Archive of Our Own

Antarctica.

A place only as few animals can call home. The vicious hooligans of the animal kingdom such as killer whales and leopard seals, of course. But on the other side there are also penguins, the beloved strange birds inhabiting this frozen wasteland that calls itself a continent. For whatever reason. Besides it’s sparce greenery and unforgiving weather, Antarctica is also just really boring. There is snow, glaciers, sea, rocks, more snow, more glaciers. Generally, very unamusing. Everything looks the same and its’ monotone landscape is painful to navigate. An open maze, leading inexperienced tourists into their eventual doom.

It was day two since the penguins and King Julien escaped the leopard seal village, floating on a drifting piece of ice. Not exactly a luxury express, but it was all they had after the seals destroyed their submarine. Thanks to a certain someone… The noon was closing in, not that they would’ve known had Rico not had a watch storaged because it was Antarctica and the sun had been rising for weeks and it was going to be rising for a few weeks more before daytime that’s going to last for months. The morning sun was glistening on the walls of snow. Whie the weather was calm and stable, the penguins were still tense as they could be from yesterday’s events. Neither of them cared for being reminded of their place on the food chain. It was gonna leave a mental mark for some time, much as they wanted to dismiss it as just another mission, no more or less scary than Dr. Blowhole or The Hoboken Zoo. But it was different and they knew it, yet none knew how to bring it up, where to even start. A mere mention of that experience meant reliving it mentally and no one was interested in going through that again so soon.

Worst part was, after all night and morning of travelling, they didn’t seem to be close to leaving Antarctica. They tried to take the longer route to evade the leopard seal territory, but that route was beginning to look like a circle. It was hard to tell with Antarctica’s repetitive landscape. They found themselves floating through a narrow channel surrounded by tall glaciers, hoping to reach the open sea soon. It should be smooth sailing from there, literally, to get on the way back to New York, but they needed to get there first, that was the hard part.

Kowalski and Rico entertained themselves by hanging around with Julien. He was neither’s first choice for a conversation buddy, but in the moment, they needed a distraction and there was something comforting in the company of someone who couldn’t belong less to the ever-frozen continent. Like a mental anchor to remind them they were from a zoo in New York and it’s where they’re returning. Rico brought a stack of cards, so the three killed some time with a game of “Stomp the Wombat”. It’s wasn’t quite fun when Julien had his own rules that in a nutshell were “he was the winner no matter what cards he had”, but it was for the best to keep him entertained before he starts taking in how hostile the environment he was in could be for a jungle dwelling primate such as himself. But as long as the weather doesn’t change for the worse, the lemur should be fine.

Private joined in at some point, but quit when the bantering became too much to handle. Instead, he withdrew into an empty area of the iceberg, ripped an icicle they were passing by and used it to draw in the snow. Skipper would pace from one corner to another, sit on the edge for a short while, staring densely at the frozen landscape surrounding them before getting up to find another place to sit and sulk. This time he sat near Private. Far enough so he wasn’t in his space, but close enough for Private to notice he was near him intentionally.

He eyed what Private was drawing. It was a Lunacorn, of course it was. He returned to staring in the distance, thinking deeply, knowing well it piqued the young penguin’s interest. Private tried his best to read how his leader felt. Was he mad at him for bringing them there? Or was he only carefully scanning the area to make a mental map in case they might need one? Maybe he was worrying too much, after all he did save them and everything turned out fine. He returned to drawing, trying to ignore Skipper near him. For a few seconds, everyone on the iceberg was back to their standard activities.

“No, I still don’t get it.” Skipper spoke up, drawing the attention of Private as well as the other three who paused the game to hear what’s supposedly been puzzling Skipper all morning. “A penguin putting himself into so much danger to save a leopard seal. Our worst natural enemy of all animals.”

Private sighed. So, he was still mad at him after all. He couldn’t fully blame him, it was stupid of him to so carelessly swim onto the enemy territory. Had Hunter not been there to stand up for him, he would’ve been lunch. Not to mention the other three having a close call when they tried to save him. Still, after all they’ve been through and all the animals they’ve met, was it that naive to think that maybe leopard seals are more reasonable than they thought?

“Well, we know a lion whose best friend is a zebra and they seem to be doing fine.” He said.

“Oh, those guys? They were both zoo animals, let’s not forget how well the hippie took it when we left them in the wild for two days.”

“Okay, but what about those animals in Kenya, most of them were nice.”

“Private,” Skipper got up. “I’m going to put it bluntly: no animal is like a leopard seal. Lions and tigers and alligators and everything are just carnivores, leopard seals are a different kind of barbaric.”

Kowalski joined in, “They slam your body hard as possible until all of your bones are crushed to flour.” Rico got up, only to throw himself onto the ground, mimicking painful grunting, then got up again and repeated it once more. Finally, the third time he did it, he only let out a dying shriek, then proceeded to play dead. “Then,” Kowalski continued, “they rip your tender, softened body apart, piece by piece, into a soppy mess of blood and entrails.” Rico rolled on his back and proceeded to make choking sounds and pulling motions with his flippers above his belly, as if gutting himself.

“Like a mango!” Julien added.

Private recoiled. “Okay, stop, I got it!” He buried his head into his flippers, trying to get that image out of his mind. Skipper approached him and laid his flipper onto his shoulder in a comforting manner, giving Kowalski and Rico a look of mild disapproval.

“Too far?” Kowalski asked.

“A little bit, yeah.”

“I could really go for a mango right now. Are we close yet?”

Skipper approached Private from the front, gently lifting his head up. “But hey, we escaped those sea mutts, didn’t we? And it was thanks to you. Granted, you did get us into this mess in the first place, but you used your wits and quick thinking to get us out of it. Let’s just hope you learned your lesson about being a hero to when you shouldn’t be one.”

Private huffed at that last sentence. “Thanks, Skipper, but I couldn’t have done it without Hunter, she really did save us all.”

“You’re right,” Skipper said, “guess there really is one nice leopard seal after all. Good for her.”

“For now.” Kowalski muttered under his breath.

“Still, why save that other guy. He was gonna eat us all. In front of you. After you saved his daughter. Private, you could have died there for something that really wasn’t worth that?”

Private went silent for a moment. He got up, paced around for a bit and sat back down in a different place. “I don’t know.” He sighed. “I don’t like the guy, but he is Hunter’s dad. Yes, I was terrified when I thought the seals were gonna eat you guys. I felt so alone when Hunter left, I didn’t know how I was going to save us all by myself. Then she came back for us and after while saving you almost lost her dad. And I just couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let Hunter feel the same way I did when I thought I was gonna lose you.”

He went quiet again, waiting for the penguins to respond, but they were staring at him in complete silence, yet with full attention. “Guess that’s what makes penguins different from leopard seals.” He concluded.

“Yeah, penguins are better than leopard seals in every aspect” Kowalski said, “Not that it’s a high bar to cross, but we’re way above it.”

“Uh-huh.” Rico nodded.

Skipper remained quiet. He was still hung up on Private’s words and the implications behind him feeling the same way losing his team as someone would losing their father. The penguins were a family, there was no doubt about that. They told that to Private the moment he hatched. Still, it was another thing to hear it from the young penguin himself, implying it so casually. Poor guy never actually had real parents. The other three only knew theirs for a short while, they didn’t remember much about them, nor what happened to them. All they knew was that one day their parents left to get food and never returned afterwards. Private was abandoned while being only an egg. He hatched in their care and from then on, they were all that he had.

“Well, I, for once, am with the bossy penguin.” Julien stomped his way to the middle of the iceberg, drawing all the attention to himself, breaking Skipper out of his train of thoughts. “I don’t know about these leo-pardy seals, but if I met a helpless little fossa, I would show it like” he punched the air with each fist. “I would teach it a lesson!” He jumped and made a kick in the air, grunting angrily. “And then she would be like ‘Nooo, Stop, oh powerful King Julien!’” He cried in mocking manner. “And then I’d be like ‘This is what you get for trying to eat the royal booty.’” He jumped angrily into the air twice, stomping the ground with both feet, made a few punching motions towards the floor and tried to jump again in the same way, but upon landing he slipped on the ice and with a shriek faceplanted into the ground.

The penguins were watching the scene with anticipation, waiting to see how ungraciously their king would pick himself up. He lifted himself back on his feet, shook the snow off of his fur and continued, “And when her daddy is about to fall onto the pointety spikes she’d be like ‘Wahhh, I’m a fossa whose daddy is going to die!’ And I’d be like ‘Haha, that’s one fossa less!’”

He turned around to observe the reaction from his audience. The penguins were staring at him speechless, but with great amusement. Julien dismissed their blunt reactions. “Of course, that’s what a king would do, as for some silly penguins-“

The iceberg stopped suddenly and trembled on the water, knocking the lemur onto his face again. The penguins gathered around the source of the collision. The channel stopped. It was a dead end. Before the group stood a tall wall of ice, with nothing visible behind it but the blue sky with a few small clouds floating on it.

“Tough luck, guess we’re going on foot after all” Skipper said.

“Uhh, do we even know where we’re going?” Private asked nervously.

“Of course we don’t. But getting some higher ground might give us better sense of direction.”

Skipper scanned the ice wall surrounding them, looking for a part less steep than the rest. There was a crooked pillar of ice a few feet away leaned onto the side of the tall snow-white wall, a challenging one to climb, but manageable. The floating iceberg was too heavy to turn around, so the only option was swimming. Skipper jumped into the water, signing the others to follow him. Next in line after him was Private, then Rico and Kowalski being last. But before he could jump into the water after the others, Kowalski felt something suddenly weighting him down. He looked up to see Julien clutch onto his upper back, he gave him an awkward smile and a thumbs up. Kowalski groaned. Julien wasn’t the greatest swimmer, so leaving him swim in the Antarctic waters by himself probably wouldn’t have been the wisest. Still, why did it have to be him to carry the lemur? Short end of the stick for Kowalski as always.

It took a minute to get to the top, although the strong webbed feet built for that environment kept them well from sliding down. Everyone sighed in a relief upon finally stepping on the flat ground and they stopped to catch some breath before analysing their surroundings. Julien slid off of Kowalski’s back, breathing heavily on the floor, dramatically wiping his forehead. Kowalski looked down at him with deep annoyance.

They were looking at a flat frozen desert with no end in sight.

Skipper took a step forwards, placed his hands, or, well, tips of his flippers, above his hips and made an exaggerated sigh. “Gonna be a nice little walk from here, boys, better get going.”

Julien picked himself up from the ground. “And how exactly are we supposed to know where we’re going?”

“A penguin can always sense which way the ocean is, it’s in our gut. And my gut is never mistaken.”

“It’s true!” Rico added proudly.

The five of them carried on through the snowy plain, on a painstaking walk through an endless landscape. Julien was dragging himself behind, groaning and hanging his arms and head, but no penguin was interested to carry him anymore. A threat from Skipper that they would leave him where he was if he didn’t stop bothering was enough for the lemur to pick up the pace. But after enough time it got harder for everyone to keep on their feet. And, yet, there was no ocean in sight.

But something else was.

Private was the one struggling to keep up the most. His feet were sore and he was barely breathing. He kept quiet, not wanting to hold the group back, but when the exhaustion became too much, he had to stop, hang his body downward, heavily breathing before his legs finally betrayed him and he collapsed into the snow.

“Pick yourself up, Private,” Skipper turned around. “The ocean won’t come to us.” He walked up to the penguin faceplanted in the snow, his little flippers barely able to move, let alone lift his body. Seeing him struggle, Skipper lifted Private up himself, gently wiping the snow off of his feathers. Still, Private’s feet couldn’t hold his weight anymore, so he threw it all on Skipper, clinging onto him for support.

“Skipper,” Kowalski was struggling to catch his breath, “maybe we” breathe, “could take” breathe, “a” breathe, “short break.” Rico whined in agreement before collapsing onto the ground.

“Yes, please, listen to the sciency penguin.” Julien added.
Skipper wasn’t the one to take spontaneous breaks before the job was over. They needed to move, they needed to get back home. And once they do, the rest is gonna be that much more rewarding. They just needed to push through exhaustion. Tune out the ache in their feet and increasingly harder breathing. Skipper just needs to tune out the heavy pounding against his chest. Except it wasn’t coming from the inside. Private was still clinging onto him and his little heart was pounding so heavily, Skipper could feel it as if it was his own. He looked back at others. Kowalski was barely standing with his flippers on his knees, little white clouds forming around his face as he was catching breath. Rico fully drooped into the snow, still whining quietly. They were all such a bunch of weaklings. So how did they have so much power over Skipper?

“Five minutes.” He groaned. “Take a snack to recharge and if anyone needs to go do it now, I don’t wanna see anyone run behind a bush a minute after we get going.”

Julien and Kowalski dropped on the ground as well with a loud sigh of relief. Skipper gently sat private down so he could finally free himself. But as he was letting go, something caught his eye.

A giant cape of thick black clouds looming over the sky, so heavy it slowly poured onto the ground, blurring the line between the sky and the ground. The sky above was blue as it could be, one could never tell there was an upcoming storm without looking in the direction of the clouds in the distance. But it was only a matter of time till they would catch up.

Skipper walked back slowly, watching the clouds in the distance. “Uh… Kowalski..?”

“Yes Skipper?” Kowalski muttered, still on the ground.

Skipper picked him up by the head and turned it in the direction of the clouds. “Is this gonna be a problem?” Kowalski was startled by the view, still he gave it a better inspection. “Yes.” He concluded. “We need to find shelter fast.”

“Huh, why?” Private turned around. “Oh dear!”

“Antarctic hailstorm is coming, boys, we need to find shelter fast or else we’re popsicles”

“And you intend to find shelter how exactly in the middle of this nowhereness?”

Skipper looked around, eyes squinted and flipper above them. “That hill over there, we might be able to make use of it.” Truly, there was hill where Skipper was pointing, but so far away, it was a little more than a silhouette.

“Skipper, we have little chances to get there in time.” Kowalski objected.

“Reason more to get going, now!”

Rico buried his head into the snow. Using his flippers, he tried to wipe as much snow as he could onto himself, groaning softly in his little pity burrow. Skipper approached him. “Sure, you can rest here for all eternity when you’re ten feet under the snow, frozen solid.”

“Okay!” He mumbled from underneath.

Skipper sighed. He wiped the snow off of Rico and pulled him off the ground with very little effort to everyone’s surprise. Including Rico’s. With a heavy huff, he obliged and joined the other penguins.
“Well, as your king, I am not walking anymore!” Julien protested, “The Sky Spirits will protect me from any storm your silly penguin land brings to me.” He sat down, his arms crossed.

“Ringtail, we’re going with or without you.”

The penguins walked off a few feet away from Julien. “Hey!” He got up and ran towards them. And the group was on a runaway again, moving fast as the four waddly penguins and a king that never had to walk far in his life could.

The heavy black clouds had fully engulfed the sun, rendering the horizon dark and colourless. Furious wind was throwing the falling snow in all directions with blood-curdling screeching that made it feel alive. And angry. The tiny particles of snow flying aimlessly inflicted sharp pain when landing on one’s skin, like millions of tiny bullets. The hill disappeared from the sight, blurred into endless greyness behind a curtain of snowflakes flying about. The penguins only had the trust in their own sense of direction to take them to the potential shelter. Huddled together to keep one another from freezing or getting blown off by the wind, they carried on.

Luckily, the blizzard didn’t catch them too far away from the hill, although mere minutes of dragging through it felt like eternity. But they made it to the hill and quickly found a crack between a piece of rock sticking out and a thick mass of ice pouring down to call a shelter. Not very comfortable nor spacious, but it served its purpose as a cover from wind and snow.

It was still freezing cold as it could get, luckily penguins were masters of huddling together for warmth. They haven’t evolved their cuteness and cuddliness just for the show. Rico and Kowalski stood by one another, holding onto Private who stood in front of them. Next to him was Julien and Skipper was at the front, looking at the blizzard outside. While the penguins were professional cuddlers, King Julien liked his own space and showed to be visibly nervous, pushing the others away from himself and trying to distance himself from others much as the tight space would allow him.

“Move away, chunky birds, do you want to suffocate your king?” He whined.

“Sure, we can go outside in the blizzard while you get the shelter for yourself.” Skipper said.

“Yes, that would be perfect.”

“Right after we make ourselves coats out of your fur.”

Julien huffed and crossed his arms, but remained quiet. Rico and Private noticed Kowalski was acting off. He was stiff and unresponsive and his eyes were blank. “Uh Kowalski, is everything alright?” Private asked.

“Uh huh.” Kowalski said bluntly. But immediately, he started breathing heavily, which quickly grew into outright hyperventilating. He stumbled forwards as his head hung down. Rico and Private were trying to hold him in place and Skipper pushed his way towards him.

“Speak to me, soldier!” Skipper held Kowalski by shoulders, locking eyes with him. Even in low light, he noticed his pupils being unnaturally big.

“Need to. Lay. Down.” Kowalski forced words between heavy breathing; then, hyperventilating got mixed with choking sounds. The penguins moved around to give Kowalski room to lay down, but it was near impossible in the tight space. He grew quiet suddenly, his body slipping out of the penguins’ grasp. When they looked him in the eyes again, they were white.

Julien, who was observing the scene intensely, started to panic. “The evil snow spirits are taking our souls!!” He screamed. “Protect your king by sacrificing yourselves.” He started squeezing around the penguins, trying to push his way out.

“Ringtail, calm down, Kowalski is just feeling overwhelmed from the run.”

“They’re manipulating the bossy penguin, get me out of here!” He pushed his way past private, Rico got in his way and in panic Julien kicked the penguin directly in the stomach. Rico’s beak snapped open with a gag and a single brick launched out of it, hitting the ice wall, smashing it open and landing on the other side.

Julien calmed down slightly, possibly out of fear of the furious penguin standing before him, audibly growling.

“Ringtail, are you trying to get us killed?” Skipper snapped.

“Kowalski is feeling sick, it’s what happens when you’re caught in blizzard unprepared.” Private added. Although he himself was worried about Kowalski, panicking was the least helpful thing they could’ve be doing.

“Okay, okay. But I’m watching out for the evil spirits still.”

Skipper sighed. “Let’s just lay Kowalski down.” Him and Private carried him past Julien and Rico, closer to the exist where the floor was slightly more spacious. As they laid him down, the hole in the ice caught Private’s eye. He tried to look through it, but it was too dark, he pushed his flipper through it instead, stretched it as much as it could go, wagged it a bit, baffled by it not running into anything. “Skipper, is this pile of ice supposed to be hollow?”

“Wouldn’t say so…” Skipper tried to check, but could see just as much as Private.

Julien pushed him out of the way. “Wow, lovely place, they got a table and everything!”

“Now what on Earth are you talking about?”

“It appears there is a house in this ice, you penguins have a strange sense of décor.”
“What?”

“Ringtail lemurs have night vision.” Everyone turned in the direction of Kowalski’s voice. He looked back at the surprised bunch, still looking weary, then without a word turned to another side, facing the wall.

Skipper let out a relieved sigh. “Rico, flashlight.” Rico choked out a flashlight that flew right into Skipper’s flippers. He aimed it through the hole. The beam revealed that the ice was, indeed, hollow and quite spacious in comparison to the crack they were hiding in. There were rocks inside it, arranged strangely, like someone intentionally placed them there, almost resembling furniture.

“Gentlemen, I think we found ourselves a new shelter!” He tried to punch the hole bigger, but only managed to get a tiny shard falling off the wall. “Rico, will you do the honour?”

Rico coughed out a hammer and slammed it against the ice wall until the hole grew just large enough for the penguins to fit through.

“First one picks the room!” Julien cheered before jumping through the handmade window.

Private was the next one to go, followed by Rico. Skipper Picked Kowalski off the ground, letting him throw his flipper over his shoulders as he walked him to the hole. As he pushed him through it, Private and Rico caught him on the other side, holding his frail body in place. Finally, skipper made it inside as well.

“So, what happened?” Although fully conscious, Kowalski was still weak, barely holding himself on his feet and relying on the other penguins for support. His sense of reality was also bleary, still gathering where they were and what happened before everything around him darkened and distorted.

“We lost you for a moment out there, buddy, how do you feel?” Skipper felt Kowalski’s face for fever, but he pushed his flipper away defensively. “I’m fine, Skipper, the walk all day and the run from storm was just a little much for me. On an empty stomach nonetheless.”

“Well, lucky for you we found a lovely house to take shelter in. And it appears we’ll be here for a while so you can take all the rest you need. But we’re getting you in shape when we get home.”

“Wait, what do you mean we found a house?”

“Um, Skipper?” Private joined in on conversation, “Wouldn’t that mean that someone, you know, lives here? And we broke in?”

Rico took a look at the hole he made in the wall with a little concern.

Private gasped. “What if it’s a leopard seal?”

Skipper lifted up the flashlight and circled it around the area, quickly scanning every corner with the beam. “Nah, too small for a leopard seal, not to mention too far away from water. Likely a penguin home, a little tight, but maybe manageable for an emperor penguin; ideal for penguins like us.”

“Pygoscelis adeliae.”

“Thank you, Kowalski.”

Private hung his head. “So, we broke into a home of another penguin?”

Skipper paced around the house, still scanning it with a flashlight. In one corner was a flat rock, two slab-shaped rocks, similar to one another placed vertically on each side of the base rock and one more bigger slab behind it, forming a sort of couch. In it, Julien already found a place to rest, with his head resting on one “armrest” and his feet on the other. He was still fully awake, but disinterested in whatever the penguins were talking about. Skipper turned back to Private. “Surely the residents would understand a group of lost tourists needed a place to hide from the blizzard. And we’ll make sure to leave everything intact.” He narrowed his eyes, turning towards Julien. “Right, Ringtail?”

He lifted his head up lazily. “And why would I want to ‘tact’ anything here, it’s all ice and rocks, silly penguin.”

That seemed to be enough to calm Private down, at least for some time.

The blizzard only continued to roar with more and more rage, sweeping the snow around and slamming ice particles against each other. The air and the snow were so mixed with one another it was impossible to see anything few feet away from one’s eyes. The sky was dark like a bottomless pit upside-down, with no end to the storm in sight for miles away.

But the penguins and King Julien remained safe inside an unexpected shelter, only hearing the devilish screams of the wind and cringing at the thought of still being stuck outside. Eventually, the wind found its way through the hole they got in through, so they had to seal it off with snow and gravel. The shelter was quite cozy for a burrow in the middle of an ice desert. It was shaped like a crude oval, a large shell of ice continuing on into a burrow in the mountain. The side from which they entered was about half ice-half stone, while the opposite side was mostly smooth ice wall, only turning to rocks in the back corner. Right where the penguins entered there was a large, circular, flat rock with two small, flat rocks next to it and two even smaller rocks stacked atop of each other between the two other rocks. The penguins concluded it must’ve been a table and used it as such.

Rico spilled all the food they had stacked for the trip onto the supposed table. It mostly consisted of fish, but a couple of candies were mixed in as well and three full bags of trail mix which was the best they could offer to Julien. Private gave up their last Peanut Butter Winkie to Kowalski to help him regain sugar in his system and treated himself some plain cookies instead. As the adrenaline passed over and the penguins regained their strength, they started taking a better look at the place they found themselves in. And just how strange it was.

Private was the first one to question why the resident wouldn’t have been home in the middle of a blizzard that bad. Soon enough, they concluded that they must’ve gotten caught in the storm unexpectedly and had to seek immediate shelter. That was reasonable enough explanation. Still, Private couldn’t get over how unkept the place looked. The walls, the furniture, or the rocks that resembled it, were all covered in thick frost. In the middle of the table there was an ice vase with some dried straws in and dust around it. And the place itself was so frozen over, it was impossible to enter without using force.

Skipper, on the other hand, amused himself with the homeowner’s collection of trinkets. On one platform made of ice, they exhibited a bunch of interesting rocks, a bone and, most interestingly, human items. There was a ring, a few pennies and a pair of keys with a keychain in the shape of the Eiffel tower. So, the homeowner must’ve been a looter, foraging for trinkets from some unsuspecting expeditionists.

Rico and Kowalski proceeded to distract themselves with card games while Julien was snoozing curled up on the couch. Nervous, Private stuck around Skipper, trying to distract himself with the artifacts his leader had been so keenly observing. Out of anxiety and boredom, he proceeded to pace around the area aimlessly, until eventually walking a little too deep into the back of the burrow and tripping over a pile of rocks.

“Private, what are you doing?” Skipper lit him up with the flashlight, immediately taken aback by the sight, but trying not to show it. Private lifted his face out of the pile of pebbles. Under the light, he could tell exactly what he fell into, much to his horror.

“It’s a nest!” He gasped.

“Seems like it.” Said Skipper.

Private took a few shaky steps back until he was standing right next to Skipper. He took a hold of the flashlight and proceeded to circle it around the nest. “But, if it’s a nest, shouldn’t there be an egg?”

“Not necessarily.” Skipper tried to calm Private down. “Most likely there’s a pair expecting an egg and they got prepared.”

“But, why would an expecting penguin be out there in a blizzard?” Private persisted.

“No need to jump to conclusions, we don’t know where the parents are” Seeing he was still nervous, Skipper put his flipper around Private’s shoulders. “They’re likely in a visit at their friends’ or something.”

“You’re right, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Atta, soldier, now let’s get away from here before we damage the cradle.”

But something else caught Private’s eyes. “Hey, what is this?” Something glistened above the nest, Private lifted the flashlight up, illuminating a few little figurines of ice hanging from above, alongside a few clamshells and some more items the penguins must’ve looted from humans, mainly bottle caps and wrapping papers.

“Oh look, they got a mobile, isn’t that adorable?” Skipper was unphased by the sight. But Private wouldn’t let it go, he picked through the artifacts hanging from the strings until one item particularly caught his attention.

“Private, will you stop? You’re gonna break something.”

But Private had already pulled one candy wrapper off of a string. “Look, it’s a Peanut Butter Winky wrapper.”

“I know you love those candies, but stealing wrappers from someone’s house is a little far.”

“No! Look at the wrapper!” He waddled away quickly around the house until he found the wrapper of the Winky that Kowalski ate earlier. He brought both wrappers to Skipper, putting them side by side. “See? The wrappers are different. They stopped packing them in this one years ago.” Truly, the wrappers were a bit different. With the newer one being yellow with red edges and the other one being a lot more colourful and sparkly.

“So? Our hosts are antique collectors.”

“But”

“Likely kept this wrapper in their collection for years before deciding to use it on the mobile.”

Private hung his head. “Guess that’s possible.”

Skipper groaned. “Private, will you stop” he took the wrapper out of his flipper, “touching things?” he walked over the nest and tied the wrapper back to the string it was hanging from. “Now move away from here, last thing the homeowners need is some strangers investigating their child’s cradle.”

Skipper walked away quickly, urging Private to follow him. The young penguin had no other choice but to oblige, but once he was in the centre of the house and Skipper stopped monitoring him, he threw one more glance at the nest, illuminating him with the flashlight. It looked worn down and covered in thick layer of frost, save for the area Private fell onto. Next to it, by the wall of stone was another, much bigger nest of square-ish shape, much larger rocks forming a sort of barrier around it and on the inside, it was covered in just as thick layer of frost. Must’ve been where the parents slept.

Julien turned over on his spot “Ugh, this is the most uncomfortable bed I have ever sleeped on! I miss Maurice, he makes for a great pillow.” In his crawling around he whipped his tail over the wall, wiping the frost off of it. Underneath, it revealed a quadratic frame carved into the ice wall. And a crude drawing inside it. And Julien noticed. “Oooooh, there are cave paintings in here, maybe we’ll meet a cave man!”

The drawing caught Skipper’s attention. He walked quickly towards it, pushing Julien out of the way. The picture seemed to show two penguins, drawn from the chest up, facing one another, with their beaks conjoined. As if kissing.

“It’s just two penguins, that’s boring. Why not draw something cool, like a unicorn riding a big pineapple with wings?”

Skipper didn’t pay attention to Julien. He noticed several more square-shaped dips in the frost on the wall. He proceeded to wipe it off from the beginning, revealing picture by picture.

The first one simply showed two crudely carved in penguins holding flippers. One a little taller with puffed up chest and one shorter and chubbier. Next picture showed the two sliding together down a slope. Then one of the two swimming, surrounded by fishes. One picture of the two penguins sharing a tasty meal of what looked like a pile of fish. And one of the two with their backs turned from the viewer, looking at sunset, maybe sunrise. Finally, skipper reached the picture of the two kissing, but it wasn’t the last drawing on the wall. No doubt, the two penguins living there were deeply in love and were about to make amazing parents, Skipper was sure of it.

Next picture showed the taller penguin looking downwards and the other looking between their legs, both smiling. A confusing image until Skipper took a closer look. Something round was drawn between the taller penguin’s legs, something like an egg. The next picture confirmed Skipper’s theory, it showed the two penguins pressed against one another, both looking at the egg-shaped object they were holding together.

Next frame was empty.

Skipper proceeded to wipe the frost off of the rest of the wall, but there were no more drawings carved into it. He looked back at the series of drawings he had uncovered. Soon, his guts bounced into his throat as the realization had struck him.

He rushed back to the drawings of the penguins with the egg. Looking at the first one, then the second. Looking keenly to ensure it was, indeed, an egg they were holding. The drawing might’ve been messy, but there was no other explanation.

Skipper bolted to the table, took another flashlight that Kowalski and Rico were using to see their cards and lit up the nest once again, only to see Private sitting in it once again. Dropping the flashlight, he bolted towards the nest. “Private, the egg!” He pulled Private out of the nest as if he weighted nothing at all and stood him on the side, then proceeded to dig through the pile of pebbles.

“Want egg?” Private asked, frightened by his leader’s sudden panicky behavior.

“The egg that should be here.” Skipper proceeded to throw pebbles around.

“There is no egg in here.”

“Well, there should be”

“How do you know?”

Skipper lifted his head towards Private, striking him with a blood-shot look. “You!” He jumped towards Private, grabbing him by the shoulders “You smashed the egg when you fell onto it, didn’t you?!”

“Skipper there was no egg, I swear!” Private defended himself. Skipper let him go, proceeding to pace back and forth in one place. “No egg. No egg. No egg. There’s gotta be an egg somewhere.”

By that point, Rico and Kowalski joined in on the conflict, they grabbed onto Skipper, keeping him in the place as he was still scratching his head.

“Skipper, what has gotten into you, what’s this fuss about an egg” Kowalski asked.

Skipper let out a long sigh. “So, you’re sure there is no egg?”

“Absolutely.” Private answered, “Why are you so certain there should be one?”

Skipper hung his head. Without a word, he directed the penguins’ attention towards the series of pictures carved on the wall. The team observed them in order, commenting them quietly between each other. The time was moving slowly, as if it itself was dragging through the snowstorm. Decades have passed when the penguins reached the pictures with the egg, chatting in confusion with one another for another several decades until the dreadful, gut-wrenching look of realization struck their faces. It was the horror in Private’s little eyes that hurt the most. Everything was coming together, the unkept look of the house, frost everywhere, dated artifacts and the pictures. Whoever lived in that house was never coming back.

Kowalski turned back to Skipper. “So that means the egg is?”

“Yeah.”

“And the parents are?”

“Yeah, most likely.”

“But what happened to the egg?” Private asked.

“God knows. Skuas probably, maybe fell in the snow and froze, could be anything.”

“But is there any chance that the egg survived?”

“Without its family? Not a chance.” Kowalski said bluntly. He didn’t notice, but he was getting closer and closer to Private, almost clinging onto him subconsciously. The little penguin was trembling in his hold. Skipper was the first to notice his eyes puffing up as he approached him.

“Private, it’s okay.” He cradled his face in his flippers, but didn’t know what to say. There was nothing uplifting to say. “It’s just. It’s just nature.”

“I don’t want to be in the nature anymore.” Private sobbed.

“I’m with you there, pal, we’re leaving first thing when the storm clears.”

So focused on comforting Private, the penguins didn’t notice Rico at first. The poor penguin was looking around with terror in his eyes, whimpering and barking at nothingness, twitching in fear. He had always been a little more superstitious that the other penguins and Julien’s talk about evil spirits were surely less than helpful. Skipper approached him carefully, gently landing his flipper on his back, but even the most careful touch of comfort caused the penguin to jump away snarling. Before realizing it was only his leader.

“It’s okay, buddy, nothing can hurt us here.”

Rico did not look assured.

“I’m here, we’re here, we’re all safe. And we won’t let anything hurt any of us. Understood?”

Rico nodded. Still not fully assured, but he trusted his leader and his team more than anything.

“So, what are we so sad about?” Julien’s voice frightened everyone. In the whole fuss they forgot he was there, watching everything.

“Forget it, Ringtail, silly penguin stuff.” Skipper stayed quiet for a few seconds, looking solemnly at the ice wall “This place sucks.”

“Well, idunno, add a tiki bar and it would make for great parties.” Said Julien.

“No, I mean Antarctica. What kind of sick, twisted joke was it to make penguins live in the same place as the leopard seals? We should be living someplace nicer, far away from these vicious predators. Like The Maldives, or The Galapagos Islands.”

“Skipper, there are penguins at The Galapagos Islands.” Said Kowalski.

“Really? See, it’s that easy. Or maybe even Iceland, the further from here the better.”

“Ah, Iceland, home of the many massive colonies of various birds from the family Alcidae, such as razorbills, murres and the Atlantic puffins.” Kowalski continued.

“Puffins?” Skipper snapped “Not a chance, forget about Iceland then. But you get the point.”

The rest of the evening went on quietly, besides Julien snacking on nuts from the trail mix and groaning about being bored. The penguins chose not to talk about the likely fate of the homeowners any longer. They were sitting around the table, playing card games unenthusiastically, all but Private who found his way back into the nest again, insisting upon laying right there. Maybe he was driven by some strange instinct to warm up the phantom of the egg that used to be there.

Skipper could hear the quiet scuttering of the pebbles as Private was turning around in the nest, it was all he could pay attention to. Carefully, he turned the flashlight towards Private, just enough so he would be visible, but not notice the light was aimed at him. He was peacefully curled up with his back turned to penguins, so it wasn’t visible if he was still awake. Skipper followed his body lifting up and down slowly, hypnotized by it, he was disconnected from anything else. Rico and Kowalski noticed his absence once his turn came on and he didn’t react. They didn’t say anything, instead they followed his viewpoint and caught themselves in the same melancholic feeling staring at the little penguin curled up in that unfortunate pile of rocks.

He looked so small and fragile, just like that lonely egg they so many years ago saved from being seal food, the one with parents God knows where that all the other penguins turned their back on, desensitized to the cruelty of nature that lets penguins meet their gruesome end seeking food for their family and leaving the chicks and eggs at the mercy of the predators and elements. But the laws of nature weren’t something any of them cared to follow. Nature already spelled death for them once they were left to fend for themselves as mere chicks. But they survived how they could by sticking together and taking care of one another. And when Private came into the picture they made sure he never had to know what it was like being abandoned. They were a family, an unconventional one, but tight as it got.

And now, he was laying in a place of an egg whose parents were never coming home, unlikely to be so lucky.

The three snapped out of their thoughts suddenly when Private turned around with his eyes wide open, revealing to still be awake. His eyes locked with theirs and it was too late to act like they weren’t all collectively staring at him so densely. And the poor guy for a split second got frightened by the view.

“Everything alright?” He asked.

“Yeah, we were just,” Skipper looked around, “about to go to sleep. Are you gonna come to bed, or do you like the nest better?”

“I’m gonna come to bed, just… give me a moment.” He turned on his back, looking at the mobile above him.

“Alright. Well, don’t take too long. Long day awaits us tomorrow.” Skipper walked up to the bigger nest, jumping over the rocky border and landing in frost covered gravel. He walked back and forth a bit, tapped the bedding with his feet, laying down onto it finally, only to snap back up quickly, as if stung.

“Nope, this simply won’t do. Too soft for my liking.” He concluded.

Instead, he took a look at the couch. Julien was already sleeping on it, hiding his hands and feet under his body to keep them warm, his head resting on his tail neatly curled around his body. Skipper tapped the surface of the couch and decided it was more to his taste, so he pushed sleeping Julien all the way to the armrest and laid on his back, using the lemur as a pillow. “Much better.”

Rico’s eyes closed shut and his beak opened so wide, for a moment he looked like he was about to turn inside out. After a long loud yawn, he dragged his heavy body to bed, throwing himself face-first into the gravel bedding, laying on his belly. He didn’t stay in this position for long, but proceeded to turn left and right, then onto his back, kicking his wings and feet into the air, whimpering in frustration of not feeling secure enough to fall asleep. He snapped awake hissing at the sound of footsteps coming towards the bed.

“Rico, it’s me.” Kowalski reassured. Without a word, Rico laid his head back down and turned his back to Kowalski. The tall penguin huffed. Rico was normally a rowdy sleeper, so he could only imagine what he was like when so defensive. He was no stranger to babbering in his sleep either and while Kowalski got fairly used to his snoring at home, he wasn’t too keen on him doing it next to his face. But skipper and Julien called dibs on the couch and Private didn’t look like he was planning to move out of the nest that would’ve been way too small for Kowalski anyway. The bed was big enough to fit three, maybe four penguins. Sure, Kowalski might’ve been able to make himself comfortable on the floor, but going that length just to avoid being near Rico would make him feel petty. It wasn’t his fault he was nervous and scared, they all were. And in that moment, more than ever, he needed support.

So, Kowalski carefully slid down the rocky border into the comfortable bedding. The moment he laid down, Rico again turned onto his back, flapping his wings and squealing in the process. It would repeat a few times right as Kowalski believed he was finally drifting off, snapping him back awake. He was getting progressively more annoyed until he turned face to face with Rico. Except Rico’s head was bent down, face buried in one of his flippers, muffling sadly. Again, Kowalski felt guilty for even being annoyed with his little brother. He himself had trouble falling asleep. He had trouble feeling safe. Kowalski wasn’t the comforting type. He wasn’t good with words and he could never know if what he would say would only make the situation worse. So, instead, he reached towards Rico with his flipper, resting it atop of the flipper that was laying freely on the bed. And as if the contact activated a bear trap, Rico suddenly turned towards Kowalski, wrapping both of his flipper’s tightly against Kowalski’s and curling up in that position. He didn’t move nor make a sound for a while. Slowly, Kowalski crawled closer towards Rico until his body was pressed against his. He threw his free flipper over the younger penguin and rested his chin atop of his head, finally falling asleep.

Private was hyperfixated on the cradle nest, unable to leave it. Maybe there was an instinct telling him if he keeps the nest warm long enough the egg can be saved. As if the dedication alone can somehow reverse time. But more so than that there was something about the nest urging him to stay. It felt right to be in it. He was laying on his back, hypnotized by the little ice figurines and shiny trinkets hanging above him. Something about each shape, each item felt strangely familiar, but also not. As if he had seen it before, but only in a dream. The déjà vu was holding him tied to the nest, yet he was uncomfortable with getting too comfortable in it. He waited for a moment when his mind would snap clean and he could get up and move to the bigger nest with Kowalski and Rico. Yet the shiny shapes floating above him had a hold of his mind like sirens, not leaving his view as his consciousness was giving in.

Golden rays of sun, much brighter than the hideout the group had found would’ve let in, shined through the trinkets hanging on the mobile, making them glisten like little stars. The entire house shone in golden and white light and it was pleasantly cool, like a peaceful Antarctic summer. He couldn’t move from the nest, but he felt no need to. It was so safe and comfortable, made just for him. From the curtains of sunrays two figures approached. They were merely blurry shadows in front of all that light, but by shapes it was visible they were penguins. One tall with puffed-up chest, one shorter and chubbier. He could hear two gentle voices from them, although he couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the sound of their voices was so comforting, so reassuring that everything was going to be okay. So, he let himself get wrapped in that domestic warmth, even if not knowing where it came from, it was clear that was where he belonged.

All the rays of sun started going out, one by one, revealing grey, unkept home behind them. The two penguin shadows began speaking in increasingly alarmed tone as the last ray of sun started fading out. Suddenly, a red light flashed, accompanied with screams of the two penguins. When he could see around himself again, the room was dark and grey with the two penguins nowhere in sight. It was getting colder and colder, and he knew he had to move fast if he didn’t want to freeze in place. He didn’t know how to move, but he was determined just enough that the mere willpower flung him someplace else. Bright blue daylight sky flashed before him, then he hit the cold sheet of snow. The images started spiraling too fast to process, sky, snow, sky, clouds, ice, snow, hill, sky, cloud… until the images distorted into abstract shapes and colours. And then, horrifying roaring echoed from all sides, images of giant beasts with large, heavy bodies, tiny flippers and long whiskers begun to flash. They were stretching their massive jaws open, revealing the horrible set of sharp, yellow teeth. And they were getting closer.

And then.
Everything went dark. He couldn’t see a thing anymore and the roaring faded into distance. There was a newfound feeling of security when hearing almost familiar voices. The light was coming back slowly. He was beginning to make out landscapes around himself, although still blurry. The muttering, yet familiar voices were starting to be more readable as well. Still mostly gibberish, but he was fixated on one reoccurring word. “Priyt” “Awt” “Priat” Three new penguin shapes started forming before him. “Pievt” “Aywet”

“Private”

The shapes of the penguins became clear, but only for a too short of a moment for him to process. The red flashed again, accompanied by the same blood curdling howls of the beasts from before. And everything went black again.

With a loud gasp, Private bounced up in the nest, back in the same icy house, but this time it was dark and unkept again and the wind outside was still screeching furiously. He took a moment to ground himself back to reality as his heart was pounding restlessly. Then his eyes met three concerned faces. He bounced away. the Three penguins also took a step back to give him space.

“Private, is everything alright?” Skipper was the first to approach the petrified penguin carefully.

Private’s eyes were wide open in a blunt stare and his beak was visibly trembling as he tried to talk. “Wh. What happened?”

“Private you were turning in your sleep like crazy, you scared us.”

“Did I wake you all up? Sorry…” Private hung his head.

“Screw that.” Skipper got closer, placed his flipper on Private’s cheek and gently lifted his head back up. “Are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“I think I might have…” Private muttered.

“Huh??” Private immediately realized his mistake when seeing Rico’s face descend into horror.

“No, forget it.” He corrected himself. “It was just a bad dream.”

“Oh, Private,” Kowalski said, “dreams are just a mash of memories that our brain processes when we sleep, they can’t hurt you.”

Skipper furrowed his eyebrows at Kowalski, leaving him to once again wonder if he said something wrong. He turned back to Private. “Night terror, was it?”

“I suppose…”

“Badgers?” Rico asked.

“No, no badgers, just…” Private grew more frustrated trying to recollect what he saw in his dream, it was all too abstract to put into words. But he could recall very well how it made him feel. “It’s hard to explain…” Vague images flashed through his head “I was here in Antarctica. And I believe there were other penguins. I didn’t know them. Well, I think I did in in the dream. And...” Recalling the dream only made him relive that same discomfort it put him through. “Leopard seals maybe?”

Up close, Skipper noticed Private’s eyes becoming wet. Until a single tear finally escaped down his cheek. Private was unsure what he was crying about. He was overwhelmed with the feelings of fear, loneliness, confusion and the frustration with being unable to understand where it was all coming from. Skipper couldn’t put together what exactly was bothering Private either, but it was clear he needed support more than anything. So, he came closer carefully, lifted his wings and embraced Private into a tender hug. With the young penguin’s body pressed against his, Skipper could feel the nervous thumping of Private’s heart perfectly and it only made him hold him tighter. In response, Private buried his head into Skipper’s chest and wrapped his wings around him tight as possible. If he ever let go, the entire world would slip out of his reach. Skipper nuzzled his beak against Private’s head. “Take it easy, soldier.”

Rico and Kowalski observed the scene. Not quite certain what else to do, they also embraced Private from each side until he slowly grew lax in their hold, letting himself feel secured by his brothers’ support.

“I don’t wanna be alone…” Private whispered. So quietly, the penguins couldn’t have been certain if they heard him right, he muttered “again…”

“Private, you’re not alone” Skipper reassured him, still confused as to where that feeling of uncertainty was coming from.

A warm moment was disrupted when Skipper sensed they were being watched. The other penguins fully relaxed with their eyes closed, giving into the comfort of each other, but Skipper could tell someone was right behind him. Upon turning his head, he saw a tall, slim figure standing a few feet away. A fan-like shape spreading above its head and its long tail wiggling in the air nervously. A pair of bright yellow eyes piercing through the dimness.

“Need something, Ringtail?” Skipper barely contained his fright.

“Well,” Julien crossed his arms. “You can go on and admit I was right all along about the evil spirits whenever it suits you.”

“Evil spirits? Julien not this again.” Skipper huffed. “Private had a really bad dream, that’s all!”

“Well okay then, keep making excuses.” Julien persisted.

Skipper noticed Rico’s head sinking into his neck in fear. He was about fed up with Julien filling their heads with ghost stories, but he himself couldn’t deny that the atmosphere there was strange. None of them could think quite clearly and despite being relatively safe, they were all on edge, waiting for something to go wrong, not knowing what that could be.

“Alright.” He let go of Private, leaving him in the hold of the other two, got up and stomped his way to the centre of the room. “Let’s say the evil ice spirits, or whatever, are real, I am telling them now to cease bothering my soldiers, or else I’m going to have to use force on a different plane of existence.” He said it loudly at the celling, talking to something he couldn’t see, and, quite frankly, didn’t believe was there. He felt silly for getting so riled up at something that was most likely not real, but for a slim chance there really was some malicious spectre lurking, he hoped it would get the message.

After receiving no response, as he expected, he made his way back to the nest. “I don’t think you can fight spirits, silly penguin.” Julien teased as Skipper passed by him. Skipper stopped, turned his head slowly with deeply furrowed eyebrows and one bottom eyelid visibly twitching. “I’d like to see the spirits test that theory.” He proceeded to walk off. Julien stood in place, petrified from that interaction, it was the last they were gonna hear about any sort of evil spirits.

“Let’s all go to bed.” Skipper ordered to the other penguins. He wrapped his flippers underneath Private’s and picked him off the ground. The young penguin only responded with a weak “Wuh?”. He was too exhausted to protest the manhandling, so he let Skipper carry him to the bigger nest.

“We’re penguins, not raptors, for crying out loud. We stick together.” He puffed out as he laid Private into the soft gravel before throwing himself down next to him. Private immediately snuggled close to Skipper as he could get and Skipper rested his flipper on private’s side.

Kowalski laid on his back next to Private, with his flippers neatly crossed on his chest. He closed his eyes in hope to fetch at least a little bit of sleep before the blizzard ends. There was quiet, but nervous rustling through the gravel before suddenly massive weight fell against Kowalski. Rico threw himself onto his belly between Kowalski and Private, atop both of them, spreading his flippers, one across Private and the other on Kowalski. He buried his beak between Private’s head and Kowalski’s neck. After recovering from the impact, Kowalski turned over to embrace Rico with both flippers, then rested his chin atop Rico’s head. He could hear him cooing quietly in a response.

Rico fell asleep as he landed. Kowalski didn’t know how he managed to do it and, quite frankly, wished he had that ability, but it was good that after everything Rico still felt safe around them. And he just so happened to make for a nice weighed blanket. Private was snuggled between the three of them, peacefully asleep, or at least Skipper hoped so. Tired as he was, he stayed awake monitoring with sharp ear the quiet breathing of the other penguins, making sure they were all doing well before he himself succumbs to the slumber. As Rico rested his flipper on Private, Skipper reached out to hold onto it. He was holding onto his brothers so tightly. He couldn’t have been caught dead showing it to others, but the time on Antarctica made him feel more vulnerable than anything before. With all the dangers they slid through smoothly, from evil geniuses, to troubled zoo animals, to animal control officers, way too enthusiastic about their job, it was their own motherland that reminded them how small they really were. It was one place they couldn’t feel less at home. They weren’t ever meant to survive there and they knew that all too well when they set off to the world, seeking a place they would belong to that wasn’t a seal’s plate. Skipper really was talking to something that night, asking it to leave them alone. It weren’t spirits, that much was certain, it may have been the nature itself, if that sounded any less silly. They did not belong in the wild and they rejected its rules long ago. They were from the concrete jungle of the New York City, in homes of brick walls built to keep the natural order out. And they were going back.

Skipper’s train of thoughts was once again disrupted by fast and assertive pitter-pattering through the pebbles. His head snapped upwards and the source of the noise was given out by the long fluffy tail with white stripes popping out of the darkness and a pair of bright yellow eyes without much going on behind them. Skipper could lay his head back down with an annoyed relief after his heart skipped into his throat. After analysing the penguin pile for a moment, Julien made his way past Skipper, tapped in the gravel above him and curled up in it right above Skipper’s head, wrapping his body around it and resting his tail across Skipper’s chest.

“Ringtail…” Skipper whispered.

He got no response, but the quiet snoring. Poor king must’ve been exhausted from having to walk somewhere on his own for once. But his presence was comforting to Skipper for a change. His careless attitude was a good enough distraction from the situation they’ve gotten themselves into. And if they managed to keep that clown alive in the Antarctic wilderness for so long, there was nothing Mother Nature had in store that they couldn’t handle.

_______

Endless white sheets of snow glistened in sunlight with their brand new look left after the storm. The ice caps shone so brightly in white and blue, standing proud that they can be seen again. Water droplets dripping shily from the curtains of icicles that glimmered by the sun rays passing through them. On the azure blue sky, only crumbs of what used to be storm clouds, big as cities, were scattered about. The bodies of water stood peacefully, carrying fractures of ice on their surfaces. Somewhere far off, a penguin jumped off of one of those icebergs into the sea. Its waddle of hundreds of penguins followed, creating a waterfall of black and white plumage. Someplace else, a herd of elephant seals basked in the sun, their brown fur turning golden under it.

Upon digging their way out of the frozen house, the four penguins and the lemur pranced around with joy, throwing and rolling themselves in the soft blanket of the untouched snow, taking in the fresh air and the morning sun. Kicking and throwing the snow around soon grew into a fierce snowball fight and even Skipper let himself loose in the friendly competition.

“Alright, alright, boys, we better set off now.” Skipper said through a chuckle, shaking the snow off of his feathers. The team obediently dropped their snowballs and shook the snow off of their own feathers in preparation to go. One last snowball struck Skipper on the side of his face.

“I win!” King Julien cheered.

Skipper rolled his eyes, though the smile never left his beak. The group was more rested than ever and the weather was finally on their side. A lot more optimistic than the day before, they were back on their journey to find the ocean.

It may have been merely a 15-20 minutes walk before the ground reached its end, tumbling downwards where the land was shattered into icebergs floating on water, creating a fractured frozen beach. Something large and dark stood above the ice. Not a strange, tall iceberg, but a shipwreck, half engulfed by the frozen sea. Beyond it, the soup of snow and ice diluted into clear sea that stretched over the horizon, without end in sight. The ocean.

“Is that…” Private said.

“The ocean!” Rico finished

“We made it!” Kowalski exclaimed.

“Well done, boys, we’ll be home in no time.” Skipper initiated a round of hi-ones, although he sounded strange. Not quite as enthusiastic as the other penguins and almost distant.

“Yes! YES! I did it!” Julien was jumping around, “I did it!” And then he stopped. “So now what?”

“Well,” Kowalski was checking out the landscape, “We gotta find a fitting iceberg to set sailing across the ocean and then catch the-”

“Guys?” Skipper interrupted. He didn’t turn towards the others, he remained fixated at the frozen beach beneath them, particularly, the shipwreck. “…Do you remember this?”

The penguins gathered around their leader, following his viewpoint. Withing a moment, Kowalski and Rico went strangely silent and exchanged understanding looks between themselves and Skipper.

“Well, not really, I don’t.” Private broke the solemn silence.

Skipper smiled softly at him. “This is where we left Antarctica for the first time when we were chicks. You don’t remember, you were just an egg. This is the shipwreck we found you on. God, I remember it so clearly still…” He caught his eyes dampening and had to pull himself back together before it went further, there was time and place for emotional memories, but it wasn’t then and there. He shook his head “Point is, I remember exactly where we need to go from here. We’ll be back to New York before you say-”

“Skipper?”

“Kowalski, no unauthorized sentence completions.”

“No, I mean, wasn’t the ship, you know…”

“Leopard seals!” Rico squealed, pointing at the ship. The penguins threw themselves low at the ground and snuck carefully towards the edge. Julien approached them unbothered, but laid down alongside them, with significantly less rush, though. Skipper pressed his head lower to the ground. Truly, two seals were crawling from an iceberg up onto the ship. One was already resting hidden in the corner. And two more seals in the water, locked in a tug-of-war for a brown, feathery bundle. Though the body was visibly one of a skua and would be a good riddance for a penguin, upon noticing it, Kowalski covered Private’s eyes to spare him the gruesome picture.

“Oh dear…” Private whispered.

“We just can’t have it easy for once, can we?” Kowalski groaned.

“Less whining, more options, Kowalski.”

“Well, we could walk alongside the cliff for about half a mile and hopefully there-“

“Negative!” Skipper snapped. “I’ve had about enough of taking the long route dodging these punks. This is penguins’ land. We go where we want and now, we are going through.”

Private shivered in fear while Kowalski and Rico made an effort to hide their own. They made it past those seals as chicks, so why worry now as not only adults, but a trained elite force? Maybe as chicks their survival instinct wasn’t fully developed yet. Either way, Skipper was right, it was about time they stopped running away.

Then, Kowalski noticed a tall piece of ice leaned on a cliff, making sort of a slide. At the bottom, it was bent into a ramp. “Well in that case we could…” He proceeded to scribble something into the snow. The penguins gathered around, although none understood the complex formulas he was calculating. “Aha!” He finally finished. “If we slide down this slope and get launched off of the ramp, we should land exactly on that iceberg over there.” He pointed at a piece of ice, perfect to fit the five of them, at a decent distance from the ship, loosely holding onto the solid ground. “The impact of our landing should be enough to set the iceberg sailing. And we’re off to go.”

“And it would absolutely alert the seals.” Skipper added.

“They’ll catch up with us with no trouble.” Said Private.

“Unless,” Kowalski rubbed his chin, “we distract them somehow.”

“How, we throw them Ringtail?”

“Tempting, but won’t work. What I had in mind was something like a decoy.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Rico raised his flipper high into the air for everyone to see. Before anyone could respond, he waddled away behind a small hill of ice. After a couple of seconds of strange noises, he returned with what almost looked like another penguin. Though a little smaller, fully white and strangely stiff.

“Yes, exactly like that!” Kowalski beamed.

“Great ice sculpting skills, soldier.” Skipper nudged Rico proudly. Only Private narrowed his eyes at the suspiciously familiar sculpture of a small, round penguin. “Is this meant to look like me?”

“Yuh-uh.” Rico nodded.

“…Why?”

“Because you’re pudgy and squishy.” Skipper poked Private’s belly teasingly.

“I’m squishy…?”

“I could eat you too sometimes.” Skipper turned serious and pointed at the slide. “Now, everyone on your position.”

The penguins and Julien Followed the order, staying low at the top of the slide. Skipper took the decoy and made his way far enough from the rest off the group, right to a nice bundle of snow by the cliffside he could hide behind. He looked at the ice penguin in its blunt eyes and gave it a heartfelt salute. Then, he peeked once more at the seals guarding a shipwreck and left a quiet groan. “If any of you say a word about this, I swear to God.” He muttered to himself before turning his head upwards and snapping his bill open, letting out a loud animalistic “honk!”, followed by the dummy penguin flying into the sea.

“Food?” One seal barked

“Food!” Another joined

“Food!!”

“Food!!!”

The penguin splashed into the sea and soon enough, all seals were bolting after it.

Skipper wasted no time. He signed the team to get going before sliding off to the slope himself. Rico grabbed Julien and threw him across his shoulder, but pushed Private first before sliding off himself with the protesting lemur. Swallowing fear, Kowalski followed along, begging for science not to fail him.

Ungraciously, Private landed right on his face while the other two managed to stand on their feet. But Kowalski’s plan worked and the iceberg broke off, floating into the open sea. Within a second, Skipper was seen flying not too far behind, but eventually landing right on the verge, flapping his wings to keep balance before the team pulled him onto the solid ground. The group hid behind a small bundle of ice sticking out of the iceberg, eyeing the surface where the predators disappeared into the water. All cautious but Rico, who seemed strangely excited.

“So, do you think the bait bought us enough time?” Private whispered.

Rico was nudging him excitedly, “Wouldn’ worry about it!” He was pointing at the surface where the decoy landed, eager to get everyone to watch.

And to everyone’s anticipation, the sea let out a muffled, but loud “BOOM!” that shook the unsuspecting animals to their core, along with a tall, white tower of water erecting from the surface, sending off waves around it that pushed the iceberg further away. Soon enough, one by one seal was rushing onto the surface, whining.

Skipper looked at Rico, his eyes wide and glimmering. “You hid a bomb in the decoy, Rico, you mad genius!”

Rico rubbed the back of his head, flustered by his leader’s praise.

“Of course!” Said Kowalski, “This should spoil their appetite for penguins for quite a while.”

“This is gonna teach nature who gives orders around here.” Skipper added proudly.

Private jumped with joy, tackle-hugging Skipper. “We did it! Who said we had follow nature’s rules!?”

Skipper looked at the joyful little bundle in his hold with newfound pride. He was proud of him before for saving them all from the leopard seals, still it was only him cleaning the mess he caused. Now Skipper looked at it differently. Private was a rebel, like the rest of them. The three of them left Antarctica by sliding into the leopard seal territory to save an egg, surviving against all odds. And then, Private dragged them all back, with a leopard seal as a friend of all things, Now, that was defiance. She’s a bright kid, that leopard seal girl. She’ll be off to do great things if she keeps up like Private does.

Finally, Skipper and Private let go of each other, initiating another round of hi-ones and cheers, shaking the iceberg as it was floating into the horizon. Annoyed at the trembling that nearly threw him off, Julien made his way to the centre, laying down and tucking his arms behind his head to rest from the journey the silly penguins had the nerves to drag him onto.

And the little snow yacht slowly floated away, carrying its little travellers off to a long journey across the Atlantic Ocean to their home.

“Are we there yet?”