How long had it been since she had journeyed up this road - since the cream-colored horse had nearly escaped, meeting her at the end of the path? Some time. It had been summer then, long before the leaves of the tallest trees had shifted hues, taking on the fiery tones of amber, crimson, and gold. Before the ball. Before a certain dragon had whisked her off and kept her in his mountainous keep, until well after the snows had begun to fall. It felt as if it had been decades, or perhaps it was merely the sense of aging she’d felt in the last months. Ymir didn’t quite know how, but she knew that with Ea’s disappearance, with her kidnapping, with the strange fixation she felt toward the peculiar captor that had inexplicably set her free –the present was a time of change. And, sometimes, change required guidance. Without Ea, perhaps that was what had driven her to the dark, soft-eyed man who had a way with horses.

Reaching to grasp the softness of the grey fur at her shoulders, she pulled it more tightly around herself. Another tug brought the hood closer to her face, the longest and darkest of the soft pet hairs tickling her cheeks which had long since pinkened with cold. Her cloak dragged against the new snowfall, leaving a small trail as the mage went, the crystals clumping at the bottom of the hem. Having charted course to where she’d met him last, only to be turned away with a new location, the journey had become unexpectedly long. Her feet, safely warm in boots, ached from all the walking. The same could be said of her back, as she clasped the straps of her pack once again. It was at times like these that she might’ve liked a horse.

Foot-travel, however, did have its perks. Along her journey toward the outskirts of the human city, Ymir happened upon several plants which only sprouted in winter, managing to collect some of the crimson berries and other samples well enough before her fingers slowed from the cold. It was then that the snow had returned, the sky a tired grey above. Mercifully, she was close to her destination then – she’d resumed her travel with a renewed vigor as the crystalline flakes began falling heavily from the sky.

With the weight of the winter heavy in the air, her breaths leaving puffs in her wake, she finally found the fence that had been described to her. By that point, her muscles and bones ached with cold, and night was beginning to set in. Brushing her bangs and the frost from her face, the mage crunched down the road as quickly as she could. What she found, however, was standing ruin of a home, long since charred to ash.

Brushing a mittened hand over her mouth, her brows scrunched. She was nearly ready to drop her pack at that point. After a moment of passing her weight back and forth from foot to foot, her eyes finally fell to what appeared to be a well-worn foot-path in the snow. She would need to make her fingers work well enough to make a torch soon… Pacing toward it, she cleared her throat before she tried calling out. “Hello?! Enzo?” She paused, stilling, waiting for a response.
Hoping for a response. 

Enzo Chance