He trembles, with cold or fatigue he isn't sure. He doesn't know how long he's been out here. The vast wilderness surrounding him is an endless maze of trees and snow, rocks and ice. He's half starved, and icicles cling to his fur from when he collapsed in the river bed, unable to take another step. The shock of it galvanizing him to continue on in his aimless wandering. They're impenetrable columns of steel fused to his fur that not even his body heat has a chance of melting.
It's silent save for his labored panting and the crunch of his paws as they break through the top layer of ice atop the snow. The wind howls and his heart sings it's harmony.
How long has it been since he's last eaten or seen any sign of life in this frozen forest.
It wasn't always like this.
He wasn't always like this.
But the memories of before—
Of warmth.
Of what he really is.
Who he is and where he belongs.
Of her.
— grow more distant with each step.
It's her that he clings to.
The hazy memory of blue, much deeper than the patches of sky that broke through the trees and clouds before the sunset and ushered in a cold that's seeped into his bones,
A laugh, soft like the chiming of bells in the distance,
And some musty scent of trees or paper, he thinks.
The overwhelming sense of home that aches in his heart and forces him to put one paw in front of the other. Just when he's ready to give up, to give into exhaustion's siren song that promises death if he just lay down, to slip into the shadows, there's a shifting in the air. An infinitesimal modulation in the temperature. The scent of smoke and heather and heat and animal on the breeze.
He turns on instinct alone. Inky night spilling over him, concealing him as he plods on. It's not far before he comes across a clearing, and at it's center a house, barely more than a hut, but the windows are filled with light and it looks altogether too familiar to ignore.
It's barely a thought, to approach the dwelling before he's at the threshold, and his legs finally give out on him, collapsing with a thud against aged wood. Here is as good a place to die as any, he thinks, with a modicum of warmth.
Old iron hinges creak as the door open. It's followed by a soft feminine gasp, and a gust of heat with it.
"Gajeel"