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The many layers of snow covering the ground had merged to one thick blanket, as within the last three days, they had gotten about two feet of fresh snow. Still, it didn’t seem to be done snowing any time soon, big flakes were whirling through the air. The power had gone out almost two days ago. Everything was covered in a blanket of silence and the different shades of white in the clouds, landscape and sky blended into one greyish-blue shade of white as dusk was approaching. It was impossible to make out the narrow road in between the snow-covered, rugged mountains and the slightly darker silhouettes of pindrow firs on them. Night was moving in on the small group making its way through the relentless winds and tough conditions trying to find shelter and warmth at the lower parts of the mountains. Sara shivered and made sure to pull the toddler in front of her chest even closer to her heart. She protected her little boy’s raven-haired head from the thick snowflakes falling from the sky by wrapping the dark red, woolen blanket tighter around him and gently pulling it over the back of his head. They walked in silence, as fast as they could under the conditions and knowing the distance they still had to cover, determined to find safe passage and escape the weather, and there was no fear in their hearts.After another few minutes of trudging through the snow, about seven feet ahead of her, Nyssa suddenly tensed and put up her arm in order for Sara to see that she needed to halt. Sara froze on the spot, senses heightened and alarmed by her wife’s sudden gesture. The blonde looked around but couldn’t make out anything in the snowy chaos surrounding her family, however hard she tried. Nyssa slowly reached over her shoulder, pulling an arrow from her quiver and with one very careful but smooth movement put it onto her bow’s string, lifted the bow and pulled the string. She stilled and there was nothing to be heard. The baby boy was fast asleep at his mother’s chest and both women breathed as noiseless as possible, slowing down their heartbeats in the process – just like they had been taught while being trained by the League of Assassins. The heavy snowfall was muting every other noise around them and the only sign of life was their breaths forming small clouds in front of the women’s mouths.Then, many things happened at the same moment. Sara saw a huge shadow fly towards Nyssa and screamed her wife’s name. Nyssa had seen it, too, and felt Sara’s scream hit her eardrums in the same moment she whirled around, releasing the bowstring and letting the arrow pierce the cold air. About a split second later, a terrified Sara, wide-eyed and heart thumping in her throat, witnessed her wife being buried underneath a big, greyish, angrily-hissing animal. For a tiny moment, one that seemed to stretch throughout eternity, the blonde assassin was paralysed. She just watched as the wildcat reared up and hauled off to kill its prey, her brain not being able to process anything she saw happening. The next thing she knew, Sara pulled a throwing knife from the sheath strapped to her leg with her right hand and let it fly through the air, instantly followed by a second one. Her left hand was instinctively pressing Kaseem close to her chest in an attempt to shield him from any harm the unusually big snow leopard could do to him. As sudden as the chaos had hit the little group, it stopped. The predatory cat growled and with a loud thud crashed onto the mix of dark red and black in the snow beneath it.Deafening silence pressed onto Sara’s eardrums and all she could hear was her blood being pumped through her veins, her pulse hammering in her ears. Kaseem wriggled in his sleep. Sara unconsciously rubbed his back to calm the toddler down, her eyes fixated on the heap of grey and white fur two meters from her. It didn’t move anymore. After a few moments, cautiously, Sara moved closer, her snowshoes keeping her from sinking into the approximately five feet deep snow. Suddenly, there was a scratching noise and Sara stilled, holding her breath. A moment later, the cat shifted and Sara instinctively stepped back as far as her snow shoes allowed it and momentarily felt like the big backpack strapped to her back would gain overweight and make her tip over. She managed to find her footing a split second later and at the same second drew a dagger from her belt, landing in defensive stance.They had agreed on Nyssa walking ahead and checking the area, carrying her bow and being agile and able to move quickly, as quickly as possible considering the tons of snow surrounding them, providing safety for the three of them, and Sara following, keeping Kaseem and their stuff close. Sara knew she’d need to lose the backpack to have the slightest fighting chance against the cat and her left hand unfastened the buckle above Kaseem’s head with practised fingers, her eyes not leaving the animal in front of her for a second. The clicking sounded oddly loud amidst the turmoil of snowflakes whirling around the blonde woman and her child. There was another noise, scarcely audible at first but growing a bit louder with every second. Sara stopped trying to remove the backpack and stilled. More movement in the animal followed and it only took another moment until a gloved hand pushed the snow aside and made way for the woman in red and black to crawl her way out from under the dead cat. Sara made an incoherent sobbing noise and stumbled over to her wife, grabbing her arms and helping her up, just to pull her into her arms as tightly as possible without waking up their child in between them.For about a minute, Nyssa just held Sara close and tried to relax into her wife’s embrace, connecting their heartbeats and breaths and not caring about the blood covering her body. She only realized that there actually was blood, when she pulled away and saw red smears covering the left side of Sara’s face, where she had buried her face against the taller woman’s shoulder.“Are you okay?”, Nyssa asked, concern in her voice.“I’m just so glad you’re alive, by the Spirits, for a moment I thought I’d lost you forever, Nys...”, Sara whispered.“I’m fine my love, as long as you two are unharmed.” She softly stroked Sara’s bloody cheek.“We are.”Nyssa felt relief flooding her system and bent over to give the still sleeping Kaseem a kiss on his covered head. When she stood upright again, she brought both her hands up to Sara’s fae and gently cupped it while interlocking dark brown eyes with crystal-clear blue ones.
“Seriously, though? ‘Not my wife, you bitch’?”, Nyssa smiled after a moment of silence. Sara looked at her and raised one eyebrow in a curious way.“What?”, she laughed and was visibly confused.“That is what I heard you scream before I was buried underneath a dead snow leopard, which, by the way, was bigger than they ususally are”, Nyssa explained and tucked a strand of blood-stained, blonde hair behind Sara’s left ear.“Liar”, Sara laughed, “I’d never say that. Fact about the leopard, though.”“Oh, I am very sure to have heard these words, since I was convinced those were the last words I would ever hear”, the brunette winked.Sara stared at Nyssa, disbelief written over her face, but relief visible in her eyes. “Well, I guess I care about you”, she shrugged and pulled Nyssa in for a light kiss. “Whatever. I’d be really happy to get out of this chaos and put Kaseem down somewhere safe, love. I mean, it’s highly unlikely there’ll be another leopard, but there could be other animals... It’s almost dark, we should seek some shelter...”“Mhhh...”, Nyssa had held her eyes shut after their kiss and now leaned in closer again. “We will, but first, please, let me taste your lips once more”, she whispered against the silence around them and smiled happily into their next kiss.
“Come on, Nys, let’s find a place to spend the night”, Sara sighed after a moment and Nyssa nodded.“You’re right”, she agreed, “let’s try to get a little further and find a place that offers a bit more protection.”Sara was glad to see that Nyssa was back in her element again: providing safety for her family. She let her eyes wander over her wife’s body, relieved she was unharmed, and only then realised the big gash in Nyssa’s armor. Apparently, not all of the blood had been the wildcat’s and Nyssa was not unharmed.“Oh my gosh, Nyssa, you’re bleeding!” Sara felt panic settle in her stomach. She wasn’t one to panic easily, but the cut looked deep and Nyssa was losing quite some blood. That was nothing really unusual, or at least it hadn’t been until some years ago. Nowadays, neither of them was getting hurt on a daily basis anymore and the last time one of them had needed stitches had been some months before Kaseem’s birth. Nyssa looked down her body and was surprised to see the leather torn apart where it had protected her upper abdomen, right below her ribcage on the left side of her body. She felt a piercing pain for the first time, when her fingers touched the wound and dipped into the blood. The assassin inhaled sharply and gritted her teeth before looking up into her Beloved’s worried face.“On second thought”, she breathed, “we should maybe try to fix this first.”“Nyssa, I don’t have all the right stuff here, I can barely stop the bleeding, this looks terrible! Why didn’t you say anything? You need a healer, a doctor, someone who can actually help, I-“Nyssa raised her hand and silenced her wife by gently laying a finger on her lips.“It’s okay, love. You will do just fine, I trust you. I... just need to sit down for a while...”Her voice cracked a little and Sara realised that this was a dangerous situation for the three of them. Nyssa was badly injured, way worse than she made it seem, and it appeared like the rush of adrenalin and endorphins had prevented her from breaking down before. By the looks of the blood loss, she wouldn’t make it through the night, unless they could stop the bleeding, and the amount of blood staining the snow already would probably attract other animals of prey sooner or later. They needed to fix up the injury and find shelter as soon as possible, as the night air was already paving the way for nocturnal predators.Sara inhaled deeply and let calm spread through every fiber of her body. She needed to be focused. Nothing else mattered now.“Okay, babe, I need you to lie down for me, alright?” Sara aked while unfastening the hip belt of their backpack and
then gently let the pack slide down her body into the snow next to her.“Mhhm, I told you... not to call me that... but I will let that... slide... for now”, Nyssa clenched her teeth together while trying to stay in an upright position. The now inescapable pain in her abdomen numbed her ability to think clearly and she knew that under these conditions, with the night ahead of them and the snow chaos around them, not being able to think was not a good sign at all. Sara had grabbed a blanket from the top of the backpack. One side of it was wet from the snow but she spread it upside-down and helped Nyssa lie down on it. They caved in a few inches but the snow was quite thick and wet so it held more of their weight than expected. Sara carefully undid the knot in the fabric Kaseem was wrapped in, loosened the scarf around her body and then put him next to Nyssa on the blanket. Nyssa pulled him closer to her body, shielding him from the cold with her right arm on her uninjured side. The blonde grabbed a few things from the backpack they had taken before they had left their hut earlier in the day and put up a battery-operated lantern next to her knees.Two days ago, the power had gone out in their wooden hut and it had not returned since. The little family had been almost out of food after two days. They had planned to go to the small village at the foot of the mountain once the weather would have gotten better but then the blizzard had suprised everyone and they had been completely snowed in in a matter of hours. Since it hadn’t looked like it would stop snowing within the next few days, it had been a matter of survival to reach lower levels with significantly less snow and more people around. They had packed some stuff to keep warm in the night, had brought the last of their food and some essentials.Sara grabbed the dagger from her belt again and used it to cut through the remains of Nyssa’s armor.“I liked this one, it’s a shame”, she smiled to distract Nyssa from the pain.“Yeah, it’s one of my favourites... I guessed, though, you liked it better... when I was not wearing it, did you not?” Nyssa quipped back and bit back a shiver when Sara’s cold hands touched her heated skin around the wound.“Well, you got me there...” Sara mumbled more to herself than to her wife. “I like every kind of clothes better when you’re not wearing them.” Nyssa gave a small laugh and sharply sucked in a breath afterwards, feeling the hint of laughter stinging in her injury.Sara got a small bottle out of the backpack’s side pocket and pulled out the cork with her teeth. She put her thumb over the opening and looked Nyssa in the eyes. The brunette nodded and clenched her jaw, expecting the burning pain of the liquid on her stomach. She held eye contact with Sara and her nostrils flaring and her breath hitching were the only two signs of her being in immense pain when Sara let a few drops fall down on the wound. The Head of the Demon didn’t let a sound leave her lips, even when the sharp smell of the caustic liquid permeated the night air around them. Once more, Kaseem stirred in his sleep and Nyssa wrapped her arm around him a little tighter, attentive to not hurt their little one.Practised fingers cleaned the margins of the wound and Sara worked quietly, using four butterfly strips to pull the margins together. The ugly gash needed stitching but Sara didn’t have the right materials for that. This would have to do. She covered the wound with a cloth she dipped in the snow to cool down the infection heating up the skin around the wound and fixated everything with the fabric she had carried Kaseem in. Nyssa was pale as a ghost when Sara finished her work but Sara was sure that she would make it through the night. Kaseem had slept through the whole incident, from the leopard attack until Sara had fixated the makeshift bandage. He only woke up when Sara pulled him from Nyssa’s arms to give her a chance to carefully get up from the blanket. The 8-months-old let out a small sob and wrinkled his forehead.Sara looked down at him and smiled, the lantern illuminating the scene as its light was reflected by the snowflakes whirling around them. The winds had stilled in the course of the last few minutes and the driving snow around them had turned into silently-falling snow that melted on their bodies in a matter of seconds. The blonde assassin propped her son up on her left hip and held him tight while offering her right arm and shoulder to her wife, who gratefully used it to stabilize her stance. She held on tight to Sara with her left, carried the lantern in her right hand and the three of them slowly made their way over to a rock protuding from the snow, about 30 feet from the blanket. Outside the cone of light, it was dark. The snow wouldn’t allow the night to become pitch black, but still, it was dark. Sara let go of Nyssa and Nyssa held on to the huge rock while Sara tried to use her feet to shovel some snow away from behind the rock. There was a lot less snow on that side anyway, as the winds had pushed the snow to pile up at one side of the rock and function as a windshield for the other side now. When she felt like there was enough space for Nyssa to prop up against the rock for the time being, Sara shifted a babbling Kaseem to her other hip and turned towards her wife.“Do you think you can stay awake and keep him safe until I got our stuff?”, she asked and saw Nyssa nod. Sara trusted Nyssa with both, her own and their son’s life. Had Nyssa been uncertain of being able to care for their son, she would never have agreed to take him, so Sara held out her hand and took the lamp, placed it in the snow and helped Nyssa sit down. Then, she bent down and handed their son over to the Demon’s Head. He squeaked with pleasure and snuggled close to his mother’s chest and Nyssa let out an exhausted laugh.“Go, I’ll be fine for the next few minutes.... Take the lantern, love.” Nyssa whispered and Sara placed a light kiss on her forehead and hurried to get their backpack.
Half an hour later, Sara had gotten their backpack, and had rolled out the one sleeping mat they had, which kept the cold from the ground more at bay than they would have expected. Then, she had put the blanket on top of the mat, clothes, towels and whatever other fabric they had spread all over the blanket and thereby had built some almost comfortable night-quarters for the three of them. When Sara had returned to Nyssa, Kaseem had been calm and had already fallen asleep again in the wounded assassin’s arms. He had never been one to be awake at nights and being close to his mothers apparently was making him feel safe enough not to worry. Sara had briefly considered to not retrieve the bow from under the wildcat in order to save time, but had decided to just try to grab it and as many arrows as possible, since it was one more way to protect her family. It turned out to be quite easy to dig out the weapons and Sara was feeling a lot better knowing she could easily grab it, should there be any more incidents that night.She now was close to Nyssa and tried to warm her body with her own, the second blanket they carried with them was tucked closely around their bodies. Kaseem lay snuggled between his moms, breathing easily, and Sara hoped that Nyssa would be able to get some sleep and not burn up in the course of the night. The little lantern flickered every now and then and the blonde was wide awake. Sara knew she would not get any sleep until the sun would rise again, not until she could be sure her family was safe. The night air around them was cold but peaceful now, the snow, against all assumptions, had stopped falling and the clouds had cleared, so that the sky presented some stars and, occasionally, the moon would illuminate the family’s silhouettes.Sara was positive they would make it to the village the next morning, and for now, all there was to worry about was what might live and pace beyond the cone of light.