Disclaimer: I do not own Voltron/Go Lion or any of their characters. They are the property of WEP and Devil's Due Comic, Toei Animation and Dreamworks. All other characters are mine. This is written purely for entertainment purposes and I am not monetarily compensated in any way.

Winter's Bone

Part 2

1

Nanny shimmied out of the mouth of the cave. A watery sun struggled through a veil of leaden clouds. Its weak light glinted through the vaulted canopy of ice coated trees like frosted church glass. It was a silent world entombed in white and gray. She stood up, picked up her makeshift spear, which doubled as a walking stick, and brushed off her pants. Her breath made steamy clouds in the frigid air as she looked around at the snow shrouded landscape. The rustle of a light wind through the branches was the only sound. Even the low rumbling sonic booms of far off Drule ships had ceased many weeks ago and she had grown accustomed to the quiet. There was safety in the silence.

It had been many months, more months than she could reckon had passed since they found the cave. Spring had vanished and summer had never come. The weather had gone from months of wet and cold, to months of ice and cold, until finally it had turned to a soggy blanket of white snow. There was no way to know how much time had really passed, unless one could read the stars or the slight change of the position of the sun on the horizon. Living in a technologically advanced society, Nanny had never paid any attention to such mundane topics.

She left the cave regularly now, several times a week, setting snares in hopes of catching something- anything- for them to eat. She had to, their supplies had completely run out and the mushrooms were nearly gone. The rest of their brief stroke of good luck had run out as well. For the last several weeks they had been subsisting on one or two mushrooms a day, boiling tree bark and what bits of leather were on their gear. If they were going to have any chance to survive she had to find food.

Twice before she had gone to the river and back tracked along its frozen banks in hopes of finding their cached supplies. Twice she had gotten lost, once for the whole night. By the time she had gotten back to the cave Allura had been hysterical with fear; afraid that Nanny had been found "by those bad men."

Nanny's hands and feet had also turned blue. They were stiff and numb and her nails were a bruised purple and had burned like fire for hours. She was grateful she didn't lose them and had learned a vital survival lesson: If you need it, keep it with you. Because when it's gone, it's gone for good.

But it was on that day, even darker and gloomier than today, exhausted and staggering from wandering through the night on her way back from that failed journey she had found the stream. It cut deep through the limestone and ran swiftly, never freezing thoroughly. She had followed it, dead reckoning by the angle of the sun and heading uphill against the current.

She flipped the hood of her poncho over her head and made her way to it now.

It had been a life-line, in the most literal sense of the word. It ran diagonally behind the cave in a meandering path. All Nanny had to do was follow it and keep an eye on the angle of the sun when leaving and returning. It was most likely fed by the river they had floated down to find the cave all those months ago. The stream had saved her- and the princess- not quite two months ago.

She had stopped for drink at one of the small pools dammed up and crusted around the edges by ice. It was then she noticed that she was not the only thing roaming about in this unnatural winter. Small rabbit foot prints and deep gouges from the cloven hooves of feral pigs patterned the snow near the water's edge. Rabbits and hogs, imported from Terra, didn't hibernate through winter like most of Altea's wildlife. It occurred to her that if she set a snare here, she might catch something.

And then she noticed something else. A slight movement in the stream, undulating against the ripples of the current. Blending in with the rocky-sandy bottom a cauda fish the size of her forearm -named so because it had legs like a salamander- fanned it's gossamer-like gills filtering algae for its dinner. Something deep in the primal parts of Nanny's brain understood this was her last chance. Her last chance to get a meal of life saving protein. The last chance for her and the princess to survive this frozen white hell.

She stretched out her hand slowly- very slowly- so what shadow she would cast would not startle the fish. First resting the tips of her fingers in the icy water, then slowly submerging them knuckle by knuckle until her hand was hovering inches above the fish. The fished stilled for a moment and slid back a fraction in the current, its fluttering gills just under Nanny's fingers. It was then, without any conscious thought of her own, she struck. Her aim was true but her hand had grown stiff and numb with cold. She didn't get a grip on the fish and it thrashed out of her hand before she could get it out of the water. She fell back, sitting on her bony haunches in the snow and mud. A keening wail issued from her and she rocked back and forth, devastated.

A splash got her attention. The fish hadn't darted away. It was still in the pool writing and contorting near the surface. Although she didn't catch it as she had planned, she had injured its gills. It couldn't breathe and it couldn't swim away.

Nanny jumped to her feet and splashed into the pool knee deep. She grabbed the fish with both hands, but it writhed out of her grip again. It took several more tries-she practically chased it onto the bank before she got it out of the pool. She soaked herself in the process, but in the moment she didn't feel the frigid water. She was too focused on making her kill. The fish flopped and twisted, leaving bright red splotches of blood in the snow from damaged gills. Nanny pounded it over and over on the side of its head with the heel of her frozen blue hand. Finally the fish died. It was then she started to feel the cold wrap around her wet clothes and seep into her bones and noticed the flakes of snow that had begun to fall. Fear ripped through her fiercer than any winter wind. She was still miles from home in a gathering storm. And the princess, her sweet baby girl, was still alone in the dark, starving.

She had made it back just as the snow began to fall heavily-she had been closer than she realized-clutching the limp fish to to her chest. She never forgot that bone deep cold or how warm the cave had been when she first entered. Or how sweet that fish had tasted. They had eaten the whole thing- or tried to anyway. Their shrunken stomachs didn't let them. But they had had several days' meals from it and boiled the bones for soup which Nanny strained out with a cloth.

Later, when she was gathering water at the underground river she had seen the translucent cast off shell of a prawn. It was large, perhaps as long as her hand. She had gotten the idea to use the fins as bait for a trot line.

It had worked. Several hours later when she checked, three of the white creatures wriggled on their hooks. She pulled them out, surprised at their weight. One was the size of a lobster. And that's how she decided to cook them. And they were just as delicious.

She had reserved some of the meat for bait and the system had worked. She was able catch a several prawns a week. She had also set lines out in the stream outside, along with setting snares where she noticed the rabbit and pig tracks. She hadn't managed to catch a pig yet, one had been snared but had been able to snap the line. But she did catch one more cauda fish and she had had some luck with rabbits, snaring two.

The first she had found dead. Luckily the bitter cold had kept the meat fresh and they had rabbit stew. The marrow from the bones made a surprisingly rich broth. The second was still alive when she found it. The snare had cut deep into its hind leg as it struggled to escape and she could see the white tendons through the creature's fur. It stared at her with large, terrified eyes and its sides heaved.

Nanny had picked up a palm-sized rock from the edge of the stream. "I'm sorry," she said then crushed the animals skull.

But that had been weeks ago. Now her lines, all of them, were coming empty. Not because she wasn't catching anything, although her catch had been less than usual. But because something was eating them first.

Her rabbit snares had been sprung, but they were empty. She found nothing of her catch except for bits of fur and patches of pink and red blood trampled into the snow. Those disgusting pigs had learned this was a good place to find a helpless meal. She had decided she needed to move them to another spot along the bank.

But what was poaching the trot lines in the under ground river disturbed her the most. After the second time she had found only the heads attached she had decided to set the line and watch. Either to be there to pull in her catch or to see what was getting it.

She didn't have to wait long. Within an hour after the line being cast, she saw a small tug and she hurried over to see. A prawn was nibbling on the bait, but not quite hooked. Nanny watched, rapt, silently urging the creature to take bigger bites.

The monster came out of nowhere the pitch black deep and she shrieked. It had a gollum's head with blind blue eyes and shark teeth. Bioluminescent spots glowed around its mouth. She only saw it for the second or two it took to come into view and snatch the prawn whole in its gaping, black hole of a mouth. She caught a glimpse of its body as it spun around in retreat. It had stubby limbs and a long eel-like tail, and it was nearly the size of a person.

Nanny clutched a hand to her chest. Mein Gott! That explained the ripples and swells. And the strange marks in the dirt around the water's edge that she had seen recently. A shudder had coursed through her as she remembered stories she heard of river monsters that snatched people from their boats from the local people. She had dismissed it as tall tales that every culture had. But now she had seen one with her own eyes. How many times had she sent Allura down here to fetch some water or wash the bowls? That thing could have gotten her at any time. It could have gotten Nanny when she was leaning over the water casting the lines. Nanny wondered how far it could crawl outside the water. Could it breathe air? She forbade Allura to go down there again.

After several days she finally got the nerve to return to the pool. When she did she brought a long branch with one end she had sharpened into a point. She saw more tracks and the swirl of the creatures long tail in the dirt. She turned and left and hadn't returned.

They used melted snow for water now.

Nanny turned west and trudged through the snow in the direction of the stream to check her snares. She set out with hope as she did each time she left. Today would be the day she found something. It had to be. Hunger had stopped gnawing at her belly. It existed now as aching joints, thinning hair, loosening teeth and a constant hollowness that radiated outwards from within her bones.

She noted a tangle of pig tracks in the snow. She decided to follow them. Following the pigs had lead her to food before and it was likely it would again. If not an actual meal, a clue as to how to find one.

After a short distance she saw a hole had been burrowed in the snow. Dark shreds of tree bark and feathers littered the edges of the crater. Inside it she saw tell tale red bloodstains in the snow and a hole had been chewed in a hollow log. The pigs had found an orik hibernating.

A wave of envy washed over Nanny so strong it almost felt like rage. Damn those pigs! They had left nothing for her to even scavenge. But they did give her hope that the trees offered more than stringy bark to eat. She looked around at the bare trees, noting hollows midway up their trunks where fennik might build their winter nests, and then down at humps in the snow where more logs might be, hiding an unsuspecting meal.

She crept closer, and knelt down and peered into the hole the pigs had made. She examined the log, trying to notice anything unique about it that would make it a likely home for slumbering critters. She saw something round and smooth deeper within the log, mottled spots made it hard to distinguish from the the wood it was embedded in. She reached her hand inside. It was a different texture than the meaty wet of the damp wood. It was smooth like a river rock. Her heart skipped a beat. An egg. Somewhere deep in her memory she remembered a dinner party when some Terran scientist had droned on endlessly about the specialness of the egg laying marsupial orik. They laid their eggs in the autumn, he had said, leaving them to mature and hatch through the winter were sleeping. Nanny paused as this seemingly useless knowledge sunk in: if the orik had laid it's egg, it was already past the Autumnal Vertice. Although cold, wet and unrecognizable, both spring and summer had past and Altea's long winter was coming. She pulled her hand out and slumped over and rested her forehead on the tree's trunk. Her eyes burned and she blinked a hot tear slid down her nose. She let it fall. Mien Gott. If we're ever going to survive, we're going to need a miracle.

After a moment took a deep breath and willfully forced her despair aside. Crying isn't going to help anything. She wiped her eyes and reached back into the tree feeling for the egg. As her fingers pried the tennis ball sized shell out of its nest she did believe the orik were special creatures. Very special indeed, she thought as she slipped the egg into a cargo pocket of her pants. She felt around to make sure there wasn't anything else, and shined the light of her comm in the log. She saw another swell in the wood and reached deep inside. She was a few inches short. She laid down in the snow, careful not to crush the egg in her pocket. There was another egg! Stupid, greedy pigs! They didn't get everything this time.

She worked it loose and pulled it out. It was slightly smaller than the first. She set it in the snow as she got to her feet. She put in the other pocket. Her heart was pounding with excitement. Two eggs! One for each of them She wavered indecisively if she should go check her snares or if she should go straight back to the cave with her delicate bounty. She thought of the poached snares and decided to check quickly. Even if they were empty, snow was in the air and if it came down heavy she wouldn't get a chance to retrieve them. Those snares were the difference between life and death. She couldn't lose another.

She felt her pockets, gently caressing the eggs to reassure herself they were there and double backed toward the stream. She followed it down, noting that the current was so strong that it still hadn't frozen thoroughly, just the edges.

She approached the place where her snares were set. Empty. Again. Not totally empty, though. This time a foot had been left, still caught extra snug in the wire loop. Something was off about it though. The pigs normally left nothing. Small packs of them roamed together and fought over every last scrap.

She bent down and picked up the foot. It was cut clean though, the wound seared shut. She frowned in confusion as she worked the loop open and loosed the remains. She turned it over in her hands. A feeling of alarm started to creep over her. This looked like it had been done with a knife.

She dropped the rabbit's foot at looked around, and then she spied something else. Some thing that turned her bones to water. A set of deep boot prints in the mud around the stream and dirty broken ice along it edge.

They were not alone here any more. Someone had been here and had poached her rabbit. Maybe they had been doing it all along, not the pigs. She examined the boot prints more closely. They were large and the stride was long. This someone was male.

Nanny looked around frantic, checking to see if she was being watched and cursing herself for leaving such an obvious trail back to the cave in the snow. She willed herself to be calm. It was one set of footprints. This was the first time she had seen them. She was sure she would have noticed them before; she had known something was off this time immediately. She wondered if they were friend or foe? Whichever it was likely they were as desperate as she and the princess were. And that made whoever they were very dangerous.

She picked up the rabbit foot and loosed the snare from its mooring. She coiled it up and put in her pocket along with the rabbit foot.

She thought of another snare she had set further down. This one was set for pigs, fastened to the limb of a large tree with gnarly roots growing right into the stream. She should go check it? The idea of a large catch there waiting for her was tempting. But the thought of accidentally meeting her rabbit thief squelched that idea. She fondled one of the eggs. She needed to get back to the princess and get her fed. She stepped gingerly down into the stream, ignoring the coldness of the water.

She headed back to the cave using the stream to hide her tracks. She knew it might be a futile effort. That whoever had stolen her rabbit might have already found and followed her track. Nein...nein...I would have have seen their footprints in the snow as easily as they had seen mine. They've kept to the stream like this. Smart. Nanny reasoned.

Her homemade spear splashed into the water as she used it to haul herself up over a small waterfall. I'm going to have to kill that monster down there in the cave with this stick. She shuddered. Maybe he'll taste good.