Something peacefully cold shook Sophie awake. How she was overheating she wasn't sure but she was sweating buckets. She blinked her eyes open as she grabbed the cold thing.

Howly looked down at her, Sophie’s fingers wrapped around her hand. Her head hurt, actually most of her body did.

“You are ill,” Howly stated.

“Fuck,” Sohphie croaked and winced at the soreness of her throat and the congestion in her head. Apparently starvation, a serious injury, and almost freezing to death didn’t do her immune system any good. She felt like she had been hit by a bus. She pulled the blankets over her head to try and hide from the light.

“I need to see your leg, if it is somehow infected you will probably die.”

Cut right to the chase, why don’t ya? “Fine,” she grumbled.

Her leg seemed as fine as a broken leg could be, so maybe she wasn't about to die. Small victories. At the very least feeling like absolute shit meant she wasn't particularly hungry.

Sophie slept, she didn't have the energy for much else. Howly brought her water. At one point even made her pine tea. Or she had hallucinated it from the fever. At some point, Howly brought her some meat. Small cooked pieces, Sophie didn't pay much attention.

Fever dreams were not pleasant, mostly because they involved Mike. A damaged body and psyche were a bad combination. She kept jolting awake, her body thinking it was falling.

When she was lucid, Howly was watching over her uncertainty. She kept bringing her tea, food and pills. Slowly she was feeling better.

“I like your nose, boop!” she mumbled, trying and failing to poke Howly on the nose as Howly took the empty water bottle from her.

Howly placed her hand against Sophie’s forehead. It was pleasantly cold and she leaned into it. She whimpered when Howly pulled away.

“You are… delirious, Sophie,” Howly sighed.

“I like your whole face,” she murmured into the blankets. The blankets were tucked back over her.

Sophie wasn't feeling so out of it when she woke again. The light was on but it was dimmer. She was freezing now and pulled the blankets she had kicked off back over herself with gusto.

She had lost what little sense of time she had. The room had been rummaged through and Sophie’s nest was far more. A tarp even covered the passage out. Howly had been decorating and sorting through things.

Then she noticed something, tucked into the nest beside her was a familiar stuffed polar bear. She picked it up and found a familiar burn on its head, leaving a patch of hardened melted plastic.

“Well hello Francis, how the hell did you get here?” she asked the toy. Francis had accompanied her to university and was her mascot when she went on hikes and trips just like this one. He had been in her bag. Which meant Howly somehow had her backpack.

She looked around, noticing a pile of backpacks she tentatively pulled herself closer. It was a slow and painful process but she had to know. After a few minutes, she found it. Empty of all her things. A deflated husk of her usual bag, but it had all the patches and pins that marked it as hers.

Sophie would have been happy to know her stuff was here if it wasn't for Mark’s bag lying below hers.

“Sophie, what are you doing?” Howly asked, startling her for the millionth time. How was she so quiet?

“Y-you have our stuff,” Sophie managed to reply.

Howly nodded.

“How?” She demanded.

“Your camp was not hard to find,” Howly offered

“But… How do you have Mark’s bag?”

“Do not worry, I did not… steal your revenge,” she smirked.

“You let him go,” Sophie sighed.

Howly grinned with menace, her eyes practically lit up, “I did not say that.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Why are you always so damn cryptic?” Sophia growled.

“Force of… habit,” Howly snorted. “‘Mark is here, I did not let him escape.”

Exhilaration filled Sophie just as much as horror. She felt sad that the man she had loved for years was imprisoned somewhere in the caves, she felt anger at Howly for doing something so horrible. Yet a much more primal part of her was thrilled. He had tried to kill her, he deserved to suffer. She wasn’t the one on the edge of the cliff anymore, he was in the lair of a monster, maybe two once she had figured out what she wanted to do with him.

She knew one thing, she wanted him to hurt.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sophie laughed with disbelief.

“You are in no condition to… do anything. It was going to be a… goodbye present,” she offered with a shrug.

“Why? Why have you done any of this for me? You could have let me die, you could have eaten me, you could have fuck I don’t know. Why have you been nice?”

Howly sighed and leaned against the wall. “Humans do not handle… otherworldly things with sanity. But some do…” she said pointing towards Sophie. “Maybe your blood is more than human, maybe you are just strong-willed, either way, you proved yourself, you gained the Cold’s favour.” Howly let that be digested. “It is… nice to have company.”

Loneliness, it was the most simple answer in the world. Howly was lonely. Sophie felt her heart break a little. Here was this giant starved and sharp woman, a monster of folklore and fiction, and she was lonely. All alone out here. Still, there was one thing that wasn’t adding up.

“Didn't you say something about your mother?” Sophie asked.

“You met her,” Howly shrugged trying to find the words. “Mother Cold simply is, she is too… vast to…”

“The cold?” Sophie frowned. Howly’s mother was the cold itself?

“Your language is lacking,” Howly sighed. “I am alone here,” she clarified.

“I’m sorry,” Sophie offered.

Howly offered her a smile.

“Y’know, assuming everything works out, I’m going to be stationed even further north tracking polar bears. Maybe… I don’t know, could we visit?” Sophie wondered. She felt weirdly embarrassed, like a kid who had made a friend at camp and didn’t want to leave them behind.

“A tail as old as time itself,” Howly chuckled. “A human finds something fascinating and cannot let go.”

“I don’t know,” Sophie laughed. “I’ve been here for days and we barely know each other.”

“Sometimes not knowing is better, especially for a warming heart.”

“Annnnd she’s being cryptic again,” Sophie huffed.

Howly sighed and waved a hand, “It does not… come out right.”

Sophie took a deep breath. “What about Mark?”

“What about him?” Howly said, cocking her head.

“Like uh… are you going to kill him?”

“Me? I will do nothing but eat the body if there is even one left when you are done with him,” Howly grinned.

Despite the abject horror of Howly’s words Sophie still felt her stomach flutter. “I… I want to see him.”

----------------------------------------

Howly carried Sophie deep into the old mines. The only illumination was the lamp Sophie clutched. The air was dusty and damp, the mines had quickly lost any homely feeling as they descended.

The movement painfully jostled Sophie’s leg but she clung tightly to Howly regardless. Her mind spun, what was she even going to do when she saw him?

She wanted him to hurt. But could she really bring herself to hurt him? Kill him? Did he even deserve that? She had lived after all. As much as she wanted closer she never wanted to see his face again.

After a while Howly slowed their pace. The first thing she noticed was the smell. Howly crouched under a low-hanging ceiling before entering a room. Without the lamp, it would have been totally dark.

Mark looked up at them with a terrified but weak expression. He was lying on the ground on the other side of the small room.

“Sophie,” he croaked with disbelief. He was pale and dishevelled. Much of his winter clothes were torn and shredded. He was caked in dirt and filth. Sophie would have felt pity for him if it wasn’t for the expression that flashed through her mind, the memory of him pushing her.

Mark’s gaze was far more focused on Howly. An expression of confusion and horror on his face. He had spent days in total darkness and this was not a comforting sight.

“You’re alive?” he managed to cough out. He looked really unwell.

“You tried to kill me,” Sophie laughed weakly.

Mark’s gaze darted to her and then away. It wasn't that he was focused on Howly, it was that he was too much of a coward to look at her face after what he had done. Then he laughed, weak and dry, “Considering what… our fate is down here maybe that would have been a kindness.”

Sophie followed his gaze to his leg, or more accurately the stump that remained. Bound in bloody bandages. No wonder he looked so horrible, Howly had cut his leg off. Sophie felt somewhat sick at the sight of all the blood. It only added to the emotions rolling through her. Yet her anger at Mark won.

“He tried to find the way out,” Howly hissed. “We couldn't have that.”

“Y-you… you can talk?” Mark blurted, somehow paling even further.

“Yes, I just ignored your… begging,” she grinned, revealing her teeth.

“Fuck you,” Mark spat.

“You tried to kill me,” Sophie growled. She didn't even know what she wanted him to say. She desperately needed answers but she didn't want them. She didn't even know what she wanted. To know why he had done that? To get an apology? None of that would change anything.

“You were going to leave,” he replied as if that explained everything.

“So you decided to kill me… How long? How long were you planning…” Sophie couldn’t even finish the question as a lump rose in her throat.

Mark didn’t look at her, just shook his head. More to himself than anything.

Sophie forced back a sob. “Let’s go, I’m hungry,” she croaked through tears.

She didn't miss the twitch in Howy’s expression.

Realization swept over Mark’s face. “Wait!” he protested as Howly adjusted her grip on Sophie and marched out of the room.

“Wait! You can’t leave me! Waaaaait!”

Howly ignored his begging, Sophie was too busy crying into her shoulder to care.

“I-I just don’t understand why,” she whimpered as Howly rubbed a hand over her back.

“You will not find a ‘why’ that makes you stop hurting,” Howly said softly.

“I hate him, I hate him so much,” she cried.

“Sophie,” Howly cooed, at least that's how Sophie understood her tone. “Do not forget that you are the one going home. The one that will move forward.”

Sophie sniffed snottily into Howly’s shoulder. They stayed like that in comforting silence as Howly carried her back to her room. She lowered Sophie down, careful not to hurt her leg.

“You should rest, you are still… weak.”

“Stay with me?” Sophie asked, not letting go.

Howly gave her a pained smile, “I am… cold.”

Sophie shook her head and pressed a palm to Howly’s cheek. “I don’t mind. Maybe you’re just warming up to me.”

Something unreadable crossed Howly’s face. “I fear that is the case,” she replied, resting her hand over Sophie’s. But Howly still acquiesced and sat beside Sophie.

She turned to rest her head in Howly’s lap, pulling the blankets over herself. “Thanks,” she mumbled as Howly brushed her hair from her face. She didn’t mind Howly’s cold temperature as much anymore, she was getting used to it. Not being alone was far more comforting.

Howly rumbled gently, a growling purr that Sophie didn't entirely understand. Still, the comforting vibrations quickly lulled her to sleep. This time her dreams lacked the terror of falling or the face of Mark. Finally, she slept peacefully and considering how exhausted her body was she really needed it.