Submission (#1268) Approved

The chilling winds bore into Linus' black and white striped coat as he walked, knee-deep, across the snowy fields. He was absolutely thrilled by the fact he had snowboots on his feet (they were brown with wool covering the inside and around the top of the boot) but it only mildly changed his mood on an overall scale of things. In fact, his face was utterly disgusted as the wind tried to adhere to it and freeze the expression of dread onto it. The wind was so intense that Linus had to adjust his scarf to cover his face to be snugger than it was currently. This caused the kittom to stop his trek, pull his right paw out of his boot, and pull his scarf up over his face.

It felt much nicer now that his face was covered and only his dark red eyes and hair tuff was visible. However, that is about when things stopped going how he wanted them to. Instead of properly sliding his paw back into his boot when he was done adjusting his scarf, he shoved his paw into the knee-deep snow beside it.

Wet.

Cold.

Unexpected.

Linus didn't know what was the best way to describe what had suddenly happened to him. In fact, explaining it didn't even cross his mind. No, instead his reaction was much more primitive. Linus cursed like a sailor, raving on and on as he said something about lemon trees. It probably didn't make sense to anyone who overheard him but it definitely helped relieve his rage over the incident. Not entirely relieved but it was relieved enough that he was able to focus on trying to get his wet and cold paw back into the boot before he threw it.

It seemed like a simple solution but now Linus stood in the field of knee-deep snow with both his boots on and one was soaked, making every waking minute of his steps through the fields of snow uncomfortable torment. His paw remained cold despite the fact it was in the warmth of the boot, and Linus could swear that it was actually making the boot colder as his paw caused the boot to become wet inside.

Regret.

Yep. Regret was definitely what he felt coursing through him.

So much regret.

Linus sighed, looking around him with despair. He was surrounded by tall birch trees with beautiful blue leaves adorning them but Linus couldn't see their beauty as anything other than a reminder of his misery so he walked. He walked forward towards town, each step making an uncomfortable sound in Linus' ears and an uncomfortable feeling on his paw. He was reminded of the thought regarding elnin who lived here and he was struggling with it.

"How can elnin live here?" He grumbled as he walked. Linus would never understand how, and more importantly, why elnin chose to live here. What did this place even offer? It was a snow-covered, frigid regret of a place! Linus would match rather be just about anywhere else! Bellmoril was nice! How about there?

"Why did I even come here?" He asked, not expecting an answer. Linus didn't always like the places that they went but this one felt particularly miserable. It was an unusual environment for Linus, having not wandered up to the permafrosted region of Strynhalde very often before. His group of Stripes had spent much of their time in Bellmoril but they didn't spend much time in Strynhalde. Linus could see why.

What had brought him all the way here?

"Insanity," he mumbled as if replying to his own thoughts.

Linus was cold but he kept walking, stubborn, and still a little angry about the boot. It made for great motivation!

The town was in view now, and Linus was immensely relieved at the sight of it. He took in the sight of it, sighing to himself as he began to move forward toward it. That's when the wind blew, shaking all of the trees and annoying Linus. He stopped not so much because he had intended to but because something cold had hit him from behind.

Snow. Was it... a snowball? He didn't consider the fact it might have been snow falling from the trees from the wind because that's when a furious Linus turned around and spotted someone behind him.

Clearly, they had thrown a snowball at him!

Behind Linus, clearly beyond snowball throwing distance, was an approaching elnin. He was tall, clearly an adult, and he seemed to have white fur with brown accents.

More furiously, this adult had boots and didn't appear to have wet feet.

That was when Linus started implementing his plan. He ran into the distance, building the gap between Barnard (the adult elnin speculated to have thrown the snowball) and himself. He began to gather all of the snow he could into balls and set them behind a tree near the path. He worked quickly, packing as many balls tightly together as he could. He would have his revenge!

Barnard was walking slowly but eventually, he caught up. The time gap still wasn't apparent to Linus that he couldn't possibly have thrown the snow. Instead, he watched as Barnard got closer. Linus noticed that he had a lagoon tail dragging behind him in the snow and curious face markings close to his hairline. He had teal eyes and anima, and he was pulling a small sled behind him full of various things Linus had no real interest in. A lot of it was covered in snow and ice, indicating that this elnin had been on the road for quite some time.

Now in range, that was when Linus began his plan. He threw one snowball first.

It hit the sled, causing Barnard to stop with curiosity. The next one hit Barnard in the face. The third hit him in the chest fluff. Before Barnard knew what was happening, Linus was throwing snowball after snowball toward Barnard with surprisingly good accuracy. Barnard didn't wait around to find out which gremlin was doing this, and Linus declared himself the victor!

Okay, maybe it wasn't all bad here.