The crackling of the fire was all I focused on. If I fell asleep now I'm afraid I'd freeze to death, I needed to use as little fire wood as I could. I needed to be smart with the usage, not too little and not too much. If there's too little, the fire would produce more heat than I need. If I put too much I would run out of warmth, and I didn't know how long this blizzard will last for.

Tucked inside a tiny pocket of rock, a natural opening within the earth showing a deep cave, I was attempting to outlast a deadly snow storm within. I was lucky enough to restock my firewood stockpile yesterday, otherwise there was a much more serious chance of me dying within the cold winter's grasp. Wrapping myself as tightly as I could with the dark colors of my cloak, and standing as close to the fire as I could without burning the fabric, I shivered and waited for everything to come to pass.

My impulsive decision to try to stake it out in the wilderness, and the arrogance in assuming that with my ability it would've be like taking an afternoon stroll, has come to bite me. For the past three weeks all I could do was gather enough food to survive, every once in a while managing to magically enthrall a squirrel in order to capture it. I never could stray too far from the sources of water I've memorized, and I'm absolutely certain I've lost weight. A lot of weight. I'm not fully grown yet, I still have time to grow. This isn't good for my future development.

But I had no choice. It was either try to survive out here in the wilderness or be killed by villagers while I slept. I was the adoptive daughter of a so called witch, a leper of the community and an outcast to all of society. She had not done enough to be killed by the enforcers, but neither was she truly so innocent as to not have earned her scorn. At least, this is what I've learned throughout my years. Throughout my life I was protected and enveloped by her kindness. Kindness was all I knew of her. She had taught me rudimentary magic, as I was one of the gifted, and I had my own natural gifts within the craft to provide to her a decent amount of wealth back once I had matured enough to be able to trade.

But for all her kindness and her tutelage, she was old. Getting older by the day. Already one foot in her grave. Less than four weeks ago, it became two. She held property back when she was alive, and she had designated that property to be given to me once she had left. Me, who shared no blood relation to her. Me, who for most of her life provided to her only trouble. But when her death finally came, the property didn't transfer to me. I had no blood relation. I had no connection to the land, the villagers argued, and the land the witch owned she return to the village instead of me.

Apparently that argument was enough. So I was without land, and from that I had no more rights. A foreigner, a traveler that had decided to stay for more than a decade, they decided. I had no legal power beyond that, and they had given me an ultimatum. Leave or die. I left.

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But this had felt like years ago. Now, I'm shivering, cold, perhaps a little afraid. I had enough firewood to last me one more day. I knew from experience that blizzards can last longer. Much longer. Once the fire ran out the only thing I could do was wait and pray. I had already collected as much wood as I could once I noticed the initial snow fall. There's nothing else I could do besides that. I had to wait.

That waiting turned to hours, and then to a day. The snow hadn't let out. My body was cramping from the pain of having to stay still, and I was hungry. But there would be no animals out there if I looked. Again, I would have to pray that the blizzard would finally let out. I had a couple more hours. The snow looked to have been letting up, but I feared that it was my mind playing tricks. When will the snow finally stop falling?

Apparently never. Even after the last of the embers had died out the snow still continued. There was my lifeline, dead. Soon I will follow. It might take hours, it might take days. I wanted to get it over with.

I got up and stretched out my limbs. No snow could get into this little cave, although water certainly could. My butt wasn't wet, thankfully, as it was dry and the fire was far enough from the mouth of the cave so no snow was nearby. If I was to die I'd prefer to die on my feet, moving. So I walked outside, into the fierce winds. I put my hood over my head, my small and dark feline ears being covered from the worst nips of the wind. I had shoes, I had clothes. I could walk for a while, I think.

Perhaps someone would find me.

So for what felt like hours I trudged through the snow. The wind was fierce, at times. But the trees took the brunt of it. The snow was cold, but I had enough body heat to take care of it, and enough magic to produce some more when I didn't have enough.

And my will was still strong enough to carry me through the worse pangs of helplessness. I couldn't see the sun. I couldn't see the sky. I could barely see what was in front of my face, but little more than that. I had decided to commit suicide, and the thought had crept into my soul the more I walked. If I was smiling, I couldn't feel it. If I was frowning, the problem was still the same. If I was crying, my face had already frozen and the tears had done so as well.

My breathing was heavy, and limbs felt sluggish. I felt tired. Very, very tired. Now felt like a good time to rest. Eventually I no longer was caught by surprise by a tree manifesting in front of me, most likely I had walked into an open field. No wonder the winds were harsher now. I couldn't see my own hands, it was this bad. I've never experienced such a terrible blizzard. Perhaps the Lord had decided that in order to take me I needed to be brought down by nature's wrath.

I might as well give up. There's no hope, no one would be able to see me anymore. I had no one. The only one I had loved is gone now. I'm alone.

Falling on my knees, I played with the snow under me, turning them into balls until even their sensation I could no longer feel. I waited for the cold to take me.