Chapter Text
When Sirrus gained consciousness, it felt like being punched in the face. She came to in an instant, gasping in a breath, and immediately choked on some kind of powdery material. Some kind of freezing cold powdery material. She coughed - but also, she didn’t?
Wait. One - one mouth coughed. The other didn’t. She had two mouths. She had two heads. Okay, that made sense. Did it?
She had no idea.
Sirrus pulled herself up. She couldn’t see much - everything was white. She blinked dizzily, trying to spot anything around her. It was all blurry, white, white, white. Cold. Snow? Snow.
Snow. Where was she?
She had no idea.
South? South of… something. South of -
She tried to remember. There was… a green place, grass and a forest - and stone walls -
Pain shot through her head. Heads. She hissed and shut all her eyes, grabbing on to her left head with her forepaws. Two forepaws, the normal amount. Why did she have two heads? Her forepaws looked strange. Blue. Was she supposed to be blue? No. Wait. Yes, of course. Why would she not be blue? And white, and - orange, maybe? It was hard to tell. There was white snow everywhere, frost on her. She was cold. Wind screamed around her body, blowing her patchy mane in all directions.
She stared at her forepaws. Three claws and a thumb on each forepaw. One of her forepaws was slightly larger than the other, and her claws were different lengths, and slightly different shapes. She didn’t understand that. She looked at her limbs. She seemed to have two hindpaws, large, and two… tails, and two wings. Two of everything. Two two two.
Sirrus clumsily opened her wings. They felt stiff, and as they caught the wind, she was bowled over backwards, heads buried in the snow. She scrambled up and out, shaking snow out of her mane. Her wings went from stiff and chilly to stiff and freezing, and then to numb, almost instantly. She couldn’t feel them. She folded them in, and she knew she had because she could see them, but she couldn’t feel it.
Oh. Oh no. This wasn’t good. She didn’t know much, but she knew this wasn’t good.
Sirrus tried to look around again. Wind knocked her sideways, into the snow, and she scrabbled to try and stand again.
Again, the wind knocked her sideways. This time, she didn’t stand up or extend her lanky limbs into the gale. She curled into a ball for a second, tucking her heads against her chest.
Okay. What to do?
She was alone, and it was snowy and windy and cold. She needed help.
But - how? How could she find help? Was there anyone around?
She couldn’t see or hear anything but wind and snow. She felt a faint flicker of magic in her body, but that was it. That would be no help. No, no. She was completely alone.
Sirris did not know how she got to the snow. She didn’t know where she came from. She knew what her name was, and she knew that she was in danger. Her heads hurt. She had five eyes, she knew. Two on one head, three on the other. The third eye on her left head was the only one that worked; the other two were just smears of dull color, mostly dark. At least her right-side head could see.
Poorly. Her vision went blurrier, watery. Sirrus realized she was crying, but her tears froze on her faces. She couldn’t feel anything else.
She was going to die out here. There was no one to help her.
No. No.
Sirrus, you won’t know unless you try. You can’t just stay here.
No! She had to try.
She took a deep breath of frigid air and tried to stand. Her limbs shook; she was shivering hard enough to shake her whole body. Her paws were going numb.
“Help,” she called out, hoarsely, into the wind. Oh, like that was going to do anything. She had to do more than that. She cleared her throat. “Help!” she shouted.
The wind snatched the words right out of her mouth. She gritted her teeth, feeling her eyelids cold against her eyes.
She had to try to do something. Sirrus picked a direction and started walking.
It didn’t go well. After a few steps, the snow deepened, and was up to her chest. She floundered and tried to move back, but she was already lost. She had no choice but to try and continue, moving in clumsy bounds and desperate clawing motions.
Her breath was in harsh, ragged gasps. She wouldn’t be able to manage this for long. But she had to try.
“Someone!” she shouted. “Anyone!” Her voice was rough in her throat, croaking and painful. The cold made her teeth hurt, and froze inside her nose. Her lungs hurt, both sets, and she struggled to breathe in with either one. She could feel that her paws were catching on the ground and snow, but she didn’t feel any pain.
That doesn’t mean you’re not getting hurt!
How did she know that? Someone had told her once, back before the stone walls -
Ow! Her heads throbbed. She tripped and fell, becoming buried entirely in the snow, and dragged herself up and onwards. She kept tripping on things, on nothing, stumbling through the blizzard and falling more than walking.
She couldn’t keep doing this for long. She'd been shivering, but that had stopped. She tried to open a mouth to shout for help again, but her jaw was so cold and stiff it was hard to move, and it took longer than it should have for her to call out again - a simple "help." She didn't know anything about how she'd gotten here, but she knew this was bad. She wasn't going to make it.
But she had to at least try. She would probably die out here, but she had to at least try .
Sirrus stumbled onwards, blurry vision flickering to hazy gray at the edges. The storm was never-ending, crowding in around her, wrapping around her and sapping what little heat she had away.
Wait. Something ahead. There was something ahead - a light?
A light. Hope. People, maybe, who could help. Sirrus forced her frozen limbs to keep moving. She just had to reach it.
The light grew closer. Sirrus didn't feel like she was making any progress towards it; maybe it was coming towards her? Her limbs were like frozen tree branches, utterly useless.
"Please," she tried desperately, through the wind, forcing her jaw to move and let her voice out. She batted at her own face with a numb paw to knock it open. "I-I'm lost."
By the gods, that was an understatement.
If that even was a person, who knew if they would be a friend? Maybe they were a murderer. Maybe she was crawling towards a fate worse than death by the cold.
Crawling? Yes, she realized. She was dragging herself forward with her forepaws; her hindpaws had entirely gone useless. Her back legs barely worked at all. She lay on her belly in the snow. That probably wasn't helping with the cold, but when she carefully gathered all her legs underneath her, she just fell into the snow anyway and was buried further. It didn't matter what she did. She was useless here. She didn't belong here. She wasn't made for this horrible place, whatever it was. The cold scorched the inside of her lungs, seared her throats. She choked on it. The wind stuffed itself into her mouths and smothered her until she lowered her faces into her mane and struggled to breathe out of the fierce gusts.
Not that it mattered that much. Her mane was crusted through with ice. If she'd been able to feel her faces, she would have felt the sharp spikes poking through her skin.
But she didn't. She felt nothing physically except the cold now, and in her mind, she felt nothing at all.
Certainly she was afraid of dying. She knew that. And she was afraid of strangers, including whoever or whatever was behind that light, if it was even a dragon. But she couldn't feel that fear anymore. Her brains felt frozen, like a clock with the springs broken. She knew of her fears, but they couldn't get out of her brains and into the rest of her.
Through her failing eyes, Sirrus looked at her paws again. They were crusted with ice and snow and red blood. She must have hurt them. She needed help.
If she gave up, not taking her chances on the light, then she would die for certain. If she tried to reach it, she could be murdered by a hermit in this snowy hell, or maybe she would be saved by a hermit living in this snowy hell who would help her. One route led to certain death and the other just to possible death. It was worth trying.
She lifted her head. "Over here," she slurred, tongue heavy in her cold mouth. Her faces were crusted in ice. When she tried to speak with either mouth, it felt like she was fighting past a hunk of snow someone had shoved inside, biting down on it when she tried to form words. Distantly, she recognized the obstructions as her tongues. "M here, please…"
The light was coming closer. Sirrus felt her vision flickering and tried to drag herself just a little further. They could pass her by in the storm. She needed them to see her. She needed them to see her. It was her only chance.
Her wings were bright! She told them to open, inside her brain. She didn't feel anything. She told them again, forcing them to obey. She couldn't feel them do it, but did see from one blurred eye the bright orange color laying atop the snow, so it must have worked. Yes, it would make her colder, but did it really matter? She was already dying.
Her heads fell to the snow as she watched the light. Sirrus realized at that moment that she could no longer move. She didn't even really feel the cold that much. She was numb, but almost warm-feeling. Maybe it was the light warning her up. But her tears still froze instantly, clogging up her tear ducts. Her eyes were so cold. She should just close them. But if she did, she wouldn't be able to watch the light.
She willed her mouth to open and call out, but couldn't do it. So she just lay there, watching the light, until she couldn't see anymore, and then she was gone.