A Warm Place to Sleep

Winter did not arrive with a triumphant flair. It worked its way into their bones, chilling Fern and Topaz easier and quicker than expected. The grasses of the open patches of their forest turned brown and wilted. Their prey’s fur changed color gradually. The leaves of the non-pines fell and exposed them to the eyes of both land and sky. But this is their first winter and when the sky began to shed its downy feathers- snow as they would eventually learn- they both knew they would be in trouble without a good shelter.

What defines a ‘good shelter’? Fern thought as he surveyed the growing white upon the brown grass. The muddied impressions in the ground he and his sister had dug out in the summer were good for cradling their bodies but would it protect them from the cold? No, perhaps not. In fact, laying on the dug ground had kept them cool in the blistering heat.

His sister nipped at him as he thought, snapping him out of his wandering mind. Fern hopped away, letting out a squeak and then a grumble shortly after. She retracted her head quickly, bringing it back close to her tan body. Her legs are close together and her arms are tucked tightly against her body. Fern thought she looked odd in this stance before he realized what she was doing. She was cold- of course. She had no feathers to rely on, only her scales, body fat, and mass.Topaz growled as Fern inspected her, “What are you doing, you feather-brain? Keep going before I steal your body heat!”

Fern huffed and began to walk again, the sky’s down crunching beneath his feet. A good shelter. What would that look like? He tilted his head as his eyes scanned the slowly whitening landscape. Fallen trees passed them by as they trudged on, small but maybe a bigger one would be worth digging under. Topaz was eyeing the landscape too, he soon noticed. Her head bobbing and tilting as she trailed behind him. The pine trees, sparse in some areas of their territory, had potential too. Their strange, cold resistant leaves simply shed off the sky’s down.

It was then a plan began to coalesce in Fern’s head. A large trunk of a fallen tree with him and his sister huddled side to side in a trench dug beneath it. Pine needles lining both the dirt they lay upon and the sky above their heads. A cozy proposition, one that would keep his poor featherless sister a bit more comfortable. He held his tail prouder, his head higher as his keen eyes kept a look out for the perfect fallen log.

With that certain glint in his eye, Topaz knew her brother had thought of something. She assumed that's why he had stopped before, but her scales shuddered with the onslaught of the cold wind and the sky’s down. She had to keep moving, it kept the worst of the cold from seeping into her bones. So she trailed behind him, his pace becoming quicker as he searched.

She was, admittedly, jealous of his feather coat. He seemed to shrug off the cold far, far easier than she did. She watched as he slowed… then quickened his pace, turning right towards something in the distance. Caught off guard, Topaz veered to the right. A hidden root beneath the down covered ground hooked her leading foot, sending her stumbling for a moment. The sky’s downy feathers scattered at the swift movements of her legs as she righted herself, sending the cold latching and melting onto her legs and chest. She shook herself, trying to flick the offensive cold off of herself.

Fern was standing there, on top of a rather large fallen log, staring at her. His forest green feathers fluffed up in surprise at her accident, his head lowered.  She snarled, baring her teeth at her brother. He flinched back, hopping off the log after nearly losing his own footing. At least the embarrassment felt hot, the only welcome to the terrible feeling. She watched as he lowered his head, pawing at the earth with his foot at the base of the log’s length.

“Dig here, dig here.”

She shuffled closer, eyeing the pawed location. Then the log. Then back to her brother. Ah, that was his plan. Dig underneath the log? She supposed it was as good a start as any for a shelter. Topaz moved to parallel Fern, his feathers tickling her flank as she put a foot where he had marked. He took this as a sign to start, raking his foot and sending a cold chunk of sky down, grass, and dirt behind him. She followed suit quickly, sending her own clod flying.

–

After a few hours, a sizable hole that fit both of them was dug. Topaz stepped back, looking over the work both of them had accomplished. But out of the corner of her eye, Fern had turned away and begun to walk elsewhere. She threw her head up and snapped her jaws, exasperated at his behavior. All that work, for nothing? Topaz turned around, backing and lowering herself into the freshly dug hole beneath the huge fallen log. No, she will stay here and wait.

She watched as her brother paused, turning his head to glance back at her. He kept going, disappearing in the bare brush and the dusted trunks of trees. With her line of sight broken, she listened as he trudged through the sparse foliage. The sound became fainter and then paused momentarily. Then the rustle of leaves and a snap of branches. His footsteps gradually became louder before he entered her view again. In his jaws he held a freshly broken branch from a pine tree. He strutted forward, gingerly placing it at an angle across the log and the hole. He looked smug, his eyes squinting as he cocked his head at her. 

She was almost taken aback, that was so unlike him. He turned, walking the same way he had gone previously. Well, might as well help. She scooted forward and out of the hole, following his footsteps in the deepening white. Another break of pine branches was heard as she approached, her brother already holding another branch for the developing den. She trotted closer, snatching a branch of her own before turning back.

Quickly, the den’s floor was covered with pine leaves and the entrance had pine branches leaning above it. It was nice. Nicer than the dens and shelters they had built before. Not only that, but the gloomy day was giving way to night. The chill became sharper, more aggressive. Topaz has had enough, turning around and scooting her way in tail first. Fern followed soon after, his jaws grabbing at the branches to completely cover the den when he had settled.

Yes, this will work. With her brother’s feathers against her scales and the wind being kept out, the den began to warm after a while. Maybe after a fat meal they both could sleep through the winter here but alas, that is only wishful thinking. She pulls her arms close, cupping her chest, and she tucks her head in front of her brother. He, too, mimics her. With only minor fidgeting, both Fern and Topaz eventually fall asleep in their new warm den.