Night fell over the white-steppe, turning it into shades of blue and black like bruises on a pale corpse. The cold dead hum of an endless ice-world was tangible. A somber funeral-tune that hammered away at Claude's winded ears as he rode the shadows.
And Frosty.
Like the steppe-bear that trudged along beside them, Frosty had taken a larger form. A form similar to the bear with heavy front legs to brave the cold and charge whatever they couldn't see through the thicket of shadowed ivory frost. His tusks cut through the wet winds like horns on a wholly rhinoceros.
In day and evening light, Frosty's fur was white-- if not by the collection of snow, then by his own shapeshifting design. But now, in the midst of night, his fur was pitch black, making it look like Claude truly was riding a bulk of horned shadows.
They traveled miles. Endless peaks and valleys of desolate white where smell and flower were foreign concepts. Dark magics coalesced in distant glacial mountains and tangents settled above the freeze like stars. It reminded him of the Island-Gauntlet. Of the mysterious and seemingly endless seas where monsters were spat and transformed. On the ice it was worse. The dense snowfall refracted the existential mana flows and bursts of light, making it look like he was sometimes surrounded by millions of entrances into other worlds.
They passed the tangents all the same and re-entered darkness where tribal huntsmen groups slept in igloos fortified by glacial-stone and metal constructs and packs of monsters hunted in the distance.
They approached Claude and his ursine allies as the winds carried their smells. Claude fought them off and fled from others, using his enhanced bear senses to determine the threat level of each roaming group.
There was one group in particular that got an all too familiar rise out of him.
He sat up on Frosty's back, mask wet from all the snow and wind. Even still, he could smell it. A foul dog-scent. Like mange on a warhound during mating season. An overload of chemicals and dirt and blood.
Reflexively, his brain ran through what he knew of monster-kind that would elicit such a scent.
"Wyld-men in possession of dogs were described to have a mange-like afterscent. But wyld-men operate in jungles since they're made by apes. What else....Silver-Cursed smell like herbs. What's a dog-like....."
The howls shook the snowfall. Mock howls. Deep throaty screeches and chortles caught between pronouncing a word and expelling a great urge.
From behind, bursting through the white snow-drifts, a beast emerged. It's fur was white with stripes of pale-gold that probably made it literally invisible when dawn broke. It's body was humanoid in the sense that it was bipedal and had apposable thumbs that it used to hold a greatsword made of some creature's spine, but in terms of muscle content, the beast was orcish. It had the head of a wolf. It's ears were rabbit-like in their exaggerated length. But nothing about it was comedic as rabid foam drooled from between its jaws.
"Lupine…." Was all Claude saw— even though he should've known it was a gnoll.
He froze— caught between trying to fathom the reality of the situation and breaking free of the trauma-born memory consuming him.
The world grew soundless as the Gnoll closed in with the rest of its pack emerging from the snow drifts.
Frosty zig zagged and barked trying to alert Claude.
The gold-striped Alpha leaped, closing the distance— missing Frosty by a hairs distance.
It jumped again, raising its spine-boned great sword to sever them in two upon landing.
Claude's breaths came in short puffs as time slowed—
The bear drifted through the snow on two legs, sliding between Claude and the Gnoll. In a flash, the bear raised her massive clawed paw and slapped the Gnoll in the face so hard that it's head exploded.
The body rag dolled and rolled into the distance. The sound of bone and flesh shattering into splattered pieces snapped Claude out of his hesitation.
The bear dropped down to all fours, just as the other Gnoll's arrived.
She inhaled deep, filling her old body with the frozen winds of the wild. The jagged razor-like fur along her back spiked and she roared.
The force of her roars sent tidal waves of snow and ice at the gnoll pack as they whined and ran off into the distance.
The bear remained strong until they were far enough away. Then she turned, aiming her scared face at Claude. Her fox-like ears twitched in the heavy winds.
Frosty turned an ear to him as well.
Claude felt himself deflate as his fears faded, "I'm fine….. I'm… it's fine. Let's keep going."
And so they did.
"[Thats a strong bear….]" Arne suddenly said.
"What bear isn't?" Claude asked in reply.
"[True enough. Even the juvenile Giant-Killer's were said to be able to reduce boulders to rubble.]"
"The what?"
"[uhh….. nevermind.]"