She stood upon a mound of ice. Her feet were merely damp, though the sensation was new and unwelcome. Behind her sat a stone cleaved to pieces; sunken partially in to the wall was the largest segment while two shards looked immaculate upon the snow, as if they were meant for it. The girl did not know where, what, or who she was - only that it was cold and lonely where she stood. The emanations of warmth further along the corridor did reach for her, as if she were an escaped ember about to fade.

The newborn was bright against the snow with her copper coat, tufting at the cheeks. As her attention drifted from her frozen toes and up, towards the snow piled around her, she somehow knew she was alone. That nobody would be here to intervene. If she wanted warmth she would have to find her way to it herself; but still, the cold was not threatening to her. It was still. Even the air stagnated beneath the archway of the door.

All that she could hear was herself: heart beating, air whistling through a pink nose, the shift of her weight as the snow gave way. As the cub turned to where her chrysalis rested she bowed, sniffing at the surface of it. It smelled faintly of minerals but otherwise nothing; like the rest of the pale, cold world that she had been born in to.

She stepped around the scattering of moonstone, moving in to the shadow of the immense doorway, and then stopped as the uncertainty of youth swarmed her from within.