Chapter Text
“WHAT IS THIS FLUFFY WHITE STUFF?!”
Mihou jerked awake, his fur bristling. “Volume!” he hissed.
Shihou spun towards him. “Liu’er! The trees! The ground! It’s magic!”
Mihou squinted. What was he going on about? The jungle looked the same as when they went to sleep except for the snow blanketing everything. He didn’t see anything overtly magical. Although it did look a little bit different than he was expecting.
Choa-xing burst to her feet with a gasp. “The mountain’s been cursed!”
“What are you talking about?” Mihou shook the snow off his fur, stood up, and stretched. “The mountain isn’t cursed.”
“But Liu’er!” Shihou shouted. “Look at it! It’s cold! And Fluffy!”
“Do you have a normal volume?” Mihou grumbled. “And are you talking about the snow?”
“The death glitter,” Shenshi observed.
“What?” Mihou side-eyed Shenshi. Just, what?
“It’s death glitter?” Choa-xing gasped, eyes wide.
“No!” Mihou exclaimed. “What in the realms are you talking about? Snow is not death glitter!”
“Then what is it?” Shihou crossed his arms and pouted.
“It’s snow,” Mihou huffed. “Like frozen rain.”
Shihou jumped out of the nest and vanished into the snowbank.
Choa-xing gasped. “Shihou!”
Mihou face-palmed. “Seriously?”
Shenshi, face blank, stepped off the edge and joined Shihou. The little ginger infant plowed through the snow like there was no tomorrow.
“Hey! This is fun!” Shihou declared. Then he ran right into a tree.
Shenshi snorted.
“Be careful!” Choa-xing leaned out of the nest, watching the two tiny monkeys anxiously. The other normal monkeys joined in on the fun, following Shihou and Shenshi’s paths
“Relax, Choa-xing,” Mihou said. “Snow’s not dangerous so long as we keep warm. They’ll be fine.”
“So long as we keep warm? What happens if we don’t?” Choa-xing asked, brow furrowing.
Mihou sighed. “Choa-xing, don’t worry about it, we’ll be fine. Let’s have some fun.”
Choa-xing looked away biting her lip.
Mihou pursed his lips, he cast his gaze about, searching for something to distract the other monkey. His eyes fell on the snow. He smirked, bent down, and started the scoop up the snow. “You know,” Mihou said. “I heard of this game you can play with snow.”
Choa-xing glanced at him. “What?”
“Yeah,” He rolled the snow into a ball.
“What are you doing?” Choa-xing crouched down to get a better look.
Shihou screeched.
The two older monkeys glanced at the two younger ones. Shenshi continued rubbing snow into the fur of the smaller monkey while giving Mihou and Choa-xing a dead-eyed stare. Shihou struggled in Shenshi’s grasp, shouting unintelligibly at the dark-furred monkey. Choa-xing groaned.
Mihou smirked, making eye contact with Shenshi. The darker monkey widened his eyes. Mihou drew back his arm and whipped the ball of snow in his hand at the monkey.
The snowball smacked Shenshi in the face and he toppled like a banana balanced on a mango.
Choa-xing slapped her hand over her mouth and giggled.
“Yep, a game with snow. Called a Snowball Fight,” Mihou rolled a new ball and grinned evilly at Choa-xing. “And you’re in the warzone.”
Choa-xing gasped and dove out of the nest just as Mihou’s snowball flew over her head.
A snowball thumped into the side of Mihou’s head. Shenshi had come for his revenge, loaded with two snowballs.
Mihou dove after Choa-xing, dodging her attempt at dumping snow down his back. Shihou crashed through the snowbank shouting excitedly, loose snow clenched in his fists. Mihou laughed and slung a snowball at him. Shihou stopped yelling when the snowball got him in the face.
The infant shook the snow off his fur and scampered up a tree. “I’m king of the tree!” Shihou declared, hanging off a tree branch above the other monkeys. And naturally, the others immediately pelted him with snow. Some of the normal monkeys took it upon themselves to pry the ginger monkey’s fingers off the bark. Shihou shrieked as he fell.
Mihou hissed and folded his ears back. Did Shihou have to be so loud? The echoes made his head hurt.
“More death glitter falls from above!” Shihou bounced to his feet, pointing at the sky.
Shenshi hummed, lifting his arm and throwing his snowball into Shihou’s face. Shihou toppled back into the flattened snow.
Mihou tilted his head, stretching his ears out. He frowned, eyeing the gray skies and flurries of snow. “A storm is coming.”
“Storms always pass around the mountain,” Choa-xing pointed out. “What’s to worry about?”
“...nothing, I suppose,” Mihou replied. “It just sounds pretty bad.”
“Snow can’t hurt us, can it?” Choa-xing asked.
“It extinguishes the lights of the small forest creatures,” Shenshi observes.
Choa-xing and Mihou gave him matching unnerved looks. Shenshi just met their gaze with a blank stare.
“Riight,” Mihou turned back to Choa-xing. “Like I said earlier, snow’s harmless so long as we stay warm. A lot of snow just makes it a little bit harder.”