Ravensblood Forest The village school is cold and still.

There seemed to be little left in the world for Dagfinn beyond the simple pleasures he afforded himself: the thrill of a good chase, the occasional warmth of another body beneath his own, and the unending stretch of unexplored wilderness.

He had not backtracked in many moons, but today, he found himself in a land he had known once before. As a younger man; a different man, perhaps. His heart ached for that poor youth, and for the things that young man had lost and squandered — but he did his best not to dwell on the pain, and, unable to move past it, moved continually alongside and adjacent to it. Forever circling the now empty "north" where his internal compass used to point — Lotte.

The needle spun ceaselessly, soundlessly in his chest. Dagfinn ignored this, too, and continued through the dark, bleeding trees as though they were of no account to him. He was good at this; at living with ghosts without looking directly at them. They had haunted him, once, but he had the power; he was the one left alive.

But, sometimes, he allowed himself another liberty, and it was this: He looked at the woods and he saw them, and remembered, and imagined, and in the dark of the woods he began to sing softly to himself as he walked, the words secret to any who did not speak Tundrian.

Dancing bears, painted wings
Things I almost remember
And a song someone sings
Once upon a December

Someone holds me safe and warm
Horses prance through a silver storm
Figures dancing gracefully across my memory...