The snowfall seemed to double every few minutes, the wind blowing it in a white wall that whipped across the ten-foot-wide, low-hanging entrance to the cave, spilling several feet into the gentle downhill slope within. Archie had to walk right up to the entrance to see out more than a couple of feet. Snow had stacked up on the surrounding stones, cresting to create a bowl around the cave's entrance.

A single thin pine tree poked up beyond the ridge. Archie and Blanche donned their packs and took several minutes just to trudge fifty feet through the snow. Blanche kept watch as Archie took the axe to the arm-thick trunk, snow pelting them with every chop.

Archie conjured a noodle, wrapping one end around the fallen trunk and the other around his waist, dragging it back through the snow. His face stung and his eyelashes caked with frost and his legs screamed fire. Even so close to the cave, he wasn't sure if they would have been able to find it again if it weren't for the telltale slope.

By the time they were both back in the cave and their packs were off and they were panting for life, they both knew that this would be their home for the next day. At least. There were no more easy paths. No more north. No direction at all. The sun had been covered and splintered and diffused in the storm. Even if they could move through such weather, there was no telling where they'd end up.

Archie couldn't tell if the wetness below Blanche's eyes were tears or melted snow. Either way, she needed him to be brave. And so he was.

"Let's get situated," he said. "I'll light a branch and check farther down the cave. But we should save the rest of the wood to burn at night."

Blanche rubbed her ears. "Won't that make it easier to find us?"

"We've already been found by the wrong things. Maybe it'll help us get found by the right things." Archie snapped a branch off the tree and shook the snow from it. "Find a spot for us to set up where we can still see the entrance."

Blanche dragged their packs past a narrowing and into a little alcove that curled back into a space big enough for two of their tents. "How deep do you think the cave goes?"

"I don't know. I just hope we're not crashing something's home."

Archie took out a bit of their precious kindling, his steel striker, and a little piece of flint that had been worn down over their trip thus far. He struck the steel against the stone, each strike radiating pain that echoed in the numbness of his arms. With one errant strike, he dropped his stone, the steel scraping against his purple nailbeds and taking a piece with it. Every piece of his body felt brittle.

It took nearly thirty seconds of holding the needles of the pine branch in the flaming kindling before they took. Even then, they barely burned. Archie lit three parts of the branch to make sure it didn't die on him, and then he ventured into the darkness of the cave.

"Be careful," Blanche said.

"You too. Anything comes through that cave, you scream, and you chop."

Whereas the start of the cave was fairly open, Archie hadn't even made it out of the entrance's light when the cave narrowed and the ceiling came down, forcing him to squat below the uneven rocks that jutted from the ceiling. He took one last look at Blanche before pushing onward.

He stuck to the left side and promised himself he would always stick to the left side, keeping one hand on the rough rock that hosted the feeble, dancing orange glow of his burning branch. It burned slowly, but he was fine with that. The last thing he wanted was to be left in the dark.

He moved beyond a diagonal hallway that was only three feet wide, forcing him to scoot his butt across the slanted wall. With each step, the temperature dropped. He took one last look at the light of the cave entrance before climbing over a boulder. The cave opened up, but the ground got slick with sludge and mud. He could no longer see the entirety of the place he explored, his light failing to reach the far wall.

He tried to stay brave—this time for himself. He listened for anything in the dark beyond, but heard only the soft crackle of the burning branch. It had burned through a third of its pines.

Blanche's voice bounced off the walls, carrying the timbre of a yell but the volume of a whisper. "Archie, are you okay?"

Archie looked at the darkness deeper down the cave and turned around. "Yeah," he yelled. "Coming back up."

He took one last look behind him, worried that he might have stirred something. But there was only darkness. He climbed the boulder and shimmied through the narrow gap and smiled as the light of the outside calmed his nerves.

He chopped off a section of the pine tree's trunk and lit it with his burning branch. "We have to conserve everything," he said. "Food and wood most of all. I didn't see any other trees for a long ways, and they'll be too wet soon. Let's be sure to fill up our waterskins with this."

Blanche shuffled closer to the fire. "But we can eat something now, right?"

"Yeah. Just…Not too much. Let's eat the food that can spoil first. Who knows how long we'll be stuck here."

They cooked the last of the hare and sopped up the grease with week-old fry bread that had been flattened to a disk and grown hard in the cold. While Blanche cooked, Archie set up shelter.

He took his hardened blueberries and did his best to convert their durability to stickiness, pinning the tent's canvas between rocks to completely cover their alcove and trap in their body heat. He left the way open to the entrance of the cave so that they could see it at all times.

They ate away their hunger and pulled out all of their blankets to cover their cold, but their nerves remained. Blanche looked at Archie and took a deep breath.

"Soooo…" She popped her lips. "Get stuck in caves often?"

Archie laughed harder than he should have, tension making his chuckle come out all at once.

"It's been a while," he said as he leaned back, acting as if he enjoyed their surroundings. "Been meaning to do it more often."

Blanche giggled. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, yeah." Archie flapped his hand around, playing the part of a casual spelunker. "This cave's pretty nice. Not the best I've been in, for sure. But, you know. Keeps the snow out, not too wet. Open in all the right places, cramped in the others. Nice ambiance."

Blanche giggled harder and harder, warming Archie's heart better than any fire could and setting his mind at ease.

"It's got its flaws, though," he continued to joke. "I prefer my caves to not have neverending tunnels into infinite darkness. I like to know I'm the only thing in the cave. But that's just me."

Blanche gently slapped his arm as she laughed. "What about the company?" she asked.

"Oh, our neighbors?" Archie shifted his head from side to side. "Wellll, personally, I find demon children to be just a tad unsettling. But, you know, they don't make too much noise. Not that that means they keep to themselves."

Blanche nodded along. "I wouldn't mind having a fence between us."

"Definitely."

She laughed and hit his arm again. "No. When I said company, I meant me. How do I rate as a cave partner? The best you've ever had?"

"Hmmm." Archie ran a finger along his chin. "So far, yeah. Although I'd trade you for a big steak in a heartbeat. Although I can't talk to a steak, so I'd end up getting bored."

Blanche feigned being offended. "Surely it'd take at least two steaks to replace my value. Just look at how entertaining I am."

Archie laughed. "Yeah, yeah. Maybe even three steaks."

She smiled and sighed. "So since conversation is apparently my best offering, what should we talk about for the next however long this storm is?"

Archie scrunched a leftover shirt into a makeshift pillow and leaned back into it, never taking his eyes off the entrance of the cave. "Let's talk about somewhere warm. Tell me about where you're from."

Blanche smiled. "Western Platter. Little village called Hill Creek. You get two guesses what it's named after, but your first guess doesn't count. It's a nice little place. Quaint. I remember…"

Their conversation started in Hill Creek and made its way northeast to Sain and back south to Ambrosia City, covering nearly twenty years of history, a fair bit of light family trauma, and punctuated with jokes and laughter. At times, Archie even forgot how dire their situation was. Blanche definitely did. She only seemed to regain her stress when the topic turned to the greenhouse and she fretted over the fate of her beloved crops. But even though she spoke about them with worry, she spoke about them with determination. She would return to that greenhouse. That kept her going.

Archie thought about what he wanted to do when he got back to Ambrosia City. His mind kept returning to the day he had arrived in that bustling hive of a city. He remembered the thrill of watching the fight at The Serving Bowl and wondered what it would feel like to be on the floor looking up at the crowd.

They prepared for the night, waiting until the flurry of snow lost its white glow before setting up the fire deeper into the cave so that it would illuminate the entrance without illuminating their alcove. Blanche took the first watch—the safe watch—and woke Archie up once darkness finally fell. She curled one blanket around her, threw another over the both of them, and then, despite her stress, fell asleep in a matter of seconds, leaving Archie alone in the dark.

He watched the opening of the cave all night long, but it was the depths of the cave that frightened him. The fire burned out of sight behind them, each crackle of wood sounding like an approaching footstep. He took comfort in Blanche. She moved against him, her body burning like a furnace, and the night passed.

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On the second day in the cave, the snow worsened and spilled into the first five feet of the cave. Archie looked at their meager pile of wood. He had to face harsh reality.

"We can't burn another fire through the night," he said.

Blanche listened in silence, too tired to ask why.

"We might be stuck here a while. We'll need it to boil water. And we need to be eating less. One meal a day, I think."

"It'll be pitch black," Blanche said. "We won't be able to see those little creatures if they sneak in."

"I have a plan for that."

Archie dug through their stacked up belongings, pushing aside their few bags of rations for something far more valuable. He carefully opened the sack, the dust of the tariaksuq antlers glowing in the dim light of the cave. He took the noodle ropes that they had used to tie up their packs and threw them into the sack, tied it up, and shook it. When he pulled noodles back out, the speckled dust had ingrained in them, making them glow.

He cut the noodles into ten-foot-long strands and stuck them to the ceiling near the entrance, careful to put them deep enough that the snow wouldn't blow off the antler dust. He returned to Blanche and assessed his work. Each noodle was only a few inches apart, and they spanned the width of the cave.

"They're not bright enough to light up the cave, but they'll do. If anything comes in, we'll see the noodles move. And then I'll know where to shoot."

Archie walked back up the entrance, pushing past the noodles to try to look out beyond the snowstorm. He watched for a while. He didn't have anything better to do. And then, when the wind died down just for a moment, he saw four enukin watching from the ridge. Waiting.

Enukin enukin, little and meek. They take all your food and then you when you're weak.

"I'm going to try to rest some more," he told Blanche as he returned to their alcove. "Don't take your eyes off the entrance."

They didn't speak much for the rest of the day. Blanche slept so much throughout the day that she couldn't fall asleep once it got dark, so they both stayed up, watching the strings of light, hearts beating fast, Archie summoning his slingshot on more than one occasion, Blanche never letting go of the axe.

They didn't speak much the third day, either. Or the fourth. Just the occasional brief conversation. A happy memory. A hope of a future. But they could never keep the unbothered facade up for too long. Every so often, Archie would check outside, the enukin still watching from afar. They seemed unbothered by the snowstorm. They were happy to wait for Archie and Blanche to be too tired and hungry to fight back.

It wasn't until the fifth day after Archie and Blanche burned half their wood to boil water that they finally had the uncomfortable conversation.

"Six meals worth of food," Blanche said. "That's all we have left."

Archie pulled one of the two dozen hardened blueberries from his pocket. "Seven. But we'll eat these last."

Blanche sighed. She might have laughed if it was still their first day in the cave. But with each passing day, laughter became scarcer than their food.

"Half a meal a day, then," Archie said. "Six days. Storm should pass by then. The path'll be harder. Might be marching back for a week on an empty stomach, but we can do it. Could get lucky and forage something or find another hare."

Blanche stared into space. "If I died, would you eat me?"

Archie looked at Blanche, taking his eyes off the entrance for what felt like the first time in days. "What the—"

Blanche's lips stayed flat, her gaze unfocused. She just shrugged.

"I mean." Archie turned back to the entrance. "I guess if either of us dies in here, the other one should…you know. Eat them. But, you know. No killing each other, right?"

"Right." Blanche nodded, barely existing as she contemplated her mortality. "I've never had sex," she said. Her voice was as flat as could be, betraying the incendiary statement.

Archie's heart beat as fast as it would if an enukin had come into the cave. He stared at the entrance not out of fear of them, but out of nervousness. He managed a single word. "What?"

"We're going to die here," she stated. "I don't want to die without ever having had sex."

Archie's shoulders tensed up to his neck. He pressed his thumbs into his fingers. He pursed his chapped lips. "You're not going to die here," he said. "And we should save our energy."

"Okay." Blanche laid back down and pulled the covers over her mouth. "If I die, take care of my plants for me."

She didn't speak again for the rest of the day. Archie slept, letting Blanche keep watch until dark.

A finger pressed against his lips. Something shook his shoulder. He opened his eyes. He couldn't see Blanche, but he knew it was her. She kept her finger pushed to his lips and tugged his parka toward the cave's entrance.

Archie made as little noise as possible as he sat up, retrieving a blueberry from his pocket and stretching a noodle across his thumb and forefinger. He expected to see the enukin creeping in or the lights of the noodles swaying from unwanted visitors. But instead, he saw an old man in heavy furs studying the noodles from the inside of the cave. In the dim light, Archie could see that the man was hunched over to fit in the cave. He must have been seven feet tall.

"I never saw the noodles move," Blanche whispered, barely above a breath. "I think he was already in the cave."

Archie slid his blanket off and stood, cursing at his knees as they popped. But the old man didn't react. He just ran a finger along the length of one of the noodles, a faint smile apparent in the dim glow.

Archie prepared himself for a fight. He focused on the rapid expansion and contraction of his chest. He flexed muscles that hadn't been used in days. He let essence surge from foot to finger and back again, priming himself. He was strong. Even after wasting away in the cave, he was strong. His essence flowed freely. The desperation of survival had given him whatever strength hunger had taken away.

"Don't hurt me, please," the old man croaked, never turning from the noodles.

Archie's heart beat out of control. Blanche gasped.

"I'm just a weary traveler," the old man continued. "I wouldn't have found you if you hadn't hung these up."

Archie didn't let his defenses down and remained silent. The old man shouldn't have been able to see them in the dark. If Archie didn't speak, he had the advantage.

But then the old man turned directly to him. "You're young," he said.

Archie weighed his options. Was the old man bluffing? And was he dangerous? Would it be best to try to talk things out?

"You can see me?" he asked. The man shouldn't have been able to. Archie could barely make out Blanche's outline from a few inches away.

"Archie…" Blanche whispered.

"Yes," the old man said.

"Then you can see that I have a slingshot aimed right at you." Archie pulled the blueberry back in the band.

"Yes."

"I shattered a tariaksuq's skull with one of these."

The old man looked back at the noodles and nodded. "So that's where you got this."

"We don't want any trouble," Archie warned. He widened his stance and prepared to fire. If the old man approached, Archie vowed to shoot.

But the old man was unbothered by the threat. "Do you mind if I take these?" he asked.

"We need them."

"Oh." The old man turned back to them, his face cast in shadow. "Could I have a meal, perhaps?"

"We don't have any to spare." Archie's voice stayed firm. He left no doubt.

But again, the old man continued. "Just one," he said. "Just one meal, then I'll be on my way."

Archie realized that his breathing had gotten out of control. He reined it in as he pulled his slingshot back to its maximum tension. "We don't have enough for us as it is."

"The storm will pass soon," the old man said. "But I haven't eaten in weeks. I'm afraid the snow will last longer than me."

Archie's resolve wavered. Somehow, he felt that the old man knew the truth about the storm. But if Archie gave up their food, they might die. But if he didn't, the old man would certainly die. Archie's morality and survival instincts wrestled. What was the man to them? Why should they risk themselves for him? But if the storm ended while they still had food, and the man died of hunger, would that be acceptable? Would that weigh on their minds? Would that be right?

He considered the smallest amount that he could give the old man. They could part with a handful of nuts, but would that even be enough to sustain the old man? Or would it be a meaningless gesture?

Blanche's morality moved faster than Archie's.

"Let's give him a biscuit," she said.

"Oh," the old man croaked. "You are so generous. Thank you."

He took a step toward them, nearly leaving the light of the noodles. Another step and he'd be invisible to Archie. And Archie's instincts still told him to shoot. Something was wrong about this man.

"Stop!" Archie yelled. "Take a step back."

The man froze. He started to drift backward, but it was too slow for Archie's liking.

"Back!" he commanded. "If you step forward, I can't see you. If I can't see you, I shoot. If I shoot, you die."

"Okay, okay."

The old man pinched off a noodle and draped it around his shoulders. The furs covered parts of the noodle, but Archie could still make out the shape of the man's neck. And if he could see the man's neck, he could shoot the man's head.

"Better?" the old man asked. "Now you can see me."

"Don't get too close. Blanche, wrap up the biscuit and toss it."

Archie saw nothing, but he heard Blanche gather the biscuit in the dark and heard it land halfway between them and the old man.

"May I get it?" the old man asked.

"Slowly."

The old man took a step forward. The noodle shifted deeper into the furs. Archie lost sight of the old man.

"Stop!" he yelled. The shuffling of feet stopped. "Get another noodle. I need to see you better.

"Here, how's this?"

Archie saw the silhouette of the old man's hand run across the noodle, tripling its brightness. It glowed enough to cast a weak silver light on the walls, illuminating the old man's face. Archie could see the bundled up biscuits. He could see Blanche trembling.

"How'd you do that?" Archie asked.

"The tariaksuq's antlers are actually from trees," the old man answered. "They're quite magical. If you hadn't hung up these noodles, the enukin probably would have taken you by now. They fear it. The essence."

"Are you a Chef?"

"No. I'm just a very, very old man. Do you mind if I eat?"

"Slowly."

The man stooped down, and it was only then that Archie realized how tall their guest really was. Even doubled over, he stood just a foot shorter than Archie. The old man took the biscuit and ate it, moaning softly and making the noises of a rat as he chewed and collected the crumbs.

He stood back tall, bending over to fit below the ceiling of the cave. "Thank you," he said. "You both have very generous spirits. You could have very well left me to die. Perhaps you should have."

Archie lowered his slingshot. Blanche moved next to him.

"You were in need," she said. "We couldn't ignore that."

"Hm." The old man's smiling teeth reflected the light from the noodle. "Well, thank you. I rarely see anyone, and when I do, they are rarely so generous."

Archie's thoughts bounced around chaotically as he started to understand. "What's your name?"

"Drolma," the old man said.

Blanche looked at Archie in confusion. Archie stared at the old man with understanding. "Drolma Khalsang?"

Drolma smiled. He shifted his shoulders around, his arms swinging freely at his side. He seemed to be shaking off his age, even his voice growing more youthful. "The Bhantla's call woke me, but just barely. She's grown weaker. I was lucky to find you in time."

"You weren't hungry," Archie said.

"It was a test," Drolma responded. "A test you've passed."

"Archie?" Blanche tugged at Archie's sleeves. She hadn't been privy to the finer details of their operation, just the overall mission. "Do you know who this is?"

"Drolma Khalsang," Archie repeated. "Keeper of the grove. He was the ruler of the yetis in Queen Tamani's time."

Blanche's hand slid off Archie's arm as her jaw dropped. "Ambrosia's daughter? That was a thousand years ago."

"Hm." Drolma smiled. "I'm more than that. I'm her husband. Come, come. Bring the rest of your dust…"

Drolma tapped the noodle around his shoulders again, brightening it until it lit up the whole cave. He started walking deeper into the cave, waving them along.

"...and I'll take you to her."

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