Arrow Lake there goes the neighbourhood...

In the morning everything was the same: cold, empty, but calm. He'd come upon a brilliant expanse of blue that was clearer than anything he'd ever beheld before; it was distant, but the lake was as brilliant as the sky and took his breath away. He should have been heading towards Diaspora and found a place to sleep, maybe checked in with Maegi... But something about the water's edge lured him close.

As he lingered on the stony ledge, paws pressed firmly against the packed snow, he pressed his luck with a few steps. The young man was light on his feet but that didn't make him small exactly; had he been healthy throughout his life, he'd easily mirror his deceased father by now but alas, he was thin, malnourished. The famine helped little; his history with poppies less so. Still, he managed to tread across the thin sheet of ice beginning to cover the lakeside, only pausing and recoiling when he felt something shift. Heard it, too. A creaking — the splitting of something beneath him.

And then something deeper, further out, shifted. A shadow moving sluggishly. He wanted to get closer; perhaps it was food, a sleepy fish not quite frozen yet. So he tested his luck against the icy ledge a few times, relenting only when it became clear he couldn't get too close... Lest he fall in and be forced to swim, which was best to avoid.