Lloyd heard the ragged breathing, felt the snow above him vibrate with each sharp intake of breath from the animal. And then a huge muzzle broke through the fragile ceiling. Lloyd had no time to be scared or to scream. Teeth clamped onto his jacket. Grabbed the fabric right at his throat and pulled. He was yanked out of the snow like a carrot from a garden bed. And tossed aside. Lloyd landed on his back, his shoulder blades hitting the crust with a painful thud. The air hit his face — freezing, biting, blindingly white after the darkness of the snowdrift. Blinking away the haze in his eyes, he froze. The wolf stood three paces away.
Bared teeth. Lloyd saw them clearly — wet gums, fangs as long as his finger, droplets of blood on the white fur beneath its lower jaw, most likely belonging to the previous wolf. The beast crouched low, ears flat against its skull, amber eyes — narrow, predatory, yet strangely… attentive. Too intelligent for an animal. The predator's gaze swept over Lloyd, lingering on his hands, assessing the threat. Lloyd slowly, very slowly, opened his fists, showing empty palms. No hatchet. No stick or stone either. Nothing. The wolf took a step forward.
Lloyd scrambled backward — or rather, tried to crawl. His back hit something solid. A tree trunk. No further retreat. The wolf approached — smoothly, silently, like death itself in a white fur coat. Crouching low, ears pinned, teeth bared in a warning growl that felt more like a vibration than a sound. Lloyd pressed himself against the trunk. His shoulders hunched. His head instinctively ducked down, protecting his neck. He stared at the approaching muzzle and couldn't force himself to look away. "No… Please… Go away. I don't want to die..." His own voice sounded pathetic — broken and hoarse.
The beast was half a meter away. Lloyd could see every hair on its muzzle, the ice frozen to its whiskers, the steam from its nostrils, the heavy fangs slightly parted in a silent snarl. Fear finally locked his muscles completely. His mind screamed, "Fight! Run! Do anything, just survive!" but he had no strength left to fight. He closed his eyes. Flashes of memories flickered before his eyes. But they weren't about becoming the Green Ninja, the sudden growing up, the responsibility, the endless training. No. He remembered Zane. Specifically, his face when Lloyd had washed his kimono and it turned pink. And how he'd scrubbed it himself afterward. He remembered the ever-talkative Jay. Chatty, unbearable, forever chattering Jay. If only right now — right this very second — his voice could tear through this frozen silence. Any nonsense. Any joke about capacitors. Lloyd squeezed his eyes shut tighter, trying to hold onto that sound in his memory. Cole, always hungry for food. That big guy had always been kinder than he seemed. Nya. The strongest and bravest girl he'd ever known. Unbending in her will. Kai. Lloyd's heart skipped a beat. That Kai who had protected him and helped him when he needed it most. Who had saved him from the mouth of a volcano, risking the loss of the Serpentine blade, and jumped into the water after him despite not knowing how to swim. He had become an older brother to Lloyd. Someone to lean on in difficult times. And Uncle Wu — Old, wise, with an endless cup of tea, who read him bedtime stories about evil snakes.
Lloyd thought he didn't deserve their acceptance. He had released the Serpentine and caused so much trouble along the way. But they… They all accepted him. Not for his heroic deeds, not for the prophecy, not for his golden power. But simply because he was Lloyd. A tear — hot, salty, unwelcome — escaped from beneath his closed lids and rolled down his cheek, freezing in the cold, while a trembling exhale escaped his lips. "I want to go home so badly… To the monastery…" he thought. "…I want to see you all so much. Just… Just once…" Hot air brushed against his neck. Living, moist breath. It touched the skin below his ear, and Lloyd physically felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, a sticky, prickly wave of goosebumps rolling down his spine. He inhaled sharply, desperately — the air entered his lungs with a wheeze, with a plea, with a final "I can't believe this is it." The cold sliced through his chest from the inside. And in that moment, on that very exhale, he understood. This was the end. Not cinematic, not heroic, with a blade in hand. But quiet, in a frozen forest, with his back against a rough tree trunk, completely unarmed.
"I'm sorry…" The thought was born not in his head — but deep in his chest, where it ached with longing. As if he could no longer say anything aloud, but had to convey it. To them. To each one. "I couldn't help you…" His clenched eyelids trembled. Tears no longer rolled — they had frozen on his lashes like tiny ice crystals. But inside, beneath his ribs, everything was sobbing. Sobbing uncontrollably. Silently. Where the wolf wouldn't hear. Through tears. Through terror. Through the icy crust on his cheeks. He smiled crookedly at them all — those who remained there, within warm walls, in the light of oil lamps, in the scent of green tea and aged wood. "I love you…" something inside whispered. "So much… So very much…" He had made peace with it. Not as a warrior — with head held high. But as a person who was simply too tired to fight anymore.
"Now…" he thought. The wolf was breathing into his neck. Hot. Heavy. It smelled of blood, of animal fur, and of something ancient — something that made the blood freeze in his veins. Lloyd curled in on himself. His eyelids trembled, his lashes clumped together with frost. And then… The air stopped moving. The wolf's breath pulled away — no, it didn't leave, but it changed. Became deeper. Slower. Lloyd felt the beast shift, step with its paws — the snow creaked under its weight. The anticipation of pain became unbearable. He waited for the lunge. Waited for heavy paws to pin him to the ground. Waited for the world to split into "before" and "after," where there would be nothing in the "after." But instead, he felt a nose. First the tip — cold, wet, alive. The wolf nudged him right in the neck, just below his ear, where the thin, blue vein pulsed. Lloyd shuddered all over. This wasn't a bite. This was… this was… he didn't know what to call it. A touch. A simple, almost catlike touch.
Then a sound. A deep, low, vibrating rumble that rose from somewhere deep in the wolf's chest, from its very core, and spread warmth through its fur. Like that of a creature that… didn't want to kill. The wolf pressed close. Its warm, heavy, frost-covered head against his frozen neck. That massive, fearsome muzzle lay on the boy's shoulder — so close that the fangs were a centimeter from his skin, but did not touch.
"What…" Lloyd exhaled. His voice wouldn't obey. It came out as a hoarse whisper. His eyelids flew open. His eyes, wet, red, and swollen, stared at the white fur near his face. The wolf's head lay on him. Pressing. Rubbing. And made no attempt to bite. Lloyd was afraid to move. Afraid it was a mirage. A deathbed hallucination. That any moment he would open his eyes and see gray sky above him and fangs sinking into his throat. But the warmth was real. The heavy wolf's head pressed against his shoulder was real. And that sound — vibrating, pulsing, like a cat's purr — spread through Lloyd's body, melting the icy fear that had frozen him from the inside.
He was breathing. Quickly, shallowly, still with a wheeze. His back was still pressed against the trunk. His eyes were closed. But his shoulders had dropped slightly. And somewhere deep, at the very bottom of his small, tormented heart, a tiny, fragile thought began to flicker — as fragile as an ice crystal in the sun: "Maybe… not today?"
The wolf suddenly stilled, pulled its muzzle slightly away from his cheek, and Lloyd physically felt those eyes on him again — but no longer predatory, no longer assessing. Rather… questioning. As if to say, "You're not running. You're not fighting. You're just sitting here trembling. So… not an enemy?" The heavy head carefully, almost weightlessly for its size, lowered to Lloyd's chest. And the large, wet nose poked into his folded hands — the hands the boy still used to press his knees against himself, protecting the most vulnerable part of his body. The wolf didn't bite. Didn't tear. It simply… pushed. Gently, persistently, like a mother adjusting a restless pup. Its forehead and nose nudged under Lloyd's knees and pushed them apart, opening his chest, opening his heart.
Lloyd tensed again. His entire back became a tight string. Air caught in his throat — he couldn't inhale or exhale. He felt something snap and freeze beneath his ribs. An inner voice squealed desperately: "Now! Now he'll sink his teeth into your stomach, into the softest flesh — you're open, defenseless, why did you allow this?!" But his muscles wouldn't obey. They stayed frozen in the position the wolf had placed him — legs apart, chest exposed, arms lying limply at his sides in the snow.
The wolf did not attack. It bent lower and began to sniff. Long. Thoughtfully. Poking its nose into the folds of his jacket, into his collar where tears had frozen, into his scarf, into his sleeves, lingering at the torn area where the metallic scent of blood emanated. Lloyd heard the beast inhale — deeply, steadily, as if memorizing every note of his scent. Then the wolf made a short, guttural sound. Not a growl. Not a whine. Something between a sigh and a release. And — Lloyd nearly sobbed from the shock — it ran its broad, powerful cheek along his body. From shoulder to hip. Weightlessly. Like a mother licking her cub. It was so… so absurd for this fanged, white, steel-laced body.
Then the wolf stepped back. One step. Two. And stopped facing him, slightly sideways — so that its flank was exposed, not its armor. Lloyd knew nothing of wolf behavior, but every cell in his body suddenly understood: this was trust. The beast was showing that it would not strike first.
One ear. It wasn't standing upright, like a predator ready to pounce. Its tip was bent downward, soft, puppy-like, the way those youngsters' ears are when the cartilage hasn't yet hardened. Such a touching, imperfect ear on that enormous, deadly head. Lloyd stared at that ear and couldn't look away.
The cold, meanwhile, was doing its work. It didn't ask permission. It simply crept under his jacket, under his sweater, under his skin, reaching down to his bones. The fingers on his hands weren't just frozen anymore — they were numb, foreign, as if sewn on. His feet inside his boots had become two blocks of ice. His strength was leaving not in a rush, but in a thin, continuous trickle, and Lloyd could feel his consciousness beginning to drift, the edges of the picture becoming fuzzy.
The wolf watched. It stood and looked at Lloyd with yellow eyes that no longer held predatory narrowness. They had widened — warm, almost… concerned? No, Lloyd wouldn't allow himself to believe such foolishness. A wolf cannot feel concern. A wolf is teeth, hunger, and death. But then the beast suddenly stepped forward — smoothly, silently — and Lloyd felt his heart leap to his throat again. Then jaws clamped onto the sleeve of his jacket. Not on his arm. Not on his throat. On the thick, frozen fabric. And pulled.
"What are you…" Lloyd rasped. The wolf pulled insistently, with a low, throaty rumble that sounded less like a threat and more like impatience. Like "come on, get up, stupid human." Its fangs didn't pierce the fabric — they held it gently, as if the wolf was afraid to hurt him. Lloyd didn't move. He couldn't. His legs were wooden, his back glued to the trunk, and every movement sent a dull, throbbing pain through his frozen muscles.
The wolf released the sleeve. And then — Lloyd would have sworn he was imagining it — the beast tilted its head to the side. Just like a dog that doesn't understand why its owner won't go for a walk. Its ears perked slightly forward. Its gaze became… questioning.
And then Lloyd began to shake. Not just shiver — his whole body trembled with a violent, bone-shaking tremor that made his teeth chatter and his shoulders heave. He couldn't control it. The cold had finally reached his core, and his body had activated its last defense — convulsive spasms trying to warm its dying cells. Lloyd tried to stand on his own. He pushed off the trunk with his back, leaned on his injured arm — and cried out through clenched teeth. A sharp, stabbing pain shot from his wrist to his elbow, reminding him of the fight with that first wolf. The one that hadn't just wanted to sniff. That one had wanted to tear. His foot slipped on the ice. Lloyd staggered, and at that moment, something solid, warm, and living slid beneath his falling body.
The wolf's head. The wolf had gotten there before Lloyd even realized he was falling. It was simply there, where it needed to be. And Lloyd, without meaning to, grabbed a fistful of the thick fur on the wolf's scruff with his good hand, just to keep from collapsing face-first into the snow. His fingers sank into the warmth. He instinctively yanked his hand back, as if burned. Flinched away, pressing his injured limb to his chest, and pressed his shoulder blades against the cold bark. Fear returned — sticky, irrational. "You just grabbed a predator by the scruff. You idiot. You're dead," he thought. But aloud, all he managed was a pitiful, "I can't…" His voice sounded hollow, broken. His head drooped, his chin sinking to his chest. He waited — he didn't know for what. For teeth in his leg. For a crushed skull.
But the wolf didn't snap back. It didn't growl, didn't click its teeth. It simply… looked at him. Long. Calm. And then it did something that made Lloyd's brain completely shut down. The beast came almost nose to nose with him. Its heavy, powerful body sank into the snow right at his feet — softly, without a sound. White fur flared up and settled, and Lloyd saw its back. Broad, covered in thick, incredibly dense fur. A back like that might just be able to save him from this cold.
Then the wolf nudged his knee with its nose. Once. Twice. Lifted from below, pushing his leg to move. And raised its head. Looked at its own back. Then back at Lloyd. Yellow eyes met green, and there was not a hint of threat in them. Only expectation. Lloyd stared at that back, at the thick, frost-sparkling fur, and slowly, heavily, as if through frozen water, the meaning of the gesture began to dawn on him.
"Sit?…" The thought was insane. A wolf. Offering itself as… transportation? Lloyd had never heard of such a thing. That didn't happen in real life. That happened in fairy tales — the kind Uncle Wu used to read him at night. But his body no longer listened to reason. His body wanted to live. The trembling had turned into convulsions. His teeth chattered so violently that Lloyd feared he'd shatter them. He looked at his injured arm. The wound had swollen, blood still slowly seeping from it, freezing in the cold. His other arm, the healthy one, had turned white and wouldn't straighten, clinging to the bark with a death grip. He knew the signs of frostbite. Knew what would happen if he didn't get warm. In half an hour — loss of sensation. In an hour — irreversible damage. And if he fell asleep, he would never wake up. A quiet, almost painless death in the middle of white silence. Just fall asleep and never open his eyes again.
Lloyd hesitated only a second. One short, desperate second, in which he managed to think, "Even if this is a trap — so be it. I can hardly breathe anyway…" And then, swaying, with a jolt of pain in his injured arm, he began to lower himself to his knees. Then he collapsed onto his stomach, pressing himself against the wolf's back.
The fur was searingly hot. Lloyd squeezed his eyes shut as the warmth flooded his ice-cold face, his neck, his chest. And he felt the wolf beneath him tense slightly — then relax, accepting his weight. And it made that same guttural, purring sound. Only now Lloyd understood — this was not a threat. This was reassurance.
He didn't hold on. He just lay there, cheek pressed to the warm fur, listening to the huge, strong heart beating beneath it. It beat steadily, calmly, like the most reliable drum in the world. Tears flowed again — from relief, from incomprehension, from the fact that the world had suddenly turned upside down and refused to obey the laws of nature.
The wolf rose to its feet. Smoothly, powerfully, in one motion that jerked Lloyd forward. He grabbed a fistful of the thick fur on the scruff with his good hand in a death grip, his fingers sinking into the warm, coarse hair. His injured arm hung uselessly against his chest, and every jolt, every step of the beast sent a dull, throbbing pain through it. The enormous body beneath him moved the way only predators can. Silently, fluidly, incredibly powerfully. Muscles rolled under the hide, and Lloyd felt them with every frozen cell. And gradually, through the ringing in his ears and the whistle of the icy wind, it dawned on him.
The wolf was taking him somewhere. Carrying him like an exhausted pup, like prey, like… like someone it didn't intend to abandon. The thought was wild. Absurd. But he had no strength left for emotions — only to clench his jaw and hold on. He was too frozen. Too weak. He simply pressed his cheek to the wolf's warm flank, inhaled the scent of wet fur, frost, and forest, and stopped thinking about where he was being taken. To a den, to be eaten later, once he'd thawed? To a burrow, to be fed to cubs? Or… somewhere else? Lloyd forced himself not to wonder. Right now, it didn't matter.
The frosty air whistled past his ears as the wolf sped up. Its paws stepped almost silently on the crust — just a soft click of claws and a muffled rustle giving it away. Sometimes the beast broke through loose patches, and then Lloyd was jolted, and he cried out through his teeth, gripping the fur so hard his knuckles went white. And in those moments, the wolf turned its head. Briefly. Checking — was he still holding on, had he lost consciousness, had he slipped into the snow? An amber eye met Lloyd's clouded gaze, and he, without knowing why, gripped the thick fur even tighter.
Bare trees flashed past, black tentacles of branches against the gray sky. Snowdrifts like frozen waves. Sometimes frozen bushes lashed painfully against his legs, but Lloyd barely felt the pain anymore. The world had become a blurred smear — white, gray, sometimes dark — and only the warm back beneath his cheek remained real. His eyes were growing heavy. It was a treacherous, languid feeling. Not sleep, but a void — a dark, warm pit he wanted to fall into and never wake up from. Lloyd fought it. With his last strength. He understood: losing consciousness now meant surrendering himself entirely to the beast and the cold. And who knew what would happen when he woke up. If he woke up at all. But his body betrayed him. His eyelids turned to lead. His breathing steadied, becoming deeper, slower. The wolf's rhythmic motion, the muffled thud of paws on snow, the warmth seeping through his jacket — all of it worked like a lullaby. A dangerous, sweet lullaby on the edge of death.
"No…" Lloyd whispered, and the word came out sluggish, drowsy. He shook his head, rubbed his cheek against the coarse fur to chase away the sleepiness. Don't sleep. Just don't sleep… He forced his eyes open. Stared ahead, through the white haze, trying to make out anything — a path, smoke, a light, a silhouette. Anything that would say, "You won't die. You'll survive. This isn't the end." The wolf ran steadily, confidently, weaving between trees as if it knew some invisible road by heart. And Lloyd, gripping the warm fur in his fingers, held on. Fought against sleep. And hoped. For the first time in this long, terrible day — truly hoped that not everything was lost yet…
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