Hela

Hela 'chose' an awful time to hatch.

It was freezing, and she was still wet from her Chrysalis. So she sat, shivering violently, mind slow and sluggish from the cold, as she tried, and failed, to get started. 'Oh, oh, it's cold.'

What? She was a new-hatched, she wasn't half so intelligent as she would be in the future!

⩹Ꝁɏᵾ⩺

Indeed, it was cold - cold enough that there might be some debilitating consequence if the pup didn't quickly find somewhere warm and dry.

Looking to the north wouldn't yield anything promising. The powdery layer of snow around Hela deepened and drifted into rather sizable hills.

@Hela

Hela

She sneezed, reached up to rub at her nose. 'I should move.'

The pup gathered her paws beneath her, stood, unsure and wobbly, and stepped high in the snow, struggling - oh, to have such first steps! and looked around, squinting in the snow. Would it always be this hard to see?

Dear, she hoped not. She stumbled over a rock, whined at the throb of her paw, and stopped to lick at her hurt.

⩹Ꝁɏᵾ⩺

The shivering set in rather quickly, and the numbness overriding the brief shock of stubbing one's toe wasn't because of instinctive licking. Cold showed no mercy to pups born in unfortunate circumstances, it seemed. Hela was barely in the first stage of hypothermia, but it could compound in merely half an hour.

@Hela

Hela

The pup whined, licked-licked-licked, and finally stood back up, stumbling on wobbly, numb paws. Tiny, she had to leap to clear the snow, and was quickly growing exhausted.

Surely, life wasn't like this always? Who would be so cruel as to make her come awake, only to struggle such?

⩹Ꝁɏᵾ⩺

All of Hela's struggles were simply the result of a cruelly unfortunate confluence of events: the storm's abrupt arrival and her own emergence. Days ago, she wouldn't have been traipsing through snow as deep as she was tall, in search of an alcove to rest in.

When the snow thinned into a powder-coat, the pup came upon a slight dip in the ground, sheltered on all sides but the very top. The breeze was so slight that it wouldn't cause any issues. This little divot was the perfect place to rest and recuperate - and consider future adventures.

@Hela