AN: Hey, everyone! This is my first post here, so I hope it's good. I know everyone and their grandma writes about their player characters here, but I hope I can make an endearing story nonetheless. I'd love any feedback you can give me. :D

It was cold up in the mountains. That seemed like such an obvious statement, but to a young asura alone in the snow, it was as if the word "cold" had held no meaning until this very moment. Even as he huddled under a dolyak hide and curled up as tight as he could, he could still feel a creeping numbness starting from the tips of his ears and spreading all the way to his core. He'd had the forethought to swipe the hide from the caravan before it left him here, but it seemed like such a trivial gesture now.

He felt the cold seeping into his lungs every time he dared to take a breath. Was it even possible for one's insides to feel cold? Or was he already hallucinating? How long had he been out here, anyway? For that matter, where exactly was here? Would he be able to find food? He supposed he could gnaw on the dolyak hide if he got hungry enough, though he didn't particularly like that idea. The mouthful of fur notwithstanding, this hide was also the only comfort he had left. The only thing he could call his possession. Maybe he would just nibble on the corners. For water he could eat snow maybe. He had to keep on planning his new life entirely beneath this hide just to distract himself from how unbelievably cold it was.

Honestly, he knew all his planning was pointless. The snow kept piling higher and higher around him, the temperature dropping at seemingly the same rate. He wouldn't have to worry about food or water, because the truth was, he was going to die here.

He distracted himself from this thought by trying to focus on his surroundings. The wind through the trees, the snow flakes rhythmically pelting the hide, the feeling of co- no, stop thinking about the cold.

Somewhere in there, there was a faint rustling; it sounded a bit like footsteps. It couldn't be, could it? Who could be walking around out here? He cautiously peeked out from under the fur and saw what appeared to be a giant, bipedal wolf lumbering towards him.

Yep, he was sure he was hallucinating now.

"You there!"

And now the hallucination was talking to him. He must have been even farther gone than he thought.

"You know I can see you under that thing." A hearty laugh bellowed from the wolf creature as it began to shrink down and lose its fur, all while still approaching him slowly. In seconds, it had assumed a form similar to that of an unusually large human.

Oh, it made sense now, the creature was a norn. That's how it could survive the climate up here. He wondered if norn eat asura. There was absolutely no evidence of that, but he heard it from another progeny one time, so it had to be true.

When the norn finally reached the hide, it knelt down and patted what it probably assumed to be his head. Instead, the norn's hand pretty much covered the asura's entire body. To its credit, the norn seemed surprised by this as well.

"Oh, you're a tiny little thing aren't you? Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you. But you're lucky I saw you in there. I just about mistook you for a dolyak!" Another laugh. The asura wasn't quite sure what this norn found so amusing.

Suddenly he felt the hide being lifted off of him.

"Huh, an asura? And so small! You must be just a little kid, aren't you?" The norn picked him up.

Well, hopefully getting eaten would hurt less than freezing to death. He braced himself, but instead, the norn wrapped him in the hide and carried him. The asura squirmed, but was too weak to escape the huge arms that held him.

"Let's get you back to the village. Gotta get you out of here before the blizzard hits tonight. You can tell me what you were doing out here when you've warmed up. By the way, you can call me Rolf. Do you have a name, little guy?"

"D-d-Darrof" the asura squeaked.