Firefly Ravine time to raise the dead

"huh? oh, right," he said as he parsed the two things together. hole in the snow, snow-covered wolf. made sense, story checked out. he put his foot down finally, only to feel the cold come stinging back through his paw pad in what little bit of time it had gotten to warm up.
it may have stung because it had cracked open a time or two with the way he had gone rushing across frozen grounds. he ignored it. instead, he picked up where he had left off with nothing more than a beat of silence between them.
"yeah, the snow's pretty deep in places. be glad you didn't fall through a crack in the river, i guess," because if he had, well, lakhos would have been none the wiser to someone drowning actively beneath a good layer of the unbreakable.
and then onward to more pressing things...
"so are you like following me or somethin'? you aren't out here to eat me, are you? i hear there's cannibals around and the hills have eyes." for the effect, he tried to be a little bit bug-eyed about it, even though it was pretty much a lie. better have been, anyway, though it would be his luck if the hills really did have eyes and there were cannibals up on the mountain.