Silvertip Mountain Light of a clear blue morning

Day chuckled at her question - she thought of the strangest things that, often, just never crossed his mind. "It's cold," he said simply, dipping his head to bump his nose against the ice. "Beyond that - I think it'd something you have to experience for yourself."

His grin faded, but his spirits remained high as he remembered his lonelier winters. "A winter alone is something I hope you'll never experience," he told her, meaning every word. Wolves weren't meant for that sort of life. "It's the same, at first. Cold and exciting. Snow falls and everything's pretty - but it's an empty sort of pretty. Everything's empty, soon enough. All the small food has gone underground to sleep, leaving you with only scraps of old bones to eat. If you do manage to catch something, chances are something else will come along to try to take it, and you'll waste just as much energy trying to defend it as you would just moving on without it."

He'd lost a lot of weight that first winter, and had come out the other end a different wolf.

"And the cold... it gets to you, after a while," he went on, voice quiet in the slight chill all around them. "With no one to curl up next to, it starts to seep right through your fur, until you can feel it in your bones. It's the kind of cold that never really leaves you until spring comes again, but that isn't for months... And sometimes you shiver so much your muscles ache, and sometimes it's too cold to shiver at all.

"But the worst part is just being alone. No one to talk to, no one to hunt with, no one to wake you up if you have a bad dream..." he explained, a little shiver going down his spine against his will.