"RHINO!" No answer.
"MITTENS!"
He raced over to where she may have landed, (it was challenging to run through such hard packed...whatever this may be.
"Mittens!" He looked down at a tree root place, where he was sure she had fallen. He took no time to waste, and began digging in a hurry, hoping it wasn't too late. Than he saw her limp body, and almost on cue as if he'd pulled her from under a place where she had lost breath, she began a to cough, looking up at Bolt with weary eyes.
"Are you alright?" Bolt sounded worried to her, but at a time like this, Mittens didn't seem to care. She tried to step out from the underground hole, and luckily she made it out without any harm done to her.
"Um...thanks." She muttered, looking away.
"So you are okay?"
She looked around frantically. "Where's-"
"Rhino." Bolt remembered, as he too looked around sniffing, and all things to find the hamster, he was no where in sight.
"RHINO!" Bolt yelled his name, hoping for a distant answer, but nothing came. He had no clue where he would be, or where he was possibly thrown off.
They searched for a long time, under roots, in logs, everywhere, but they couldn't find the little fella.
Before too long, Their paws were absolutely frozen, luckily wasn't too windy, but it had been a long search, with no luck. They were still fortunate.
Mittens sat down in an open lonely spot, and looked down in sorrow, she looked at the blindingly white ground, fiddling with the ground and brushing her paw over it.
Bolt didn't have time to do the same, he was still turning his head in many directions, just imagining the little brow figure ready to trample on him playfully, but that time never came.
Bolt as well reclined to the frigid ground, helpless to find his possessed, yet wildly imaginative fan. He was worried deeply about ever bringing him along this far on the journey home, he had lost him in a blanket of white. Nowhere to be seen. Not to be heard.
Mittens suddenly appeared at Bolt's side, looking at the ground and them up at him, her eyes were now filled with fear.
"Bolt, I'm so sorry, this was my fault. I should have been careful, watching him, or something."
Bolt shook his head. "Mittens how could you have been even able to? You were too busy about to fall of the train. This hasn't been the very least, your fault."
"Bolt!" Her voice was cracking more than she anticipated, but at this time, it seem to matter. "You don't understand. I was naturally the one he was supposed to keep in check, and I should have made sure that he was watching me."
"What?"
"I was his captive, I was the prisoner. And I should feel responsible for letting him get distracted, I even took it out on him, more than I should have. And that being the last time I'll ever see him, I just wish..." She looked down. Bolt could have sworn he heard a sniffle.
He put his paw around her. "Mittens please." He didn't want things to get any worse then they were, but the stress was too much for both of them. "I don't want you to feel down on yourself."
She didn't feel comfortable about it, but she let the dog nuzzle her ear. She moved in a bit closer, noticing how much warmer he was from the snow, and just the fact that she needed some warmth at the time, reassured her to make herself comfortable.
Bolt sighed, as he lifted his head, and looked back down at the small cat. "I'm really sorry, as well Mittens."
She closed her eyes for a second. "It wasn't your fault."
"It was no one's fault Mittens." He was beginning to sound a bit more upset. And surprisingly, he took his paw away. "Please, you have to realize that he is gone, and that NONE of us are to blame."
"You weren't the one who had been taunted the entire time by a rodent and suddenly lost it."
"You weren't the one who once thought you had a big, powerful purpose to protect your person, and suddenly ENDED UP lost while looking for the rodent. Do you have any idea where the road is from here?"
"Well, do YOU have a clue where the rat is from your location? You couldn't find him in time out here within all of this snow. He'd freeze before you could."
Bolt examined the area around him with it's white glory shinning in his eyes, reflecting the sunlight. "So is that what this is?"
Mittens softened her expression, and studies her surroundings silently. "You...haven't seen it before?"
Bolt slid his paw across the surface of the snow, in awe at what all it could be, like bits of ice have been grinned into microscopic pieces.
Mittens took minor interest into the snow. She was pretty cold. "We need to find a place to be, Bolt."
That's when Bolt felt something on his nose, like a small trickle of water. He looked up, and saw a completely gray sky with little dust particles...or what looked like dust particles wafting down from it slowly.
He took out his paw, and let one of the wafting flacks land gently on his black pads. He squinted at it, in amazement.
"These things have designs." He noted as he noticed another, and caught that one as well.
Mittens didn't take the time to realize such a fact, she extended her paw as well, letting flacks land gracefully.
She picked out a beautiful shape on one of them, like a masterpiece from craftsmanship, as if someone up there had taken the time to carve out these magnificent designs. Pointed at six sides, glittery white in color, astoundingly separate from any other flake in the world.
She finally put her paw down, and stared into the sky, never realizing the beauty of things so small. Then she turned to Bolt.
"We have to go find some shelter." And together they left the area, in hopes of finding somewhere to shelter from the incoming storm.