Though appeared and was patently looked stumbling with each step the young man had taken, he sauntered despite so. And in so doing, in order to rise his half-beaten self up from the depth of the ice crater filled with frosty air as he sucked it inside his lungs with gluttony, for he needed the chilling oxygen that densely packed around this cold surrounding; unbearable chilling sensation that pierced like many small needles into pores of his skin, especially that one bone that jutted out, was being exposed with too grandiose… smearing wholly the supposed-white bone in bright red. Of an irony… the only presence that warmed himself up other than the only presence that became the source of his excruciating pain; warm and red bodily fluid that overflowed out of his non-existence left arm that just recently had been amputated – withered like a snowfall,
Once in the skies, on the ground now… like now he did fall as he sauntered away from the ice crater, leaving his mark of downfall behind. With most of his hair had withered away, turning nearly all strands of his hair icy white… while half of his left face too was turning withered in white; mark of a dreadful frostbite, biting blind his left eye as he gazed up with what left of his eye… stargazing the being, who was amongst countless of stars, who was responsible for his wretched state,
To bleat not to the being, over his misfortune; after all, this soothing smile of his did not indicate so. It was the only kind of visage he was able to draw out, which served only to cheer up himself and to abate his own unpleasant sitch, even though the half-hearted chortle that choked its way out of the young man's throat did not sound so hopeful; it was so obvious as he stood shivering, at last began to utter albeit stammering,
"H-how foolish I am… to have mistaken the Old-Wise Osala-Ongelé… as an Animal of Anomaly… treated them as a wild wolf no less, haha…"
The right arm he closely wrapped around the jutted bone of his out of the non-existent left arm of his. Struggling to keep his warm blood from overflowing excessively, to not lose it more, as the young man too was struggling to keep his words in the most apologetic tone while stammering a lot; his words felt like being dragged long with each phrase he uttered alongside with the long breath,
"…I never expected… Wisps of Winter themselves… to take over the appearance of a wolf… giving the already fearsome beast… with even more terrifying power,"
The beast he mentioned; the beast that had messed him up this badly… a three-tailed wolf whose colossal body wholly encased in ice seemingly sucking up all the heat from the surrounding air – leaving not even the slightest warmness. With both of the beast's large icy wings, hovering amongst the countless stars that appeared even brighter—even clearer and sharper—in such cold enviros, the icy beast staring down coldly at the beaten up young man. And for the first time, the beast appeared to be capable of conveying verbally the thoughts inside through the muzzle – opening and closing. Voicing out quite a unique lingo between seemingly predated words and phrase; more so, through the beast's muzzle, three distinct voices could be heard echoing and somewhat chiming… the three voices that took turns to speak to the young man,
One voice in particular, was a male one; the first to-be-heard voice that was stoical and urbane, but slow and old-sounding,
"O éral tila,"
It was loud and clear; a resounding voice that the young man for the first time heard coming from that floating icy beast, addressing him with quite a moniker of a native tongue… the almost forgotten language of his fatherland of which he long truly to hear, more so after many winters, caused him to quietly muse to himself, "Éral tila… little child, huh? Been long since I was being called that… especially with that kind of accent, haha."
"I am but impressed, o éral tila," the stoical male, old-sounding voice of the beast then continued speaking, focusing still the young man below, "You fought valiantly… o éral tila… maugre never be enough of a challenge for kéwéd… for us," felt like words being dragged longer than what necessary, though through the utter genuinely was the beast's old and urbane voice trying to praise the young man who could do nothing but catching his own breath, "Maugre losing one of your limbs, maugre losing blood tons in your rising… yet here you are… stumbling not with each step taken as you appro—"
About to make a closure to the now-spoken line, that was when all of a sudden—in an abrupt manner—another voice came to chime; was heard out of the beast's icy muzzle… rudely cutting off the beast's first voice from finishing his line,
"Aargh! Too long; too lame!"
It was rasp and harsh sounding with somewhat officious tone, yet a high-pitched voice that of a little girl – a very annoyed little girl. Moody and petulant was the first impression drawn from the second voice that was out of the beast's icy muzzle; a loud and crystal-clear voice of a very annoyed little girl. the annoyed second voice that seemed bickering over what just uttered by the first voice,
"For two hundreds and seventy seven times I have told you to stop talking like that! It is so lame, so annoying to hear it. It has gone stale for so long time, y'know? No human ever talks like that anymore. That'll only make us sound like a misanthrope, or maybe even a nonconformist at worst," the second voice carried on, tirelessly making a fuss over the first voice's parlance,
"Oh my apologies, noncon-what was that again? And what… in the name of Skýjadreki is this… misantrop supposed to mean?" similarly annoyed, yet managed to at least hide it from plain sight, the first voice was able to preserve the kind of stoical facade as the first voice back to argue; keeping the cold-headed and tone of wise-sounding, "This… with a proofless assumption that you haven't know it yet, that I… always have been speaking this way. And no human ever gone against oróc ulok… my way… of rútam… of spe—"
Stubbornly persisted still pursuing the ideal parlance that the first voice keenly kept, the second voice for sure cut off quickly before he could finish the line dragging on too long. A shrill exclaimed of the second voice was enough to 'cancel' the first one quiet,
"Okay okay okay… we, or in this case, I understand," cried out the second voice, sounding more annoyed, "But in any case! I'll be the one doin' the talking here. And you better be shut up."
Whoever owned this kind of eccentric voice was, that was chiming as wall as it was charmingly shrilling like a sibilant breeze of winter, that heard like an annoyed little girl. Whatever was the kind of entity that this kind of peculiar voice supposed to be; supposed to be inside the mind—if not inside the soul—of this giant wolf encased in frost and ice, the beast's golden-brown eyes back on focusing them on the young man far below, looking minuscule yet no longer just standing about,
Through the beast's keenly eyes, the second voice was able to perceive the ignorance the young man gave. Seemingly making no a fuss about a little bit of bickering that happened far above, the young man seemed to saunter closer to that newly regenerated young woman of his kind—or mayhap not, judging from the woman's distinguishable ear shape—then gave her his winter jacket, helping her to cover it over her bare skin nearly without any fabric sheltering her from the chilling air. Despite the left sleeve was torn to shreds, and for sure looked so shabby after quite a fierce battle, the important essence of such garment apparently still was present,
Through the beast's keenly eyes, staring down with a meaningful look, the second voice was able to perceive the impression the young man gave inadvertently; that which was engraved through the beast's keenly eyes, simply was his altruism—or kindliness, in more… prosaic term,
Despite the surrounding chilling air pin-pricked his skin as his own body slowly was like getting frozen from the blood loss; uttered no word but wore a warm smile as he approached the still-baffled damsel sitting on the frozen lake as she looked upon his assuring feature while he was putting his winter jacket wrapped over her shoulder then over her upper body… though shabby-looking, this winter wear of his, sure was still warm inside. Exactly that was what she felt, till soon she noticed the jutting bone of his left arm which was badly bleeding yet fortunately now… had somehow frozen like a solid crimson ice that practically had stopped the bleeding from occurring more. Yet her concern glance was still there and was persistent; easily depicted out of her petite feature,
To which the young man replied with reassuring tone, took the wound lightly, accompanied by awkward chuckles of his, "A-ah don't mind it. It's not as bad as it seems to be, haha~"
All was calm, like a peaceful snowy night sparkled by stars hanging high above the two of them; it was chilly as it was but fortunately breezeless… but not for long,
"How insolent of you, human creature!"
A chiming and echoing voice—of a completely new voice now sounded like a male one this time—the third voice that all of a sudden was heard blaring and shouting angrily inside the ears of the two of them; followed by a blast of wind and frost, like something gigantic just dropped down with violent… crushing onto the frozen lake with a heavy bang and loud cracking sound of ice surface, creating a violent wave which then rushed towards the two of them. Hitting them both cold; almost getting blasted away, especially the young damsel who was still in weakened state if not for the young man protecting her in front… now facing directly the ice-encased beast who was floating in the air no more,
"How insolent of you, human creature," the third voice repeated what had just been said, though now with a lower vocal power, making the third voice was clear to tell: young but overconfident voice that of an adolescent male, and seemed like a short-tempered one, "To turn your funny little face away from us, impishly paying us no respect when we speak… are you trying to regale us again with your puny—"
"You too shut up," like usual, before even words could be finished out of the third voice, the second voice quickly cut it off; still feeling annoyed but now seemed to be less enthusiastic of being so, hence no longer yelled at the other voices; feeling tired perhaps for doing that again; the second voice let out the weariness with a deep sigh instead, before the utterance—with somewhat a little seriousness this time—of this annoyed little girl returned focusing on the young man,
"Human, let us get this straight," starting to utter was the second voice of the ice wolf, with utter tranquil, "We never seek conflict with you, nor have we ever wished for your demise. We just tried to discourage you to leave from our lake and be done with it… if you know what we mean, don't you?"
"Yeah… very accurately…"
Despite the beast's frosty breath he could clearly sense hitting his face with each words the beast uttered right in front of him, the young man replied with utter calmness; being such an expert of hiding his own anxious…
"You should have ended me right there and then when you unleashed that frost breath of yours right into my whole body… watching it shattered into bits of smaller ice… yet you did not. Deliberately missed your best shot for the last seconds, and let it hitting half of my face instead. And you should have left me bleeding to death after you 'disarmed' my only mean to fight back… yet you did not. Instead you froze my blood, stopping it from pouring out even more…"
…stretching out the jutting bone from his severed left arm that was encased in solid crimson ice undoubtedly made from his own blood, the young man tried to make sure his guess,
"…it's your doing, is it?"
"Yes," answered the beast's second voice abruptly, the same time as the annoyed tone of a little girl returned to nuance, "What of it? You wanna thank us for saving your life? Like we've just said before, we never seek your demise. All those were merely our way to warn you to leave our lake… to leave that matter to us,"
"That matter, huh?" intrigued, the young man slightly tilted his head towards behind his shoulder where the young damsel still was sitting in waiting,
"If you already know, the smoother thing goes," impassively, the second voice soon answered back,
"Eh, I don't think so," rudely dispute the beast's seemingly subtle mercy for his own life, a little grin was followed not long afterward impishly, "Like I said… you should have ended me right there and then, didn't I?"
"…"
A warning has been given, and it was being ignored wholeheartedly, even after a whole minute of suspense silence, the ignorance the young man arrogantly shown off still was tarry,
"What a foolish human," sounded disappointed, the second voice—of a little girl—was carrying on with a sigh of somewhat sadness; the sorrow that could somewhat be felt in each word, "No… it is I who is foolish enough to believe human wouldn't do such a foolish thing over the most foolish cause… blinded by lust,"
No more idle chat trying to convince one side to save his own life, as there was mercy no more; the three voices of the icy beast at least had tried their best of doing so: the futile attempt that apparently never was a worthwhile exchange between words, and never will found a gratifying conclusion apparently. Like the young man had alluded, the beast should have ended him right there and then… the young man's little wish that soon about to be fulfilled,
"very well, human… your foolish little wish… shall be our obligation to fulfill,"
.
.
.
.
.
"You sure you don't wanna me to intervene?"
Like footsteps in the snow, it led as it showed though hidden most thoroughly amongst the other vast of whiteout though snow drizzling no more. Two footsteps—two pairs of the same yet so distinct two footsteps—and one of which that had surfaced since long as though had been dragged quite long ago across the ice crystal clusters forming this snow layer thick enough to flood the ankles of this mysterious figure of a man,
A man cladded tightly in parka—thickly hooded winter jacket made of animal skin—stood on top of a chain of many icy cliffs surrounding the frozen lake below, and so this one specific cliff was high enough from which this queer figure was capable of observing from above… observing quite a dramatic act performed above the frozen stage by a hero's journey saving a beauty in distress from being crushed by the beast under its gigantic claws,
Such was a play; a play that apparently this mysterious figure had been enjoyed since beginning; a play that was near its end of an act… an act that would be very well ended with tragedy. Not quite an amused ending for this man; hence that what he questioned prior of this,
With a concern, though it wasn't heard such through his mischievous tone of voice as he spoke. Seemingly with a snide remark that gave somewhat an impression of a concern demeanor, yet not so much with his seemingly psychopathic visage putting on a disturbing duchenne smile across his long and narrow face reaching both of his narrow eyes. Amused; tilting his happily smiling face—the only body feature of his that could be seen under his shady hood—and turned it over his shoulder to stare at another presence standing still next to him… another mysterious figure cladded in an entire white robe; a color of whole white to hide his presence—even face and stance—amongst other snow,
"Your precious Elf will die… and for real this time, you know," the first mysterious figure carried on, sounding concern though he actually was amused and blatantly overexpressing it, "You sure about that, eh, Master Lucafar?"