Hibernation Point melting pot

@Hunt?

The others had woken and left her. She knew it as soon as she clambored from her hideaway. The lack of warmth around her was telling; the stark white of everything as she emerged to meet the Winter wasn't much of a shock, though. Her dreams had been all white, too.

Her mother had come to her in the dream, and her mother's mother. Faces she had never seen emerged from the dark to watch over her. Whispers in the silvering figments. She recalled the feeling of grass between her toes, the taste of maple sap dripping from her favorite trees. The voices urging her to rise and find a husband.

Here she was: not faced with Spring, and certainly not bringing with her any bundles of joy from the depths of her haven. She should have been sleeping — at peace in the dream for another few months — and yet she was not. Kilalurak sighed through the cold and watched a dragon's plume rise from her snout.

Why had the mothers pushed her to rise? She could not fathom it; this was not her time.