears, blood rolled down her cheeks. She wiped it off with two fingers, and the last thing she saw before losing her consciousness, was her blood-coated hand. She staggered through the snow and failed to find something to keep herself standing.

"Lena!" At warp speed, Finn hurried to catch her. His mind was foggy, impenetrable. A feeling of dread crept up from the pit of his stomach. Heroya's breaths occurred more intermittently, and though Finn did not know what caused it, he was confident that Lena was facing the same fate.

He placed her on Chione's back and, in a hectic panic, searched the backpacks but found nothing of aid. He pulled out an apple, and in a quiet moment, he remembered the only thing that Heroya and Lena had in common. The longer he stared at the apple, the more obvious it became.

"You two shared food," he said, looking at Heroya's cold body first, and then up at Lena. Every muscle in his face loosened, his mouth stood open. "The carrot—."

He closed the zipper of the backpack and threw it over his shoulders. Pulling the reins with all his strength could not move the massive animal.

"Please, Chione, move!" Chione refused and threw her head around, her antlers nearly stabbed Finn. "Lena needs help! Come on! We need to get her back to the village!"

A look of suffrage met a look of despair. "Please. I can't do this without you."

Chione calmed down and stepped away from Heroya.

"Good girl!"

Finn led the way, through the dark and the snow, and onto the lake anew. Following his old footsteps, he walked hastily ahead, hoping with every step that the ice would hold and spare his life, for Lena's sake. 

The echo of eldritch howls made Finn stop to look back at the shore, where Heroya squealed and cried as shadows crept up on him. Finn could not watch the helpless animal get attacked by the night's mountain predators. 

Finn continued forward and whispered in solicitude, "I'm sorry, Heroya."