The trees coated in cold powdered water, and the ground was submerged in it. At least 2 feet deep, I could not give you the width if I had wanted to. This expansive terrain ran in all directions, and frozen white powdered water would lay like an infection for months to follow. I had a thick coat. It was safe to say that I was perfectly secure until weather conditions furthered. Luckily, the weather had been at a still for the last day or two. The sun beamed down upon the land with relevancy. I stopped in my tracks behind brush; a clearing a couple of feet before me. Something to steer clear of as travelers roam as they see fit. They had been here. Their prints were visible. An arrow had torn through the trunk of a single tree across from me, on the far side of the clearing. The prints, they change, from progressive to dragging. The prints. They clash. Two sets of them and they run into one another. One from my side of the clearing and the other from the far side. I turned my head slightly for a moment, a bow to my left. One arrow in the trunk, they had to take on the duel by hand. Loot is not handed. Nothing is handed but blood for gore. I shivered under my coat, my senses heightened. I had the low ground, as it seemed that the brush secured me. No sure reason to worry, though it seemed this fight had ended abruptly. In the middle of the clearing, some abstract art possibly? Red ink soaked the white cold powdery water. Two sets of feet had become one set, and what seemed like parallel tracks aside it. Ah, the heels of dragging boots, the victor dragged the body off. No safety in a clearing. The blood still burned bright, almost preserved by the white powdered water. He could still be nearby, so I carried on carefully, tracing the outside brush of the clearing.

              As I approached what was once the far hand of the clearing, I slowed my pace. A voice was heard whispering. A woman, not a man. I was intrigued. The voice could have been no more than 90 feet away. I had not heard a woman’s voice for months maybe. It had just become an unusual feat. I became excited, spectating these travelers had always peaked my interest. I brought my steps to a stop and redirected my senses toward the direction from which the voice could be heard. My gaze following the path left by the dragging, lifeless boots. The smell of blood got gamier.

              My eyes locked onto a slim armored figure. She searched the seemingly empty pockets and satchel of a man with a once beating heart. A man that had memories; A man that had once felt love, lay breathless in her arms. Not that any of that had mattered to her, just like it had not to me when seeking my past prey.  How could I tell none of it had mattered to her? The inconsiderate dragging of the body. After all, whether he had attacked her or not, he had still been more than a corpse at one point or another. “-this long without any useful supplies. You sure had no chance to obtain any from me. Yet still I hunger.” I listened to her words eagerly. Her voice sounded impatient, experienced, but weak. Weak never outlasts the strong. She had proven that even weak she had overcome someone resultingly weaker in strength. She had conducted a risky feat indeed. Any adept hunter could tell that she was soon to become strictly prey and ripe for the picking if she was not to revive her strengths. I moved forward toward her. Not to strike, but there was a chance for education, and I had surely never been one to shrug that opportunity aside. Could the weak outlast the strong? My grimier question was would a weak woman like herself at the time being, outlast a strong man? A question to be answered shortly perhaps. I had no biased opinion, but I do not believe that she would. I just have a hunch, it is not a biased opinion.

              I shall stay hidden, for if I enter her line of sight, I may never educate myself further. She grabbed hold of his coat and stripped him of it. I lowered myself and sat, intrigued. She slid her gloved fingers along the lining of the coat. She paused. As did I. It is a coat, is it not? A smirk grew across her face as she cut into the lining with her short knife. She pulled something out, I could not see what it was from my current angle, but her look was quite enough to deter me. Someone so weak would not be smirking over anything. My distance became much more relevant, and it was safe to say I would be increasing it. She was weak, but smart and vicious as well.

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              The man’s skin was pale but still reactive to the white powdered water, turning red as she had stripped him of his layers and left him bare in it. I crept past trees, maybe 250 feet away from the moving subject of my educational endeavor. How long would she last? A day? An hour? A minute? I could not hear her from this distance. I could take on more distance at night. I will be at advantage. I slowly followed with the subject to my left, paying close attention to her actions. I believe that she had become aware that she was followed. This instinct would have been acceptable as I had plenty of brush to keep from her line of sight. I enjoyed her actions. She would often pause, examine her surroundings, and I would often hide. It was like a game that only I was aware of. What I did not understand was how she looked all directions but my own. Like a past lover her eyes were directed in any direction but mine. I did not quite understand, but I believed that I would come to. I halted as she did. I moved as she did.

              She stopped at the trunk of a random tree. Why she would do this made me stumble. Had I missed something? I examined it as closely as I could, but it seemed as every other tree before it had. She touched the tree, then looked down a lump of white powdered water. If I had stumbled across it, I would have thought it to be snow layering over a couple of larger roots. What had I missed? I slowly stepped a couple of feet back, the tree before the one she stood at WAS different. I continued backward in my tracks, occasionally looking in her direction to keep tabs on my subject. They all had slashes. She had marked each individual tree. I risked losing my subject and made my way back to the clearing. The marks left in the trees came to an end. Oddly enough, they came to an end before the clearing, so she had made them on her way toward it. She never got to finish her trail.

              One question continued to buzz through my head for a couple of moments. How had she known that someone would enter that clearing from such a large distance away? Then I saw that arrow in the tree once more, this time approaching it, then looked across the clearing. It was simple! She had not known that someone would be there, because they drew first. They saw her first! Yet she had the upper-hand, brilliant! I then understood the events of her duel with the man bare in the white powdery water.

              She was possibly camped nearby the tree where she had stopped for the night. The slashes, she had left them because this was a completely new area for her, as she probably is often on the move. I dashed back toward her direction as the events filled empty spaces in the board of a puzzle. She did not know he was there, because he struck first. Or tried to. It was difficult to not find that comedic. I could not wait to learn more. She must have left something valuable where she had stopped. Otherwise there would be no reason to return.

              I kept a quick pace, dashing across the path I had taken in pursue of her the first time around. Jumbling together the last piece of my little puzzle. What was left at the tree? Leg after leg after leg after leg. I found her resting against the tree, her head dangling. Famine had been her next visitor, and she had not overcome him. In her hands she clutched what she must have found on the body. I then decided to approach her. A static character then became dynamic in my eyes. The power, the pain, the confidence. She no longer had a beating heart, but was all still shown throughout. She had surely changed upon entering these woods, some scars fresher than others. I looked closely at the article she clutched in her hands. It had been a map, a way out of these woods. She had finally felt her time here was done and she had wanted to leave. It seems, though not in a way of preference, she got what she had wanted.