Boarding Party • X. Snowsfall (Patreon)

Even though they all lived on the island of Crypt Keep, none of the Rogers would actually call it home. D’anna’s home was her dairy farm on Veridia—Crypt Keep was more of a “live-in” than anything. Cain would claim that his true home is “tha sea,” to which Majel would roll her eyes. If prompted, the cat would just simply say that she had no home anymore before hastily changing the subject. 

In their defense, Crypt Keep wasn’t that welcoming of a residence; it was as if the whole island was cursed to die. Its natives were no more—through no work of the Rogers, they had simply been like that for a while. Their sprawling graveyard took up most of the island’s surface; granite headstones and limestone crosses peppered its bleak landscape. The ground was cold and moist to the touch, its unusual chilliness sure to seep through any boot that walked on top of it. No life could naturally survive there anymore; any foliage what remained was withered and ashen. Clouds perpetually loitered above and the squally weather always brought a shiver.

In the middle of the island was a large, grey mountain. Various rocks eroded in a manner that gave the whole thing the appearance of a large, jagged skull—like a chiseled bust of Cain himself. Naturally, it was within the caves of this mountain the Rogers made their headquarters.

To get inside the mountain, the pirates sailed through a large slit near its base. It was hidden by intersecting palm trees that scratched against the ship’s sails as they passed by. (Because of this, the Wound’s hull had to be frequently re-painted. Many past-members of Cain’s crew had fallen into the watery depths of the Soval Sea holding a brush in their hands.) Down a tight, dark tunnel the Festering Wound could barely fit through, they arrived at the mountain’s hollow interior—their base of operations.

What the Rogers assumed to be a “just an empty mountain” was, in reality, an extinct volcano. The large, cone-shaped pocket of air inside was where the magma had once been stored. The volcano’s crater, the circular opening of the mountain’s peak, offered natural lighting during the day. At the bottom of the cone was a layer of water wide enough to comfortably sail in, but deep enough to not break the kneel. Away from sight and protected within miles of stone, this is where Cain would hide the Festering Wound between voyages—and, soon enough, during the freezing winter months when the seas froze into one massive sheet of ice.  

Winding caves burrowed into the mountain’s walls, all of them connected like a large ant colony. When the Festering Wound docked beside a particularly large one near the bottom, Majel connected the two with a gangplank. (The hull scrap from the Colossus had been lost long ago, having since been replaced by a piece of the Delight.) 

Being the captain, Cain was the first to disembark the ship. He would help D’anna and Majel on their journeys across the plank, holding their hands as they walked down it like a tightrope. It was only a short distance, but nobody wanted to take their chances—though the autumnal season wasn’t even over, the sea was already unbearably cold. 

“We need a pier…” Majel grunted, trying to balance herself with nothing but a twenty-five pound skeleton for support. Once she made it onto the stone slab, she made sure to create plenty of distance between her and its edge. 

Cain rolled his skull. “Maje, we be usin’ a piece of Navy hull for a gangplank. I don’t really think we have tha resources fer a pier,” he said as he now took D’anna’s hand for safety.

“Well, even if we don’t have the resources, you definitely have the money!” said the elf. She felt her captain’s bony grip tighten at the mere suggestion of contributing to the economy.   

“Out of the question!” he yelled. “Ye know I don’t like spendin’ me spoils…” 

Majel muttered something underneath her breath. 

“I heard that, ye fleabag!” the skeleton yelled. Cain’s hoard was a sore subject between the two of them—considering that it was a contributing factor to the end of their marriage, as well as the end of Cain’s life. 

“Good! You think becoming that,” Majel said as she motioned at Cain’s general appearance, “would be a wake-up call to stop being such a tight-fisted, packratting bastard!” 

“And ye think that shriveled liver ‘an bloated belly of yers would be a wake-up call ta stop guzzlin’ beer day-in-and-day-out!” Cain yelled back, pointing to Majel’s middle. “Or do ye need one of yer kidneys burstin’ ta get tha point? Or perhaps yer cheeks need ta become even redder fer it ta come across! Maybe ye need an even staler breath!”

Knowing how their usual spats play out, D’anna excused herself with an invisible, possum-like meekness. It was routine by now—anytime spit started to fly between her crewmates, D’anna would crawl to her quarters and bunker down until one of them walked by, stringing along a long series of expletives that told her who won the argument. She knew that if she stayed, they would inevitably draw her into it—whether it be to prove a point or to show how the other one is affecting her. 

The elf sighed to herself. She deeply cared for Cain and Majel, but she had to admit—she spends most of her year thinking about Snowsfall and the winter months. After nonstop bickering and skullduggery, she could get away from it all and spend the last few months of the calendar at home in Veridia—among the quietness of her cows and the sleepiness of Veridia. 

To put it nicely, D’anna’s quarters were “eclectic.” It was a hoarder’s paradise—where everything was so mixed-matched, one could argue their uniform disorder did classify as “matching.” There was a large cow portrait hanging on the wall, something commandeered from the zombic raid on the Kodos Konfedration fortress. (The painting was a genuine Bama, largely considered one of the most talented artists of his generation. D’anna did not know this—she just liked that the subject was a cow.) All of her Dairy Farmers Annual Almanacs were kept in wooden crates—making sure to keep up with the series for all 124 annual volumes that have been published so far. 

She was asleep on a stolen soldier’s cot, hugging a pillow and unconsciously whispering nonsense to herself, before a knocking outside her quarters made her come-to. She groaned as she sat up and wiped off the crust between her still-shut eyes. “Come in!” 

Majel unfurled the folding screen that acted as the cavern’s door. “D’anna, can I ask you something?” She sat down on the cot, which let out a creaaak from the extra person sitting on it. “Something that would mean a whole lot to me if you said ‘Yes’ to?” 

“What is it?” the elf asked with an uncharacteristic curtness. 

“I’m sure you could tell that I’m not on the… best of terms with Cain at the moment. And right now, he’s in the Main Hall working on that godsdamned zombie sleigh thing and…”

She sighed, “Well, in case he does make it, do you think I could maybe… uh…” 

The cat shifted her head to the side and gave a weak smile as she tried to find the courage to speak. “…spend the season at your place…?”

Before any words could leave D’anna’s lips, Majel continued to make her case. “I just—I just don’t feel comfortable being here all by myself, you know? Like, what would happen if there’s nobody here but me and their food runs out?” 

D’anna was put into a tight position. She sought the winter as a time of solitude, as a retreat from this swashbuckling life she’s come to know. A distraction. Something she spent the entire year looking forward to. Of course, she could see where Majel was coming from—a bunch of starving zombies doesn’t sound like the best roommates to her, either. And she would be hibernating—almost like she wasn’t there at all.

“O-Of course! I’d love to have some company…” D’anna smiled, although the hesitation in her voice almost gave her true feelings away.

Majel’s ears perked up with excitement. “Oh, D’anna! I-I… cannot tell you how much this means to me!” she smiled. She was about to go on, but her ears twitched. They drooped back down as she heard the sounds of shuffling growing louder and louder from the hallway. The cat and the elf looked at each other quizzically before Majel got up to see what it was. Peeking her head from beyond the screen, she gasped as she saw Cain, dangling a dripping heart from a fishing pole to herd a small horde of zombies.

“I cracked it, Maje!” Cain cackled. “It be the heart! It be so thick an’ fleshy, tha hook can’t slip out!” 

Majel shivered and looked back at D’anna. “I’ll start packing…” 

With the Festering Wound already out of commission for the season—for a fear of it being stranded in the middle of nowhere whenever the sea freezes—D’anna and Majel took a series of one-way ferries from Saint Khan’s to Dimout Isle to Veridia. You never wanted to ferry anywhere straight from Khan’s—if so, you might as well wear an eyepatch, replace your leg with a wooden peg, and start talking like Cain. No—Dimout Isle, while not the unseediest island in the Soval Sea, had some legitimate businesses that weren’t also a front for something else.

Keeping up a charade was key to D’anna’s life on Veridia. The island—which was under the watchful eye of the Horatio Empire—would not take too keenly to a pirate living there. That’s why D’anna came up with an extensive cover story to explain her seafaring expeditions: Unable to make a living in Veridia, the elf decided to sail abroad. She would hawk all sorts of dairy products to other, more receptive islands while still maintaining the Veridian farm—the first one of many. She (supposedly) owned dairy farms in many different islands, islands that didn’t actually exist whenever you tried to find them on a map. She made sure to regularly update an extensive, phony Log of Sales for proof of evidence. It was filled with a bunch of made-up transactions from her travels, like “Octaeus 24th, 8oz carton of milk, 1 Doubloon, Mr. Gilson Avril, Inland Isle.” 

Most people hardly recognized her, anyway. Those who attacked and/or were being attacked by The Festering Wound had little time nor the chance to notice cowering elf in the ship’s lower decks. (They were probably too busy dealing with the ship’s mad skeletal captain and his undead crew.) But, just to be on the safe side, D’anna would let down her hair and change back to her pre-pirating wardrobe. (That being a long, plain dress and a stained apron.)

Majel donned her Lady Marchmain persona again, not wanting to go through the effort of coming up with a different wardrobe and backstory for a new character. On the record, they would be spending the holiday season together as “bosom friends,” not out of relief from pirating nor a fear of getting eaten alive by hungry, cooped-up zombies.

D’anna packed many things from her cramped quarters: decorations and trinkets she “bought” and felt would be better off at home, the meager amount of money the farm hadn’t eaten up, and some reading material she picked up for the long haul. (Some of them were textbooks on loan from Doctor Picardo. As The Festering Wound’s quartermaster, D’anna felt it necessary to know how to patch up sword knicks and bullet holes. Or, at least, crudely patch them up until Leonard could fix them proper.)

Majel brought along clothes, plenty of money (while she was reckless with her spending, she wasn’t funding a whole farm), her good pillow, and most of her reading material for entertainment. (Contrary to popular belief, hibernation was a constant period of low-effort activity, not months of just straight sleep.) The latter ranged from Navy manuals she’d taken from sinking ships (It helped to stay updated on the newest strategies your enemies have come up with), novels she still needed to get through, romance yellow-backs she had re-read several times each, and some… specific magazines that she had to ask the store clerk for directly. (Things get lonely whenever you’re a pirate…)

Much to her organs’ relief, she had only brought one of her ale kegs along. She considered bringing her entire stash held up at the Keep, but didn’t want to sink the ferry with a bunch of barrels. D’anna assured her that there was a tavern on Veridia where Majel could get her fix, although she wasn’t sure what drinks they offered. (Until she became a pirate, D’anna had been too nervous to even step foot into a tavern.)

“Now approaching Veridia! Now approaching Veridia!” the ferry’s captain bellowed. “Please exit one at a time and remember all of your luggage—we depart in 30 minutes and will not return until the cycle repeats! Thank you!” 

The cat and the elf heaved themselves from their stools and began to gather their belongings. Several good samaritans helped carry some of it off the ferry—but weren’t good enough to carry them all the way there. After a grueling, mile-long trek in the rain, holding overpacked trunks and simultaneously rolling a wooden barrel along, D’anna’s farm came into view. The area surrounding it was lush and rural—there weren't any trees, just mossy hills and grassy plains. Fog crept down the skyscraping, distant mountains like ominous waves. Seagulls squawked their incessant screeches as they flew above the nearby beach. The wet stomping of their boots slowed to a halt as they reached the end of the cobblestone path and finally arrived at the one-story farmhouse. Its paint was starting to chip off, the windows were a bit dirty, and the brass doorknob had become tarnished. Behind it was a quaint barn with three cows inside. Their pens seemed to be in better condition than their owner.

Majel sighed. At least it wasn’t Crypt Keep.

James, D’anna’s caretaker for the rest of the year, was put on seasonal leave, receiving four months of payment up-front. (It would be far less than what he would usually get—most of the money D’anna sent back to Veridia went right to the cows.) He would resume his duties as the farm’s caretaker whenever the ice thawed and sailing would be possible again. 

In the meantime, the elf gave the cat a tour of the farm—an unintentionally brief one, there wasn’t a whole lot to look at. Afterwards, she constructed a rudimentary room for her guest by divvying up the bedroom in half with a bedsheet curtain. After they both unpacked, Majel helped herself to a glass of milk while D’anna began to fix them up for a quick supper. Tomorrow, she would bring Majel into town and show her the grocery and the tavern. The cat needed a lot of food for hibernation as well as—for both of their sakes—something to take the edge off.

Nobody had left the Lure in four days. The last to do so—Hallahan—never came back. There was nothing left to burn, save for the clothes keeping them warm and the ship hull shielding them from the nibbling breeze. What food was left had become low in supply and frostbitten—Russell didn’t think it was possible for hardtack to become even harder. Their beards have once offered them extra heat. But with their icy breaths came condensation, and with it, crystallization. Now, they weighed down the lower parts of their faces with their solid, frozen mass. Their piercing coldness felt like pins jabbed in every one of their pores. 

Russell’s squinted eyes drifted to his left. He tried not to open them that often—their natural wetness that kept them lubricated would eventually freeze over if exposed for too long. But he had to check up on Palmer. Poor bastard was in an even rougher state than he was… the last time he checked… 

His pupils lined up with his right tear-ducts, but to no avail. Palmer was just too far away to simply glance at. Now, instead of information, all Russell had achieved in getting was a headache. The fisherman gnashed his teeth in frustration. All he wanted was a look, but he couldn’t even turn his head anymore. In addition to his icy beard, everything below his chin had become immobile. He was frozen in place like something left in an icebox for too long. Or, perhaps, a killer frost had seized control of all his limbs. He couldn’t tell—all he felt was the cold.

Having grown desperate, Russell turned to his last resort.

“Palmer…” he croaked, cracking his crusted lips as they moved to pronounce his words. There was no response. The words just wafted through one of Palmer’s blue ears and out the other, passing a brain now dormant. 

“Anybody…?” Russell called out, just barely above a whisper. Nothing.

While he could still focus on anything but the terrible cold, Russell began to recite a quick prayer in his head. He stopped as he heard a creaking noise from above. He could tell that it came from the top deck—but if it was someone or just wood retracting from extreme temperatures, he wasn’t sure until he heard the thumping of bootsteps. 

He smirked. Hallahan, that sunnuvabitch. He must’ve gotten help. There was no way he would still be alive if he hadn’t. Yes, he had found somebody—somebody with heat, somebody with food that wasn’t welded together with ice, somebody with a way out of here. He began to breathe harder and faster from the excitement.

Thump. Thump. Thump. The bootsteps drew closer and then stopped. The hatch creeeaked open, and the bootsteps resumed as they walked down the ship’s staircase. 

“Ahoooy?” a voice called out to no one in particular. It wasn’t Hallahan’s, but it had that seaman flavor to it. 

Russell tried to respond, but his voice wouldn’t travel more than a couple feet before evaporating into silence.

“Buncha icicles…” the voice muttered as it walked in the opposite direction from him. “Imagine goin’ out cross-eyed…” 

Russell breathed cold air through his narrowed throat, reacting with the mucus to produce a cough. The bootsteps stopped for a moment before starting up again. But this time, they grew louder and louder.

 Russell opened his eyes to see someone standing in front of him. He wasn't wearing anything suitable for the weather—instead, he donned ragged, mildew-stained pants and a shirt that maybe was white at some point in time. He wore a belt, and attached to it, a holster. The person’s gloved hand drew the pistol from it and spun it around a couple times with a finger.

“Ye there,” the stranger said, “I’ve checked yer mateys and have come to tha conclusion that ye be the cap’n of this here ship. Ya know, bein’ its sole survivor and all…” 

The stranger paused for a reply. After a few silent seconds, he resumed. “Bein’ a pirate, I be not here ta rescue ye. Nor could I, should me heart have a change while me supplies stay tha same. Nay, I just be here ta rob tha shipwrecks I find what get stuck in tha ice—like this one, fer instance. Are ye a religious man?” 

“…Sometimes…” Russell wheezed.

“Well, if I be rememberin’ it right, suicide is frowned upon by tha gods—somethin’ about wastin’ tha privilege of life or whatever malarkey they came up with. Bein’ a damned soul what even Hell cares not ta keep, I have no qualms puttin' ye out of yer misery before I ransack yer ship fer everythin’ it’s worth—should ye wish fer me to do so.”

Russell’s eyes gazed upward. The moonlight that shined through the creaks of the ship’s hull didn’t outright reveal Cain’s skeletal face. Instead, it outlined it. Little slivers of light traced along his bony features—his toothy grin, his rectangular jaw, his eyeless sockets. Definitely came from Hell, alright… Russell thought to himself. 

“Even so…” the fisherman rasped, “still seems like it…” 

“Ah, I see…” Cain nodded. “Ye think that givin' tha word fer it be just the same as pullin’ tha trigger. Well, here…” he said before lining up the shot and—BANG!

As the zombies feasted on the Lure’s frozen crew, Cain scoured the ship for anything worth commandeering. There wasn’t a whole lot (trawlers weren’t exactly “raking it in”), and everything was covered in a thin layer of frost he had to scrape off with a glove.

Something Cain made sure to secure was the Captain’s Log. While pirates never practiced logkeeping themselves, (unless they wanted someone like The Horatio Empire to have a handy, concise list of all the crimes they’ve ever committed upon their capture), logs of other ships were coveted booty, since some folks on Saint Khan’s could cross-reference them to predict the future trade routes of merchant ships. (Thanks to pirates, merchants rarely took the same journey twice in a row.) 

The skeleton loaded everything into a large sack and impatiently looked back at the Lure. He had never eaten a whole human body before, but surely it didn’t take that long, did it? Maybe they just needed to thaw out first before his crew could dig in. He cursed to himself and turned to his surroundings to quench his boredom. Of course, he was in the middle of a frozen-over ocean—there wasn’t anything to see but a flat, neverending sheet of ice. And… a sled in the distance. No, sleds. His brow furrowed as he tried to make out whoever was driving them.

Please be Navy, please be Navy, please be Navy he thought to himself as he unretracted his spyglass and extended it. 

Dammit!

Their masked faces and heavy coats gave them away as Ice Raiders—a special subgroup of pirates who only operated in winter. Cain retracted his scope, turned back to the Lure, and began to re-load his pistol. “BOYS! PUT YER LEFTOVERS IN A DOGGIE BAG! WE BE LEAVIN’ RIGHT NOW!” 

A shot whizzed past Cain’s skull, the SNAP of the gunpowder echoing across the vast emptiness surrounding them. Several more followed, barely missing their target before losing momentum and tunneling into the snow below. The skeleton tried to reciprocate with a shot of his own, but they were moving too fast to nail down. The four sleds soon surrounded him, circling around so he couldn’t escape.

“What the hell are you?” one of them sneered, their voice muffled from the mask. 

“Hard to look at, that’s what he is…” one of them said before guffawing like an idiot. 

“I’m surprised that he ain’t dead yet!” another one shrilled. “Look, the cold must've taken his nose!”

“Ship’s frozen stuck!” another one said, pointing to the Lure. “I bet he’s the only one in his pack left alive! Where’s your crew, No-Nose?” they mocked. 

“I BE WONDERIN’ THA SAME THING!! ” the skeleton yelled, making sure that it was loud enough for the zombies to hear. 

The Lead Raider pointed to the sack of treasures in the back of Cain’s sleigh. “Oh, look! He’s gonna give us the rest of his supplies, how generous! And in such a state like his, too…”

Cain looked to the sack and back to the Raiders. “Oh, uh… yeah, here! I be givin’ it to ye! Here!” he said before he began to scour through it. He tossed several items behind him while he searched, “Here! Take it all! Everythin’ be yers!” 

The Raiders cackled like a pack of asthmatic hyenas, still circling the searching skeleton in their vulture-esqe formation. Their dogs had begun to grow lightheaded from the constant turning.

“Take this! And this! And this!” Cain said as he dug, giving his best D’anna impression to sound pathetic. There was a small fortune piled up behind him, now—bottles of rum, Captain’s Logs, and plenty of doubloons, too. “And here! Take THIS, too!” Cain yelled as he pulled out a blunderbuss from the sack. He aimed it towards an oncoming Raider and pulled the trigger. 

BOOM! 

The Raider split into two—their top half flying into the air while their bottom half collapsed onto the ground. Dogs whimpered in pain as the blast rang through their sensitive ears. Snow started to stain red as the half-Raider coughed up their last words, unintelligible because of their mask.

Cain reached into the sack again and dropped two more musketballs down the gun’s wide barrel. He cocked it and took aim once more. 

“Now… put all that crap I just threw out back.” 

Winn and Tawny streaked across the white, barren wasteland that had once been the Soval Sea. They sped past frozen-over ships that couldn’t make it to port in time. Tawny thought about the people stranded in them—the poor souls whose captains didn’t account for an early winter. Winn smiled—she thought about the treasures stored within their frosty hulls.

The skunk’s sled was named Mademoiselle, painted rose-red with golden embellishments in the shapes of flowers. Her hounds, all pure-bred malamutes, ran with a hive-minded uniformity. They had been specially trained to have high stamina—and to attack any Raiders that might get too close to their musher for liking.

Tawny’s sled had no name. She had bought it the day before, one of the few left in stock with a price tag reflective of the fact. Unlike Winn’s, Tawny’s dogs did not belong to her—they were out on loan. Her tardiness to secure a team had left her with a bunch of odd-looking mutts, byproducts of Saint Khan’s leniency on animal neutering. She was surprised that the papillon was able to keep up with the rest of the pack.

“Let’s see… Cain, Fontaine, and uh…” Tawny paused. ”What other man do we know?” 

“Davy Jones?” Winn suggested as she steered her sleigh a smidgeon to the left. She didn’t want to bump into Tawny and scratch her paint job.

“Ooh, yeah!” the jester cooed. “So Cain, Fontaine, and Davy Jones…” 

“Well, kill Cain straight away…” Winn said before her face quickly scrunched in thought. “Well, wait… he does have all that gold, though… Okay, okay! Scratch that—so, kill Davy Jones, fuck Fontaine, and… ugh… marry Cain. But divorce immediately afterwards! Mama needs that sweet, sweet settlement money…”

“Would a divorce even be possible?” Tawny asked before chuckling to herself. “I imagine that the forum would be Null and Void because his signature would be misspelled or something…” 

“Uuugh, tell me about it!” Winn groaned. “One time, I saw that he signed a guest book at Fontaine’s uh… adult entertainment bureau, and I couldn’t even read what it said! There had to be a parentheses to the side with his name printed out in non-chicken-scratches. Even Majel can spell her own name, for gods’ sakes! The elf, too. Uhh… whatever her name is. Farm girl.” 

“You mean the girl whose farm we’re currently on our way to?” Tawny asked, raising an eyebrow. “D’anna? The only elf we know…?”

“Yeah! Farm girl!” Winn said as she waved her hand dismissively.

Tawny shook her head. “What didja get her for Snowsfall?” 

“I ran out of time so I just got her a hoe.”

Tawny’s head arched back in confusion. “A hoe?”

The skunk nodded.

“She’s a dairy farmer, Winn,” said the jester.

“Yeah… a dairy farmer!”  

“No, you’re emphasizing the wrong part! She just has a bunch of cows! She doesn’t need a hoe because she doesn’t grow anything!”

“She grows cows! And cows have flat teeth since they eat wheat and carrots and stuff—ergo—she must also grow said hay and carrots and stuff!” 

“No, she BUYS hay for them! That’s why she’s so poor! She’s constantly buying hay for a bunch of stupid cows! Hasn’t she ever talked your ear off about the thrilling world of milk production?” 

The skunk shrugged. “I think she’s tried to? I usually just tune her out.”

“Well…” sighed Tawny, “I’m glad we decided to spend the holidays at her place, then…” 

The jester shivered to herself. “I almost wish we had those idols still…” 

“Don’t even…” Winn grumbled as she popped off the cork of her canteen and took a noncorporeal sip. Her brow furrowed as she peered into the empty cask, smacking her dry (but still glossed) lips. She turned to Tawny, who was (still) trying to make a fire out of two damp sticks.

“Tawny?” Winn cooed, “My canteen is empty, could you be a dear and hand me another one?” 

The jester smiled. “Oh! Sure thing, Winn…” 

She snickered as she reached into her heavy coat and pulled out another cask. “Here you go,” she said with odd emphasis, smiling from ear-to-ear. 

Winn looked at her funny. “Thanks…” 

She popped open the cork and screamed when several snakes pounced out at her. The dogs awoke from their slumber with perked-up ears and began to huff. The resulting spray from Winn only made Tawny cackle harder, falling back in the snow while the skunk angrily tossed the canteen back at her. 

“It’s not funny!” she huffed, fighting back tears while she fanned the air. She kneeled next to Tawny’s bag and began to rummage through it. “Seriously, where’s the rest of our water?” 

“It’s… it’s in the other canteens, don’t… don’t worry!” Tawny said, still reeling down from her laughing fit. 

“What other canteens…?” Winn growled at her. 

In an instant, Tawny sobered up. She crawled to the bag and began to dig. After a couple seconds, she paused to think before resuming her search with a more squirrel-like manner. Slowly, she turned to the now snake-less canteen and back at Winn. She chuckled.

“Well… good thing that we’re surrounded by snow! We can just melt some and be fine!” 

“Melt it with what?!” Winn screamed, “You’ve spent the past hour trying to start a fire!”

Tawny didn’t say anything. Instead, she pulled out her compass, looked towards the distance, and sucked on her teeth. “We should, uh… we should probably get going…”

The two pirates rode side-by-side with each other in complete silence. Winn had only said a few words to Tawny since “the incident,” most of them among the lines of “Watch it,” “Watch where you’re going,” and “Please shut up.” Tawny had tried on several occasions to lighten the mood, but all she got out of it was a slow and silent glance from a stink-eye.

In order to reach some civilization, let alone Veridia, Winn and Majel had to increase their speed. They could go a couple weeks without food, but they could only last a couple more days without water. 

Tawny thought about putting snow in her mouth and letting it melt, but the cold would get to her before the dehydration. They couldn’t break through the sheet of ice—it was too thick to get through without a screw. Besides, the only water beneath them was from the ocean, filled with a plethora of salt and germs. They couldn’t start a fire with their flintlocks, either. They only had two shots—one in each gun—and it was too windy to reload the gunpowder. No, their best bet was to trudge on forward.

The food supply was getting low, too. They had plenty of salted meats, but they would speed up the dehydration process. Their sea biscuits needed to soften up with water, or else they’d remain in their solid, inedible state. 

The pirates’ lack of food and water carried over to the dogs, as well. The breakneck speed had caused them to grow just as dehydrated. Their panting had grown deafening—huffing and puffing so loud that it seemed like they would cause an avalanche.

Neither Tawny nor Winn said anything, but both of them knew that they could not continue in their current state—the pirates, the dogs, none of them.

Day Two. 

The dogs had grown slow. No rest, no food, no water—no speed. Even after Winn and Tawny had tossed aside unimportant belongings that weighed them down (Winn was especially heartbroken to part ways with her bag of assorted lipsticks), they continued at their current pace. That was, until one of the dogs spotted a small hare. Its resulting BOOF! caused the hare to run back towards its burrow, but the promise of fresh, bloody meat rejuvenated the pack. 

The pirates screamed as their sleds flew forward. Winn and Tawny veered left and right, their legs flying in the air as their dogs followed the hare’s winding trail. Various supplies flew out from their opened bags, along with several tools like their holstered flintlocks and their whips. 

Winn was the first one to lose her grip, thanks to how tail and her hair related to aerodynamics.

“Winn!” the jester screamed, turning around to see the skunk face-plant into the snow. She was so preoccupied with her fallen companion that she didn’t see that her dogs veer to the right. She was launched in the air, twisting a couple times before landing on a soft layer of snow…

…only a couple inches above the hard, packed ice. 

Tawny woke up gagging. 

She opened her stinging, now-bloodshot eyes to see Winn standing right above her. There was a streak of blood tracing the side of the skunk’s face. She was covered in snowflakes. Her fur was scruffed, her beehive-style was starting to become undone, and her makeup was smeared. Those were all the details Tawny could make out through the faint, fetid green haze permeating in the air. She gagged again. 

Winn rolled her eyes. “Well, sorry! I was running out of ways to wake you up! Believe me, you should see the bruise on your face.”

“I don’t need to see it, Windbag…” Tawny grumbled, rubbing her aching jaw. There was more than a bruise, but Winn didn’t want to make the situation even worse. The skunk held out her hand and helped Tawny up to her feet. The jester scanned around and noticed that they were the only things around that weren’t snow.

“The dogs are long gone,” the skunk explained. She whimpered, a crack forming its way through her. “My babies are out there… somewhere… I tried to see where they went but… it started to snow again. Hard. It covered their trail after a minute or two. I didn’t go too far, though. I didn’t want to lose where you went.”

The skunk fell to the ground. “I-I lost my compass, but yours might be on you. I didn’t check, I figured that if I opened your coat, you’d lose all of your heat.” 

She wanted to cry, but her body was too strapped for moisture to produce any tears. Instead, she just started to heave. 

“We’re going to die out in the middle of nowhere! And for what? To spend a holiday I don’t even like at a person’s house who I don’t even know that well…!” 

“Winn!” Tawny exclaimed. She reached into her jacket and pulled out a cracked compass. “That kind of thinking helps nobody and accomplishes nothing. Now, look—yes, this thing’s probably all busted and broken. But it still points, even after all it’s been through, see? So, either you can just sit here and wait for Davy Jones, or you can follow me forward. I really hope you choose the latter.” 

The jester turned and, glued to the compass, took several steps westward. 

Then, she stopped.

After a couple seconds, she heard some shuffling. Then, the repeated crunching of snow behind her. 

She smiled.

The storm grew much rougher than it had been before. The pirates couldn’t see anything in front of them beyond a foot. Was it fog that surrounded them, or clouds of kicked-up snow? 

Winn and Tawny held onto each other, faces buried into each other’s shoulders for warmth. They didn’t speak at all. The howling of the wind was too loud, drowning anything that wasn’t its mighty gusts. Not that they had anything to say, anyway.

They continued like that for some time until they bumped into something solid. Tawny looked up and saw nothing but planks of icy wood. She guided Winn several steps backward so they could see what it was—a frozen ship. The skunk glanced up from Tawny’s shoulder and, through squinted eyes, read The Bounty’s Prize. They stared at each other and—after huddling again—walked around the ship’s hull until they found the gangplank.

After slowly climbing aboard, balancing themselves against jabbing, bitter winds, they took a quick rest on the main deck. Tawny looked up and noticed that the ship’s sails were still catching wind. Winn walked up to the Captain’s Quarters and wiped the door’s wavy-glass window. Inside, she saw a blurry skeleton sitting at a map table, looking down at it like he was plotting a course. Then, she noticed the piles of gold on either side of him. Her eyes gleamed as she reached for the door’s handle—but withdrew her paw, cursing to herself. No! What good is treasure if she couldn’t live to cash it in? The skunk sighed as she walked down the ship’s staircase and began to check the lower deck for any supplies.

If she hadn’t, she would’ve seen the skeleton take a swig of rum.

Below, Tawny found a bundle of skeletons huddled together in some ill-fated attempt to stay warm. She bent down and began to search through the pile of bones, but heard creaking from above. 

She and Winn looked at each other with eyes as large as saucers. Raiders!

Tawny patted her coat, but couldn’t feel the straight, solid bulge that was her tucked-away pistol. Winn stared upward, her ears twitching with each thump, thump, thump coming from the deck above—thumps that signaled their impending doom. She started to gnash her teeth from the suspense.

Then, embarrassment sliced through her horror as her eye twitched and her whole body shivered. Tawny shielded herself—as that was going to help at all—but the smell hit her almost instantly. The jester stepped backwards a couple feet and began to cough. 

“Somebody be downstairs…” a gruff voice growled. They heard the click of a cocked gun.

A scratchy “Bwaaarghhh…” groaned in agreement.

“Huh. Really?

“Mrwaaghurh…”

“I’ll take ye word fer it. As bad as Majel’s breath, ye say?” 

“Uuurghh…”

“Gross.”

Tawny’s brow furrowed. She knocked on a nearby support beam. “Hey, Cain?” she called out. “Is that you up there?” 

“Tawny?” he asked.

“In the flesh!” she smiled.

“And based on this supposed smell, I be assumin’ that Winn be with ye, then?” 

Winn scowled and crossed her arms.

“What are you getting Majel and D’anna for Snowsfall?” Tawny asked Cain before taking a sip from a canteen. Their water issue was no more; with Cain’s affinity for violence, there was enough gunpowder to regularly start snow-melting fires.

Still facing forward, the skeleton pointed behind to the back of the sleigh. “They be gettin’ these lil’ trinkets I came ‘cross recently. Here, check back there, in tha red bag.”

Winn, the tallest out of her and Tawny, took it upon herself to crawl backward and begin to dig through the large sack. She grabbed the red bag from it and sat back in her seat. 

“Came across ‘em when I was lootin’ a ship last week,” the skeleton explained as he steered. “Uncanny things, I thought they be commissioned or somethin’!” 

Winn opened the bag and pulled out a small stone statue that looked like Majel. She screamed and tossed it to Tawny, who also screamed. 

“I know! Isn’t it her splittin’ image?” Cain said. “The other one looks like D’anna, too!”

 The jester dropped the idol back into the bag and looked at her now-shaky hands.

Winn leaned against the side of the sleigh and vomited. 

“Not that excitin’…” he grumbled.

Majel awoke to the sounds of half a conversation. The phrases she heard were fractured, a “Oh my gods, really?” without a corresponding “Really!” afterwards or a “Wow, I never knew that…” following a short period of silence.

Not this again… the cat thought to herself.

She shifted herself out of bed, the sounds of the half-conversation drowned out by the various clinks of empty bottles of rum falling to the ground. Several rolled underneath the curtain dividing the bedroom into two and crossed over to D’anna’s side. 

Majel scratched somewhere down there with one hand and then rubbed the pinky finger of the other in her eye. She dug out a small chunk of eye crust, grunted in disgust, and flicked it to the floor to join the others. 

Before standing up, she grabbed one of the few bottles that remained on her bed and looked into one. It had a few sips of rum left—she’d have to send D’anna to the market soon. 

She lifted up the curtain and stepped out of the room.

It had been a month since Majel and D’anna sailed from Dimout Isle back to Veridia. In that time, D’anna had grown fondly re-accustomed to her old life. She got back into the groove of feeding and milking the cows, running to market, and not once fearing that her life could end at any moment from a cannonball. (The lack of “PAST DUE” bills stacking up on her doorstep was a welcome change, too—thanks to her alternative career.) 

There was a wrench in her vacation, however. 

In that time, Majel had shucked all responsibilities in favor of pure gluttony. Not once did she take it upon herself to help out with any chores. Instead, she chose to board herself up in her room and drink her weight in whatever boozes she could get her paws on. She kept the elf up all night with a symphony of mucus-y snores, clinking bottles, and unconscious rantings about how much she hated Cain. It got to a point where the elf began to sleep in the farm—although they had a collective of twelve stomachs each, the cows still made less digestive noises than Majel. 

The cat, still in her state of hibernation-like torpor, hobbled herself outside. She blinked her eyes a couple times—even though Veridia was usually overcast, she was much more acclimated to the dark interior of the farmhouse. 

She saw D’anna, sat crisscrossed on the floor of the barn, staring silently at one of the cows. Suddenly, she bursted out into laughter.

“The whole thing?!” the elf cackled. 

There was a brief period of silence as the cow looked at her. 

Then, she said “No, I could tell! Between you guys and Majel, it seems I’m making multiple trips at this point.”

The cow turned its head and stared at nothing. 

“Oh yeah,” D’anna nodded, “and I bet the whole town thinks I’m a drunk now with how often I’m visiting the tavern for her! I thought I was saying ‘yes’ to having a roommate for the winter, not another freakin’ animal to take care of…”

The cow blinked and chewed on air.

“Well, see, that’s the thing,” D’anna said, “I like taking care of you guys. It’s just… well, I’m happy to help out Majel, but I feel like she’s not helping me out in return, you know? I almost feel… used, in a way. Like she’s using me as a maid until we’re both pirates again.” 

She sighed and started to trace circles in the dirt with a finger. “But I’m just stuck now, I guess. Now she’s going to wanna come over every year, although I don’t blame her. It’s a pretty swell deal from her perspective.”

The cow laid down on some hay.

“I’ve thought about it, but… I just can’t bring myself to actually go through with it. If I say something, hell, if I can even get myself to say something, I’m just gonna get ignored or she’ll give me some half-hearted apology and carry on with things.”

It flicked its tail as it looked at D’anna.

The elf gasped. “But I can’t kick her out, she’s my only friend! Do you know how awkward that would make the rest of the year be? The Wound would just be a cat who hates me, a captain who is… uh, set in his ways, and a bunch of zombies who see me more as a hickory ham than a crewmate.”

The cow finally responded with a soft “moo.”

D’anna clicked her tongue in thought. “Golly, I’ve never thought about that. Yeah, maybe Tawny has room for another cook or cabin girl or something…”

That was enough for Majel. The cat cursed underneath her breath and slipped back inside, closing the door behind her. The click of its rusted knob closing made the elf’s ears twitch. 

Crap.

D’anna skewed her head around, her thoughts racing in panic as she looked behind herself. Even though she couldn’t see anybody within hearing distance, she still felt a sense of unease. The elf looked back at the cow and sighed, deciding to skip the the formalites—she’d just have to rush through the milking process in order to go check up on her guest.

Majel bit her trembling lip as she began to pack her things, trying her hardest not to burst into tears. Not because the jig was up, no—Majel didn’t even realize how much of a burden she was until she heard D’anna’s one-sided conversation.

It was because she had drawn D’anna away.

D’anna wasn’t her first connection, Majel had married Cain many years ago. But in order for the Soval Sea to gain Captain “Sawbones,” Majel had to lose her Sawyer. Day by day, that passionate boy she spent her nights with was replaced by a rotten scoundrel whose lusts for both blood and gold soon absorbed his life. Ironically, Majel felt like her marriage was a sinking ship—no matter how many pails of water she tried to bail out, it would only go deeper and deeper. 

But with D’anna, that spark was back. During those quiet nights at sea, the two of them would spend their twilight hours in the galley talking—sharing things like their fears, their desires, or things about their captain that annoyed them. Majel once again felt it, that feeling she got when she first met Cain—a connection.

And she lost it, just like how she lost Cain. The only person in the world she felt close to now sees her as just “another freakin’ animal to take care of.” It didn’t matter if Majel cleaned up her act and turned into the world’s best roommate—the bond has been broken, the connection has been lost. 

She’s a parasite, that’s what she is. She’s a parasite that just ruins the lives of everyone she latches onto. Her parents say that they “have no daughter” anymore, and for good reason—she dropped out of Naval Academy to become a pirate in what was the stupidest decision of her life. Given the choice between her and death, Cain chose death. And now… her only friend thinks of their relationship like a maid and her master. 

Oh, gods…

She fell to the floor in anguish, knocking over a couple of the bottles scattered about. She picked one up and swished it around a couple times, hoping that it was thrown away too hastily and still contained something to help ease the heartbreak. Nope. She tried another one. And another one. And another one… 

“Majel?” D’anna called out as she stepped into the farmhouse. Even though it was framed as a question, it was meant to just announce her presence. She knew perfectly well where the cat was: In her room, surrounded by empty bottles—the way she’d been practically all winter.

The elf walked into the bedroom to find Majel on the ground, red-eyed and sniffling. After a few moments of hesitating about what to say, she asked “Are you… alright?”

The cat looked up and wiped her nose with a sleeve. “I’m sorry, D’anna… I’m a mess, I know…” she whimpered before curling herself up into a ball in an effort to conceal her impending tears. 

“Hey, hey!” D’anna comforted as she knelt beside her. “It’s okay, Majel, really! It’s okay!” 

“No, it’s not!” Majel cried. “I’ve gone and ruined everything!”

“No, you didn’t ruin anything! There’s just been some… pressure… between us… as of late. B-but that doesn’t mean that we can’t decompress, right?” 

Although she remained silent, Majel’s ears gave her away by perking up a little. 

D’anna grinned. “There we go! Now, here’s what I think would be best for the both of us…” she began.

A Week Later…

“Huh,” Janice uttered to herself. 

D’anna looked over as she rhythmically squeezed Janice’s udders. “Hm?”

“I think I see a straw or two in the corner over there.” 

Helen poked her head into Janice’s pen. “Ooh, I think I see it, too!” 

“No fair! Why does Janice get more hay?” Judith complained.

“Oooh my gods, I’m withering away back here!” Helen bellowed. “If I don’t get something to eat, I fear I’ll be a husk come spring!”

“Alright! I just… I just need everyone to just calm down and hold on! Majel should be back any minute…” the elf said, the stress causing her to squeeze faster and faster.

“Bah! ‘Any minute,’ she says! Really, how long does it take to get a measly bale of hay?!” Carol huffed.

“It shouldn’t be that long!” D’anna said. After a brief pause, she added, “Well… unless she stopped at the tavern beforehand…” 

All the cows groaned in unison.

“Ugh, when is it gonna be my turn?!” Judith pouted. “I feel like I’ve been skipped over… I don’t know how many times!” 

“Maybe because you produce as much milk as a menopausal barnacle?” Helen sneered.

“Woah, hey, woah!” the elf said, “Let’s calm down a little bit, please! Gosh, I hope you guys aren’t like this when James is here…” 

“Who are you talking to?” Majel asked, wheeling in a barrow of hay. She noticed the cows and frowned. “Oh. Them. Right. Well… tell them ‘Happy Snowsfall,’” she said as she patted the bale. 

D’anna’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Oh, Majel! That was very kind of you but… no, I-I’ll just pay you back,” she stuttered. 

“Take it as an act of decompression, then,” Majel smiled. “And speaking of Snowsfall, do you think those twits are gonna make it in time? It’s only a couple days away…” 

“Of course they will!” D’anna smiled. “Besides, it just gives me more time to plan out the dinner! Although… hmm… with Cain, I should really be cooking for four, not five…”

Majel batted her paw. “Don’t worry! I’ll bravely volunteer to finish anything left behind.”

“But I haven’t cooked anything yet.”

“…Still.” 

“Do ye think I be rememberin’ every piece of plunder I come across?!” Cain yelled as he steered his sledding team of the dead. 

“THESE should stand out!” Winn yelled, shaking the bag that held the two idols. “We fought over them on Masaka Isle and they look exactly like your crewmates, yet you just forgot about them entirely?”

“I be havin’ more important things ta focus on instead of some cursed figurines!”  

“You even commented about it last time! ‘Yaargh, ye overcame quite tha figure, yaaargh,’” the skunk mocked. She had an eye squinting and a finger curled, giving the impression of an eyepatch and a hooked hand, two piratey things Cain did not have. 

“That was a pretty good impression!” Tawny smiled. 

Winn smiled. “You really think so?” 

“Mhm! But we should really go easy on him, Winn. The cold’s making his exposed brain shrivel up, it’s a miracle he can remember anything still…” the jester chuckled. 

“Shut yer traps!” Cain snapped.

There was a period of silence afterwards, with nothing in the air but the various groans of Cain’s undead mushees and the crunching of snow.

The skeleton muttered something unintelligible underneath his (figurative) breath.

Winn scoffed. “Oh, what now?”

“I think it be interesting that ye act like ye be tha victim of this circumstance, yet ye two haven’t shivered since it happened!”

“You’re framing this as a favor?!” she yelled. 

“Weeell…” Tawny squeaked.

The skunk threw her hands in the air in defeat. “And you’re agreeing with him!”  

“Listen, it’s not permanent, it’s making this sleigh a lot more comfortable, and yeah, it’s keeping me warm,” the jester listed. “We’ll have to go back to Leonard’s come next year, but in the meantime, I’m not gonna let it ruin my Snowsfall! And besides, everybody puts on a few during the holidays… well, except Bones over here…” 

Cain shook his head. “Never when I was alive has that happened to me.”

There was silence again.

Winn leaned back into her seat and pouted. “Imbéciles…!” 

BANG, BANG, BANG!

An aproned D’anna looked up from the cookies she had been meticulously icing. Somebody was at the door—somebody extremely rude, from the sound of it. It must be… 

“They’re here!” she squeaked to herself. Both her body and her ears shot up. “Ohmigod, they’re here, they’re here, they’re here!” she repeated in quick succession, making sure to take the turkey out of the oven before rushing to the farmhouse’s front door. 

She turned its knob with a mitted hand. Standing across the doorway was a tall, skinny, silhouette of a man. He wore a black coat with the collar perked up, partially covering his bandaged face. He glared at her through thick goggles, their lenses so dark that D’anna couldn’t see any glare of eyes behind them.

“C-can I help you?” she asked, white-nuckling the knob in fear.

“Aye! Ye could let us in already,” the tall man said in a gruff voice. 

D’anna’s eyebrows raised in surprise hearing the man’s unique way of saying things. “Oh, Captain!” she weakly laughed. “I-I couldn’t even tell it was you!” 

“That be the point! Ye think these Veridian hillbillies’ll take kindly to a monster the likes of I?” the skeleton asked as he barged through the doorway. Winn and Tawny followed closely behind, snowflakes peppering their large clothes and equally large hair. 

“Tawny, Winn, welcome, welcome!” D’anna smiled, wondering what the heck happened since the last time they met. “Did you two have a nice trip?”

“Uhh… sure,” the jester lied. 

“Majel! The guests are here!” the elf called out as she helped her guests in the farmhouse’s front room. Cain sat on a pillow atop a milk crate—something D’anna constituted as a “chair.” 

“If I knew yer furniture situation, elf, I would’ve gotten ye a different present…”

Remembering an important aspect of being a good hostess, D’anna outstretched her arms. “Oh, may I take your coats?” she asked.

“Nay,” Cain said.

“Uh, Winn? Tawny? Coats?” 

“Please,” Winn said before she and Tawny began to unbutton. A burden (as well as several pounds) were lifted off their shoulders as they could finally take off their coats for the first time since leaving for Veridia.

Majel walked into the room, carrying two bottles of rum—one for her, the other one for everybody else. She nearly dropped both when she saw Tawny and Winn in their current states.

“What the hell happened to you two?!” she yelled.

“Majel…” D’anna reprimanded through gritted teeth.

“You want to know what happened?! It was those stupid, stupid id—” Winn yelled before she almost spoiled their gifts. “Uh, bakeries… that opened up. At Saint Khan’s.”

“The ones across Fontaine’s, you’ve seen them before!” Tawny added. She was a pro at improv, always knowing when to step in when her partner was struggling. “I guess the two of us have eaten so many eclairs since then that we just… ended up as one!” 

There was an awkward silence. 

“Well,” Majel said before gesturing with one of the bottles, “I’m gonna go get something to put this in. You… have glasses, don’t you, D’anna?”

“Check the cupboard,” the elf said as she hung up two very, very thick coats on a measly little rack before grabbing her own. 

The cat opened up a cupboard and was nearly blinded by the collection of glimmering, golden chalices inside—all of them “souvenirs" from previous pillages. She grabbed a handful and waddled back into what was “the living room,” making sure to not drop anything. (As thick as her boots were, she didn’t want to nurse a broken foot for the rest of the winter because of some stupid, solid gold chalice.)  

D’anna passed her by, adjusting her scarf. “Hey, Majel? I’m going to check up on the cows real quick while everyone settles in. Could you please make sure nothing’s burning while I’m gone?” 

“Sure thing! But… uh… you’d better hurry,” the cat said before hiccuping, “this… this isn’t my first bottle of the evening…”

The elf nodded and slipped out the back door. 

She shivered as she stomped towards town, wading through knee-high snow and the never-ending gusts of flurry winter wind. 

“No, no, no! Tha best way ta kill someone is a stab through tha lungs!” Cain yelled. “All the blood and air run out of ‘em like ye be squeezin’ a sponge.” 

“But what about the ribcage?” Tawny pointed out. “Even if you hit your mark, it’s still like a fifty-fifty chance that you’ll go deep enough to cause something beyond flesh wound.”

“Not to defend Cain, but how strong do you think ribcages are?” Majel asked. “Because with the fight pumping through you, driving steel through bone isn’t hard at all.”

“Well, that’s just because you and Cain are savage brutes,” Winn rebutted while regally twirling her chalice. “Get with the times, guns are the most effective in terms of fatality.”

“Says tha person that has a sword on her person this very moment!” Cain scoffed. 

“Please, it takes like fifteen minutes to reload one of those things! You’re better off just wheeling a cannon around…” Majel said before taking another swig of rum. 

“It’s like fifteen seconds!” Winn said. “It takes you fifteen minutes because you don’t have any depth perception anymore…” 

“Hey! Keep talking like that and you’re not gonna have any either in a second!” Majel hissed.  

“Does anyone know where D’anna’s at?” Tawny asked in an attempt to deflate things.

“She’s checking on her cows,” Majel muttered, setting her empty rum bottle next to her. 

“Still?” the jester asked. 

Majel shrugged. “She spends a lot of time with those things. Too much time, in my opinion…” 

“The storm’s getting really bad, I think someone should just… y’know, go outside and check up on her real quick…” Tawny suggested. 

The three girls slowly turned to the only person in the room still wearing a coat.

Cain cursed to himself as he rose from his “chair.” “Ye three be lucky that I be tha only one here anymore what can stand up without any assistance. Where be tha door?” 

“Across the kitchen, next to the Bama,” Majel said. As he walked outside, cursing to himself, she stole the pillow from his seat. 

A minute later, the skeleton came back covered in jagged specks of white. “Everyone get dressed! Majel, does D’anna have any shovels?” 

“Yes, I think she shovels cowshit with it. What happened, Sawyer? Is she out there?” 

The skeleton grimly shook his skull. 

“She couldn’t have waddled this far, could she?” Cain asked himself. He was a half mile away from the farmhouse, trudging his bones through (what was to him) waist-high snow. The three zombies he had on a leash—those whose noses hadn’t yet decomposed—tracked D’anna by following the scent of her brain.

The search was nearing its third hour. 

Soon, the heaps would be too tall to traverse. He and his “bloodhounds” would have to risk being snowbound if they were to continue searching for the most-likely-frozen D’anna, unable to dig themselves out until the snow thawed months later. 

 The skeleton called out the elf’s name once more, but the sound didn’t carry far before they were drowned out by another gust of wind. He cursed to himself, then cursed D’anna for leaving before cursing the uncaring gods he had lost faith in long ago for letting it happen in the first place.

“We be headin’ back, boys!” Cain yelled to his crew. It didn’t carry any of the usual venom when the captain ordered his crew around. He was too tired, too distracted to be angry right now—that would come later, during those quiet times where he didn’t have anything to do but reflect. But for now, he only felt empty, like a piece of him would be lost in that cruel frost. 

Actually… he would be a little bit angry right now. 

He screamed a few obscenities and kicked a nearby pile of snow.  

However, that burst was short-lived, as his boot struck something soft yet solid.

Back at the farm, Winn, Tawny, and Majel had dug all around the cow pen, but there still wasn’t any sign of D’anna nearby. (Winn refused to get too close to the pen due to its stench—and failed to see the hypocrisy whenever Majel and Tawny pointed it out.)

After throwing a couple more logs on the cows’ fire, the guests retreated back to the farmhouse and waited for Cain. 

Majel was sitting on the “chair,” her eyes staring at the wall as she tried not to think about their current situation. She nursed a bottle of rum in her paws, only breaking her concentration (or lack thereof) to take a sip. The jester and the skunk held up in the kitchen, giving the cat all the space she needed. 

 “Should we… talk to her?” Tawny asked Winn.

“I don’t think so,” the skunk replied. “If not out of appropriateness, then because she couldn’t say anything back.”

There was a pause between them before Tawny’s head turned towards the kitchen. “Dinner’s getting cold…” she observed.

The skunk looked at her with a scrunched-up face. “You’re thinking about eating?! At a time like this!?” 

“Well… should we squander something D’anna spent the last hours of her life on? I don’t think so.”

“‘The last hours of her life’?” Winn quoted.

Tawny continued the pathos. “I say we should enjoy it before it spoils—the same way we enjoyed D’anna’s company whenever she was still with us.” 

“She’s not dead yet!” Winn yelled. “She’s just been lost… in the freezing cold… for a couple of hours…” She faltered for a second, but regained her composure after seeing what Tawny was snacking on. “Are those… glazed croissants?”

“Yesh,” Tawny said, gesturing to a tray of them on the counter behind her. 

Winn took a plate off the table and held it in the air. “To D’anna!”

She was about to cut into the turkey before several zombie hands broke through the farmhouse’s windows. Winn dropped her plate and screamed as they groped in the air. 

“NO!!” Cain yelled from outside. “GET INSIDE, NOT BREAK INSIDE!!” He slammed the door with the heel of his boot several times in quick succession. “THE DOOR! QUICKLY, YE MAGGOT-BRAINS!! SHE’S BEEN OUTSIDE LONG ENOUGH!”

Majel ran towards the back door and ripped it open. Cain, carrying a grey and frostbitten D’anna, stormed through. His jacket was wrapped around the elf’s waist for extra warmth. Following closely behind were three snowflake-speckled zombies, who shambled back to the bedroom where the rest of the undead sledding team were held up. (Cain was originally going to keep them in the cow pen, but D’anna didn’t want them near her babies.)

The skeleton carried the elf through the “living room,” setting her down in front of the fire. “GET OFF YER ASSES, YE WIDE WENCHES AND HELP US OUT! I NEED BLANKETS, LOGS FER THA FIRE, ANYTHIN’ TO WARM UP THIS ELF! NOW, NOW, NOW!!” 

The skunk, the cat, and the jester scrambled around the house like cockroaches. Winn carried three logs from the firewood rack and tossed them haphazardly into the fireplace, fanning the flames with her hands in an effort to make the heat spread (not noticing the blower propped up beside the rack). Tawny came back from the bedroom with a blanket, wrapping it around the elf like a midwife to a newborn.

Majel took her rum bottle and handed it to Cain, who pressed D’anna’s now-purplish lips around the rim of the bottle and tilted it upward, forcing her to take several chugs. D’anna’s eyes shot open, her throat sizzling as the rum cracked the frozen fluids within her esophagus. She coughed a couple times and groaned in disgust. 

“D’anna!” Cain beamed before his brow furrowed in anger. “WHAT THA HELL DO YE THINK YE WERE DOIN’ OUT THERE ALL BY YER LONESOME?”

“I was gonna get…” the elf said before looking around the room with her sunken, half-lidded eyes. “Where… w-where… Majel…” 

Majel kneeled down next to them, taking the elf’s hand into her own. “I’m right here, D’anna…” 

“No! M-Majel’s gift…” the elf stammered. “...rum…” she added. 

Cain pressed the bottle up to her lips again and made her take another sip. The elf shook her head afterward and cleared her throat.

“Majel’s gift!” she reiterated. “Rum!”

“Majel’s gift be rum?” Cain asked.

Majel looked concerned. “Wait a minute! She must’ve been on her way back from the tavern, then!”

Cain’s sockets widened. “That’s why she didn’t tell anybody where she be goin’!” 

The elf coughed, which they assumed was her trying to hack up a “Yes.” 

“D’anna…” Majel said as she squeezed the elf’s cold hand, “…I don’t give a damn if I don’t get anything for Snowsfall. The only thing that matters is that you’re safe now…” 

“Aww…” Tawny cooed.

“Tawny! So help me, gods, I will smash this bottle, chop you up with it, and turn you into a holiday feast for the zombies!!” the cat screamed.  

The jester’s eyes widened before she held up her hands and took several steps backward. 

After dinner (which had a noticeable dent in it beforehand thanks to Winn and Tawny), everybody gathered in the “living room” for the gift exchange. 

Cain didn’t receive any presents, but he didn’t care. “Don’t contribute ta the economy that be fundin’ wars on me behalf…” the skeleton repeated ad nauseum, which explained the emphasis he placed on how he stole D’anna and Majel’s statuettes.

D’anna loved hers, putting it on display above the fireplace mantel it immediately fell off of. Majel wasn’t as taken with hers as D’anna was—the likeness was there, she couldn’t deny that, but its proportions were… questionable. 

“And fer ye two…” Cain said, turning to Winn and Tawny, “I be tradin’ in a favor Leonard owes me fer a couple o’ liposuctions.”

The skunk and the jester were touched—until Cain added that whatever goop was sucked out would be his present for Leonard. 

Winn reached into her cleavage and pulled out a handful of coins for everyone. “I didn’t have the opportunity to do any shopping this year, so I hope you guys are fine with this…”

“Uh… thank you…” D’anna whimpered, wondering why Winn didn’t just use pockets. Oh well… more money for the farm, she supposed…

Everybody got a fresh bottle of milk from D’anna—compliments of her own Veridian Dairy Company. Everybody gave theirs to Majel, who was more than happy to chug them while the elf wasn’t looking. 

Two Months Later…

The Festering Wound docked at Veridia, its hull bumping against boulders of ice that hadn’t quite thawed all the way yet. The ship flew its deceiving Horaito colors, although there was more hole than canvas at that point. The Wound crew were waiting on D'anna, who was still sorting some things out on the farm before she left for the year.

“Goodbye, Judith..." the elf cried, kissing a cow on its forehead and hugging its neck. The cow licked her pointy ear, which made her giggle through her tears. 

“Goodbye Helen… Goodbye Carol…" she continued. 

“… and goodbye, Janice…" she finished, nuzzling her forehead on the cow’s face. She stood up and looked over all of them. “I-I’ll see you all again next year…” 

James, the farm’s caretaker for most of the year and who was watching from the side, began to feel a little creeped out when she started to kiss the cows some more.

D’anna’s goodbyes took the better part of a day. Basking in the setting sunlight, Cain and Majel helped the elf load her bags onto the ship. D’anna thanked them and sulked back to the ship’s commissary, her home for the rest of the year. 

The Festering Wound hadn’t even undocked from Veridia yet, but already, she was dreaming about next winter.