Less than two weeks into his stay, and Thorax's wings had finally recovered in full. However, it was another two days until he could try them out again, as the weather outside was so bad that Vix didn't even bother to go hunting. With the skies once again free of falling snow, he left to do some real exploring.

He first rose high into the air, trying to see if he can get a better view of what lay off into the distance. The east and west were fairly boring, leading to more snowy flatlands as far as he could tell. To the north was a wall of mountains that were almost entirely covered in snow, and the parts that weren't looked like sheer cliff faces. The south finally had something under than the greyscale that dominated the region with dark greens, though based on how there were even more white over there just above the green, it was likely a forest covered in even more snow. Any place warm enough to reliably get above freezing was more than a day's flight away, and Thorax didn't want to risk trying to leave just yet.

After that part of the reconnaissance, he glided his way nearer to the ground and started circling around the entrance to his shared shelter while slowly increasing his distance. The spiral would allow him to thoroughly scan the surrounding area while minimizing the chance he'd get lost along the way.

To keep his mind occupied while staring at the frankly boring terrain, he thought further on his future plans. He would have to leave eventually, as there would come a time when Ears, Spot, Hops, and Nosy would be old enough to strike out on their own. Even if it only took a year, he should've left a long time ago by that point if he wanted to get back to the hive without the chance of a desertion charge.

On the other hoof, traveling in the area could be very treacherous, especially when the weather turned bad. He's seen it happen in minutes with next to no warning there, and if it struck while he was heading back south, he would have to rely on luck yet again to find shelter. That's just too dangerous to risk.

With that reasoning out of the way, he readily came to the conclusion that he'd wait with foxes until the snow melted. His conviction in the whole thing was a lot weaker on that last part, truth be told.

Two hours into the search pattern, so about a fifteen minute flight from the snow tunnels, he noticed it suddenly get colder. Thinking the weather would swap to a blizzard yet again, he made a 90 degree turn towards the center of the spiral. A few seconds later, the air warned back up to its original, less frigid temperature, which got him to hover in place and turn around. He stuck one of his forelegs out, and as a reward got a chilly hoof.

That was very strange, and feeling curious, he flew in deeper. It visibly got darker as the ever-present cloud cover thickened further. Not only that, he could feel the magic of the area slowly intensify above the natural background. It wasn't like any other magic he ever felt. A part of him wanted to figure out what it was and maybe take that power for himself, but the vast majority of himself found it oddly icky and wanted little to do with it, outside of using to know which way not to go.

It even started to snow, but it was light enough to not bother his flight too much, so he pressed on a little further, the precipitation gradually increasing. He knew he would have to stop eventually if kept worsening like that and promised himself to keep going until just before then, pushing through the drifting snowflakes and that odd-feeling magic.

He never made it to anywhere close to that point. His eyes picked up something that made him stop, stare for a good minute to be sure, then race back to safety again.

Near the center, there was a lot of snow in the air.

It wasn't falling. It wasn't even moving at all.

Author's Note

Don't mind me, just setting up for some future stuff.