Now our story could very nearly have ended right here. Because as night draws on and Aurora sleeps tucked up in one corner of the cave, she has made a great mistake.
The snow falls thick and with vengeance, whipped up into a frenzy by the wind. When Aurora awakes in the morning, her lips are cracked and blue, the sensation has bled from her fingers and toes, and her whole body convulses in shivers that go far beyond teeth chattering.
The cold has nearly finished her off.
But thankfully, there remains a tiny flicker of warmth deep within her soul - the determination to keep going no matter what. It’s rather like a single candle burning in an abyss of blackness. With so much as a tremble, it might blow out completely, but while it still glows, the dark hasn’t won yet.
She staggers to her feet, desperate for warmth. The thought consumes her mind, blocking out any other thought and becoming the sole thing she can focus on.
Warmth...fire.
She needs a fire.
So out into the forest she ventures, her task clear and certain, her resolve strong. She breaks twigs off the branches, picks up small logs, grabs handfuls of moss. On one side of the lake is an exposed scree of stones, and she heads over that way. Her tribe used to remind her of the three things that fire needs to survive. They told her everyday when she was a young girl, so now it comes to her with barely a thought, which is a good job because the ice has reached into her brain and brought its workings to a near-halt.
Air, fuel, and a spark.
Air is in no short supply, and she has her arms full of fuel. So now all she needs is a spark.
Aurora stumbles to the rock pile and sinks to her knees, grazing them against the sharp stones but barely noticing. Her fingers tremble with no more strength than delicate eggshells as she paws through the rubble, looking for the rock she needs. By some miracle she finds it: glossy black flint. Tears of giddy relief spring to her eyes.
Back at the den it takes her very little time to get a spark from the flint and a steel bar which she keeps on a thin rope around her neck, like a necklace for safe-keeping. The fire grows steadily, consuming the moss and twigs and puffing out a gentle column of smoke.
It’s difficult to describe how good it feels to Aurora to sit there next to the small blaze, letting it defrost her body like she’s an ice cube melting back into liquid water. But as the feeling begins to return to her fingertips - and she gives them a wiggle just to make sure - her brain is able to start functioning again. And this gives way to a sickening realisation of how close she was to not surviving at all.
She needs to be more careful if she wants to make it to the midwinter moon. Before, when she was with her tribe, there were other people looking out for her. They would have kept a fire going while she slept, or noticed if her hands were turning blue. They would’ve had her back as she tried to make it through the treachery of winter. As they all tried to make it.
They would’ve had her back because she would’ve had theirs.
Or she should have.
A swirling mix of anger and guilt rises up in her chest, and she clenches her jaw. She shouldn’t dwell on this - it doesn’t help. Her tribe is now long gone, nothing more than a reminiscent memory kicking around in her head. Only last winter she was still a part of them, and she would have sat round a fire like this and talked for hours.
But now she sits all on her own.
In some ways, that loneliness is colder than the frosty night that has nearly just killed her.
It’s colder because it’s not on the outside, biting into your eyes and face and skin, but on the inside, biting into your heart. Your soul. Perhaps the best word I can use to describe it is harrowing. Even sat next to the heat of the fire, this harrowing feeling makes Aurora shiver.
She watches the flames as they curl and jump about, and realises that even if she doesn’t like it, she doesn’t have any other choice. There is no way her tribe will accept her back again - that bridge is well and truly burnt, and now lies as a pile of ashes at her feet. Other tribes probably live in this forest, but she doesn’t know how to find them, and escaping the forest isn’t an option because it extends for hundreds of kilometres all around, far too long a distance to cover. Being in a new tribe would be safer, but where would they even be? The labyrinth of trees is too easy to get lost in - it’s dangerous to go wandering around endlessly. Now that she has found a safe cave, Aurora wants to stick to it like lichen clinging onto a rock. Even if she was lucky enough to find another tribe, she has no guarantee they would welcome her into the group. With the perils of winter, all anyone can think about is making it to the midwinter moon. Why would they want to take in another member, another mouth to feed?
Aurora’s stomach flips with nauseous butterflies at this thought. Being rejected once was hard enough. She wouldn’t be able to take it again. Better to tough it out on her own. If she can make it to the midwinter moon, she will be alright (until next winter of course, but she can cross that bridge when she comes to it.)
“I can do it,” she whispers to herself. “I can make it.”
It is going to be tough. The toughest thing she has ever tried to do - and, to make it worse, she will get no help. She is completely on her own.
But her knowledge of the forest is good - very good. She has a lifetime of experience at her disposal, and a will of steel. There are Wildebeast prowling around and dangers lurking behind every tree, but Aurora knows to be on her guard for them. She knows that one mistake will cost her her life.
Knowing all this, Aurora is ready.
After all, what other choice does she have?
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