It's Cold Outside

“You’re stupid!”

“No!”

“Are so!”

The two kainu launched themselves at each other, rolling in a flailing mass of tangled limbs. This was precisely the reason the floor of the barn had been strewn with straw and even coarse sand in some parts. Giada and Rubin simply couldn’t contain themselves when they had time to spare, sparring and wrestling with their newfound energy after they both had good meals and plenty of rest.

“You guys,” Sammal protested as she stood up sharply from where she had laid down not five minutes before they started wrestling. “Can’t you go outside and do this?”

“It’s all white and cold outside, no way,” Giada snapped as he tried to bite at Rubin’s ear, but the dark red kainu had already started moving his head away. They were around the same age, but Rubin was twice Giada’s size already, and his reflexes proved it as Giada sprang away and pummeled his friend with his forehooves.

“If you hurt him Mila’s gonna be upset,” Sammal warned. “It’s *snowing* outside, so of course it’s cold. But having you two inside all the time is driving me up the wall!”

“We could wrestle you instead,” Giada said, turning on his heel and leaping at Sammal, who squealed in fear and scampered away.

“Too small,” Rubin cautioned, giving his shaggy head a slow shake. “Leave her. Come back.”

Giada let out a snort and turned, his fawn-colored tail flicking in annoyance as he trotted back to Rubin. He didn’t even have time to get his bearings before Rubin headbutted him in the chest so hard he fell to the floor of the barn three feet away. He let out a surprised *oof* of expelled air and scrambled to sit back up straight. His eyes widened when he saw Rubin towering over him and extended all four limbs to hold the other kainu back.

“W-Wait!” he squeaked, his voice cracking as he scooted back slightly in the sand and straw. “What happened to too small? I’m small, huh buddy?”

“Small brained,” Rubin chortled before he moved to stand over Giada and his legs buckled all at once. He squashed the smaller kainu, and Giada was helpless to do more than wheeze and scrape the sandy floor with his hooves as he tried to squeeze out from under his ginormous friend.

Sammal would have laughed—it was a funny trick—but she was too worried. Milarose had been gone for too long, she didn’t know where he’d been off to this time, but he was never gone this long. He couldn’t always tell them where he would be, but he usually gave a timeframe for when he’d be back. He should have been home three days ago, and Sammal was worried that something bad had happened to him.

“I’m going to go talk to Solpor,” she announced. He was usually pretty good at easing her worries, she hoped that he had some words of wisdom to share with her.

The sprite trotted across the barn and slowed when she reached the stalls near the back. It was warmer here, insulated by great bales of straw that only Milarose was big enough to pick up and move. She flicked her tail to dislodge a piece of the bedding that had gotten stuck in it, then gave her chest scales a few settling licks before turning to peer into Solpor’s stall in the back right corner.

The young Q’lin lay curled on a bed of sand and straw, his eyes closed and his legs folded up underneath himself to conserve warmth.

“Solpor,” Sammal whispered. When he didn’t stir immediately she glanced over her shoulder toward the wrestling kainus and took a short step into the stall. She whispered again a little louder, “Solpor…are you awake?”

She jumped when she saw the Q’lin’s eyes crack open and he let out a gruff sigh to say, “I am now. What do you want, Sammal?”

The sprite felt bad for waking Solpor, but she was anxious and couldn’t figure out how to calm herself down. She wanted to talk to someone who actually had sense in their brain from not wrestling and knocking all of it out of their ears.

“Milarose still hasn’t come home,” she fretted, shifting her weight from one hoof to the other. “I’m worried.”

“Has there ever been a time when you weren’t worried about something?” Solpor asked as he lifted his head and stretched his jaws open in a massive yawn. His forked tongue swiped around his jaws and he leaned down to lick at his left foreleg. “Milarose hardly ever comes back when he’s supposed to.”

“But he never stays out *this* long past when he said he’d be back,” she argued. “What if something bad happened to him? What if he’s hurt? What if he needs help?”

“How would you propose we help him?” Solpor asked, his voice as deadpan as ever. Sammal could never tell if it was out of pure annoyance or if he was genuinely emotionless. “We’re four half grown children, without a strength between us. How are we going to go out and find a drakiri who can travel half a continent in a week? And if we did find him and he was hurt, would we carry him home?”

“He’s too big,” Sammal said meekly, looking down at the floor between her hooves. “I’m just worried is all—”

“It’s okay to be worried,” Solpor said, shuffling his knees a little and snuggling into the sandy bedding more. “Just try to think your way through an issue before you let it run wild in your head.”

Talking to Solpor hadn’t made her feel any better, and Sammal trudged away to lay down in her own stall, her head angled in just such a way that she could see if the barn door opened immediately.

The barn door would remain steadfastly shut for another day and a half. When it did open, Sammal leaped up from the floor and raced to meet Milarose, her excitement unbridled as she danced from hoof to hoof.

“Mila!” she called, head and tail high as she paced at the doors. They opened slowly, and finally Sammal saw why.

Milarose carried an enormous sack on his back that he stumbled with as he walked into the warm barn from the frigid outside. He gave his tail a shake to dislodge clods of snow from the white hair at the end and closed the door behind him, kicking more straw and hay against the underside of it to help insulate the barn a little more.

“You’re back!” Sammal cheered, hardly able to contain herself as she turned a tight circle and kicked the air with her forelegs.

“I see you’re no worse for wear,” Milarose chuckled. “I’m sorry I’m so late, this was heavy and I kept adding to it on the way.” He set the sack on the floor in the center of the barn and looked to the stalls as he called, “Solpor, Giada, Rubin, come here.”

He waited for the other children to emerge from their stalls, blinking sleepily until they caught sight of what Milarose had brought home.

“That’s a huge sack!” Giada crowed as he trotted around it. “What’s inside it?”

Solpor sat away from the others, blinking slowly and giving his head a light shake to dislodge the sand that was crusted on the side of his face. He said, “Step back and maybe he can open it.”

Milarose opened the drawstring that held the sack closed and reached inside. He produced a box that was wrapped in brown paper and tied with a colorful red ribbon. He untied the ribbon and opened the box to pull out a piece of bright blue fabric.

“They’re winter clothes,” he explained as he beckoned Giada closer. The young kainu approached apprehensively and sniffed the cloth suspiciously as Milarose held it out for him to inspect. “It will keep you four warm when it snows like this. Come, I have several for each of you. I have cookies as well.”

“What are cookies?” Sammal asked, cocking her head to the side.

“Baked sweets that are no good for the body but nourish the soul,” Milarose said, taking another parcel out of the sack and handing a colorfully decorated cookie to each of them. Even Solpor took one, crunching it and apparently enjoying it by the drool that dribbled from his mouth after, watching the box where the rest were like a hawk.

When he had dressed each of the children in one of the snow outfits, he opened the barn doors and ushered them outside to play. “You’ll be a lot warmer,” he said.

They hesitated at the edge of the snow, until Giada looked up at Rubin with a wicked grin on his face and said, “Race ya!” He leaped into the snow, bounding like a deer with too-short limbs, while Rubin plowed after him as if the snow didn’t reach chest-height on him. Solpor followed in Rubin’s wake, walking easily in the furrow the kainu created in the snow.

“Don’t you want to play with them?” Milarose asked, looking down at Sammal as he came to sit just inside the door.

“No,” Sammal said, looking up at the sapphire dracus with a smile on her face. “I think I prefer to be right here.”