Days after the first of her many episodes, Scypha awoke to find herself alone.
Her bedroll was covered in snow, and the fireplace dead beside it, but Darko was nowhere to be seen. She arose from the covers, the chill air stinging her face, and blew her nose into the white snow. Perhaps the wolf had gone hunting.
She took a few moments to fully awaken, wiping the moisture from her face and blinking a hundred times. Then she got to work.
Walking around, she gathered several armfuls of mostly dry sticks from the nearby trees and rekindled the fire. She rummaged through her pack, retrieving a loaf of tough, cold bread. While doing so, she noticed Darko's footsteps in the snow, but she didn't catch sight of him.
While the bread warmed by the fire, she got up and started doing jumping jacks. Once she felt a little less cold, her stiff legs began to hurt and she got tired, so she folded up her bedroll and tied it to her pack.
The cold stung her hands as she worked, prompting her to wiggle her fingers to alleviate the discomfort ... But that brought back into focus the memory of that cute, fragile little bird, clutched in her trembling hands just before she blacked out.
Her whole body shook, and she lost her grip on the bedroll. She found herself smiling, envisioning the sticky crimson and the beautiful, smashed-up little bones...
She shook her head wildly. "Stop it!" she shouted. "Stop it, stop it! That's not me! That's not me! What's going on?!"
Breathing hard, she ran back to the fireplace, everything forgotten, and looked around, trying to focus on something – anything else.
"What's happening to me?" she gasped, inwardly feeling horrified even as her lips curved into a twisted grin. "By the god Vifafey, what is wrong with me?"
Another horrible thought came over her.
"Darko?" she asked. "Are you safe? Where … are you? Please, please be okay."
The snowflakes continued to blanket the wolf's pawprints in the white-covered ground, but Darko himself remained out of sight.
Scypha gulped, then took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Darko was fine, she told herself. She had work to do.
Cold as it was, she undressed and changed into clothes that were a bit drier, then put a few layers of fur on top of them. After that, she finished packing her bedroll. She drank some freezing cold water – snow, that had just melted by the fire, and ate the frigid bread she'd taken from her pack.
Even after all that, her wolf did not come.
"Darko!" she shouted, getting too frightened to keep waiting. "Darko, where are you?!"
She saw nothing, heard nothing. A cold wind began to blow the snowflakes sideways, stinging her exposed cheeks and hands.
"Darko! Come, we've got to go! We're almost at Lyerateh! We should make it by day's end!"
She silently waited for him for a while, but he didn't come. The memory of the bird flashed before her eyes again, and her head twitched.
"That didn't happen," she muttered to herself. "It didn't. Not to you, not to Darko … Please, at least not to Darko…"
She walked over to the trail of his pawprints in the glistening snow and began to follow it. The trail led her past a dozen trees and frozen bushes. She proceeded with caution, watching the sky and with her feet making occasional markings in the snow so that she wouldn't lose her sense of direction.
"Darko!" she shouted again. "Where are you?"
A dark shape fell into the snow right in front of her. Another bird … but no. When she looked down, it wasn't there. There was nothing there, she was just seeing things.
She began to feel strange again. Her body tingled, a numbness spreading and soothing the sharp sting of the cold until it entirely disappeared. In its wake, a rush of exhilaration suddenly flooded over her, making her breath deeper and harder and faster...
"No, no, no!" she shouted, her voice shrill. "Not again! Darko, stay away!"
She blacked out.
She woke up with a jolt, pushing herself from the ice and snow and forcefully propelling herself into an upright sitting position. She breathed hard. The first thing she noticed was that she was cold and wet all over.
She wildly looked around, brushing snowflakes off her nose, forehead, and eyebrows. As she did so, her hand suddenly flashed in pain as a warm, wet, and rough tongue brushed against it.
Just like that, she saw Darko standing over her, whining anxiously, smelling her, and licking.
Breathing a sigh of impossible relief, she embraced the gray wolf. "Darko!" she exclaimed. "By the god Vifafey, I'm so happy you're still alive!"
Darko whined, stuck his nose into her ear, and gave it a few soggy licks.
"I've missed you so much," she breathed into his fur. "I was so worried … please don't ever leave me again. I'll feed you properly now, I promise! No more mice and rats. You'll get venison every day!"
Suddenly, Darko stopped licking and jumped away from her. He bounded through the snow a few paces ahead, waging his tail along the ground.
Scypha sobbed a few more times out of sheer relief. "What is it, Darko?" she asked. "Do you smell something?"
Darko ignored her. He lowered himself to the level of the snow and began growling. Somewhere past the trees ahead of the two of them, Scypha heard a couple of twigs break.
Someone is coming, she realized. Someone or something. And Darko doesn't like it.
She held her breath and remained completely still for a few moments, then quietly crouched down, trying to make herself less visible.
Darko growled.
Glancing over at him anxiously, she sneaked up behind him, gently placing a hand on his back. "Darko," she whispered. "Quiet, now. I think we should hide—"
That was when the arrow pierced his eye.