It was snowing.

Normally, this would not have been a problem, but the snow was falling heavier and heavier and the winds were picking up at an alarmingly fast rate. This snowstorm might well turn into a blizzard, which would be a redoubted problem to face, even for a Gembound well adapted to the cold. And make no mistake, Aspen was one of those Gembound. A place like Ursa was like a dream to him. The mountains, the temperatures, the vast space to roam, the swirling ribbons of color high above...

No, Aspen was hardly going to abandon it at the first sign of trouble. Ursa was worth staying in. But it was unwise to remain out in the open when a blizzard was on the way, so he stuffed his tail into his mouth (to CONSERVE HEAT. But also one should never forget their inner kitten.) and peered through the spiraling snow, looking for a place to shelter. But the snow fell too thickly to see far, so he supposed he'd just have to keep walking and hope he found something soon.

This probably wasn't gonna end well.

A second soul appeared in the blizzard, far less adapted than Aspen was. Beast's thick fur provided some protection from the howling storm, but those hooves and nubs were completely unsuited to the temperature and skidded on every ice patch he came across. Frost crept over his tentacles and hung over his eyelashes, obscuring much of his vision to blurry shapes of white and grey. Here and there he stopped to shake his coat free of snow, only for it to accumulate the moment he started moving again.

Oh, he should've never left his den...!

Up ahead he saw another animal-- pale, sleek, and far more comfortable in the snowstorm than Beast was. "Hello?" he squawked from his stomach mouth-- on one hand, it's positioning meant it never got cold, on the other it made every word painfully hard to hear over the howl-- stumbling over to catch up with the snow leopard. The hybrid's dark eyes scanned the environment, and it appeared Aspen was doing the same. But nothing was to be seen.

@Aspen

Aspen saw Beast before he ever heard him, they hybrid's words getting lost in a gust of wind. The thing shambled toward Aspen, his footsteps clumsy on Ursa's landscape. Aspen blinked away a flurry of snowflakes and squinted toward the approaching figure. What... was that? He'd never seen anything like Beast before. "Hello?" he mumbled around the fluff of his tail, then took it out of his mouth and tried again. "Hello!"

He padded toward the hybrid, occasionally stopping to peer left and right for some place they could take shelter. Even if they had to wait out the blizzard in the open, which would be a rather unpleasant outcome, two were always better than one when trying to keep warm. Assuming, of course, that Beast was approaching him in a friendly way and not to eat him. But Aspen thought he'd be too big for the hybrid anyway.

@Beast

There were deep crevices in the glacier, and plenty of ice tunnels here and there in which to hide. Some had been naturally-formed by the shifting of rock, of heat and moisture; others seemed... different, somehow.

There were those that were strangely smooth, almost ribbed down their length as they vanished into the dark. One of these had an odd, acrid scent, but nothing that could be easily placed.

Two others seemed to have been almost chipped from the glacier; these seemed devoid of scent.

All would provide shelter from wind and snow, but all were bitterly cold and--within a few meters of their entrances--very, very dark.

@Beast @Aspen

There he was! The other-one! Beast smiled at their entrance, though it wasn't visible from the position of his beak. "Hello!" He echoed back. The hybrid almost reached out a tentacle in greeting but recoiled from the sheer cold of the air. Both of them had to find shelter, quick.

The hexapod followed Aspen's gaze around the perimeter of the glacier, squinting to see beyond the snowflakes. There were plenty of cave entrances carved out of the ice, some closer, some further. One immediately caught his eye from it's smooth, pristine appearance-- though he, unfortunately, would never notice it's odd scent with a beak. Such a smooth, carved entrance... did someone live there?

"This way!" Beast chirped, motioning towards the tunnel. He stumbled through the ice and snow until collapsed at the entrance, breathing heavily. It was so cold.

@Aspen

He'd spotted several strange tunnels in the ice nearby that could serve as shelter, and it seemed the tentacled one had too. But as he padded through the snow behind Beast, a flurry of snow blew past, carrying with it an acrid stench. Aspen wrinkled his nose with disgust, stuffing his tail in his mouth again so he wouldn't have to smell it. Then he remembered he had to take it out to talk, and cursed under his breath.

"Wait!" he called, taking a few steps closer and then stopping. He was still a little more than twenty meters away from the entrance, and Beast looked pretty sad and lonely and cold, but he really didn't want to get any closer to the awful stink. "That one smells really bad! I saw another one there that doesn't stink like this one. Let's go that way." He pointed with his tail at a second tunnel, then turned to head toward it. It was chipped, not nearly as smooth as the one Beast had found, but at least it didn't smell.

@Beast whoops sorry for the tag i forgot it was my turn to tag gm

This tunnel led forward, and then down in a steep curve. After thirty feet, it was dark; after fifty, it was difficult to see. One hundred feet in, and it was pitch black, with only the faintest reflections from the entrance--and even these were soon gone.

If the two had a way to navigate this darkness, they would find this tunnel extending downward, farther and farther--thus far seemingly empty, bar the dark and cold.

@Beast

Beast gave Aspen a weird look, incapable of smelling the stench coming from the tunnel entrance. "Huh?" he questioned, inaudible amongst the howling winds. There wasn't anything wrong with this one. What even is a "smell"? Still, he obeyed, and stepped away from the gaping mouth to follow the feline. Beast did not like going against what other people said.

Traveling the short distance between here and there felt like forever. His hooves could never get a grip on the snow and whatever exposed skin he had felt frozen. Still, they made it, and he craned his head forward to see a dark, steep cave, as cold and desolate as could be. But hey, at least it's not snowing in there.

"Ooh!" the creature exclaimed, gingerly stepping over the overhang and shaking the snow off his fur. "Thank you!" his voice seemed to echo on and on down the icy tunnel. Ooo, spooky! It was terribly dim down here, though. He could barely see the tips of his frost-tinged tentacles. He wasn't sure what he could do to change that, unfortunately. He couldn't glow, or make magic lights, or see in the dark, or any of that business. All he had was his brain.

Well, at the very least he could tell how deep this tunnel goes, right? Picking up an icy pebble off the ground with his feelers, he gently lobbed it into the darkness beyond, praying he would hear it land.

@Aspen

The tentacled hybrid was not built for Ursa's conditions, Aspen realized with a twinge of guilt. He stumbled over the snow, and seemed to be terribly uncomfortable despite his fur. Those tentacles must be unprotected, Aspen thought. Sensitive, too, if he can pick things up with them.

"We can stay here together until the storm is over," Aspen offered. "Come closer; we'll warm each other up." He stepped toward Beast and reached to lay his fluffy tail across the hybrid's brown-furred back, assuming Beast didn't stop him. He isn't camouflaged, either, Aspen realized: yet another thing he should've noticed that would have told him the hybrid wasn't adapted to these snowy mountains.

Beast threw a frost-covered pebble down the tunnel, and Aspen stared after it, though it was difficult even for him to see far. The important part, though, was that they could hopefully get a better idea of what the tunnel was like by listening for its path. He didn't want to talk while the pebble still made noise, but he smiled at Beast in what he hoped was a very encouraging good idea kind of way.

The rock bounced--a quiet click, click, clatter as it careened into unseen depths. The tunnel was long, its slope more steep down below, there was no doubt about that.

Other than the echo, and the whistle of cold air threading through the ice, there was nothing; the two Gembound would be left alone, so long as they huddled here and did not delve any deeper into the dark.

@Beast