Username: Inupait
Name: Ansell
Gender:Buck
Type: Marcher
Height: 1,29
Story: Between 700-1000 words.Alone in the nothingness was where he wasn’t bothered. A sea of white sifting snow swept around his hooves and bitter winds slashed at his bright orange coat. His wide feet swept through the snow as ice clumps clung to his fringed legs acting like marbles clicking together as he walked. But none of these things bothered him. He didn’t need anything or anyone to make him happy. He was a Casanova of sorts, besides he found others unreliable and untrustworthy.
Cresting the hill Ansell received a brisk blast of bitter cold wind that slammed into his face making his mane tremble and eyes run. It was only a matter of time before the blizzard turned from bad to worse so he blinked the flakes from his eyes and scanned the horizon for any sort of shelter that he could take refuge in till the storm passed. It was in the moment of pause that he heard it… a distant faint sound. To the untrained ear it would have sounded almost like laughter. A soft frightened call that echoed from somewhere out there in the dunes of freezing snow and ice.
At first Ansell chose to ignore it, what ever ‘it’ was wasn’t his problem. But as he trudged on through the snow the call become more urgent. He swept his tail over the soft snow and wrapped it around his hind legs to warm himself for a moment as he pause once more. Sighing he gave into the tugging sensation of his heart and returned the call with his own. It erupted from his throat and carried across the bare white-crusted landscape. The cry repeated and he slowly he trudged through the rapidly deepening snow in that direction. Every time ‘it’ called to him he would return the call and guide himself towards it but as he carried on the call became weaker and shorter. He was finding it increasingly difficult to pinpoint the direction to go.
The falling snowflakes began to increase in size, massive fluffy flakes blotted out the sun covering the world in a winter haze. Suddenly the calls stopped completely. For some reason there was a terrible cringing in his chest, he felt a sudden desperation to find ‘it’. He bound through the snow frantically snow. His tale curled up onto his back so it wouldn’t drag through the snow and collect more snowballs. In his mind he found himself referring to ‘it’ as a she, for some reason he imagined it as a she. Somewhere out in the snow there was another nukitta in desperate need of aid and he was all they had now.
He searched desperately, his efforts were slowed by the now chest deep snow that tugged at his limbs and sapped every thermal of heat from his muscles. Just as he was realizing his efforts were for naught he spotted a tuff of black sticking out of the snow only a few strides away from him. He ploughed his way to it and began to paw at the snow with his cloven fore hoof. With paddling motions she managed to clear the snow away. The tuft of black fur was followed by soft brown ears and then by a tiny little face. Ansell had never seen a nuglet before, even as a one himself he had been the only one in his harem, seeing how small and weak his kind was at this age was somehow strange to him.
The nuglets eyes were closed and its brown coat was frosted with icy but he could see that its shoulders were covered in white freckled markings. His heart sank at the thought that this poor youngster at frozen to death. He had not been quick enough to safe it. Sadness and frustration washed over him. He shook the snow off his own back and dug at the snow around the unmoving nuglet till he had cleared a space large enough for him to bed down in. he lay down with the nuglet, rapping his body around it despite the fact that it was already gone. He laid his bushy tail over both of them and closed his eyes. He would have to wait out the storm.
Ansell did not know for how long he dozed but when he woke he realized that his body heat had melted most of the snow around him, but the fresh falling snow had covered him forming a cocoon of space around him as though he were in a small cave under the snow. He shifted slightly only to be scolded by a small kick to the chest. Alarmed he lifted his tail to see what could have possibly struck him. Curled up against his flank her tail rapped around her hind legs and eyes closed was a very much living nuglet. She blinked and opened her eyes to gaze up at him.
Ansell was instantly struck by stunned silence. She yawned widely and placed her head back down on her front legs. Her eyes slipped closed again and she tumbled back into sleep at his side. Ansell sighed as he watched he doze for a bit. He had been so set on being alone for the rest of his life that he never thought it possible to feel so attached to something he knew nothing about as he did now to the little doe pressed daintily to his flank. But he vowed to protect her until she was big enough to take care of herself.
Art: If the image is very large you can post a link to it.Ansell with his new forever friend Bryn