Pft—Pft—Pft!
The instant the white snow descended in full force, the sled lurched backward in a sudden, violent slide and then the reins, lashed tight to the rocky mountainside, snapped tense with a sound like a struck instrument!
The sound of countless snowflakes striking the hide draped over the sled's frame was like a thousand shards of ice battering relentlessly against the fragile refuge that shielded them from the storm outside.
The temperature of the surrounding air dropped at a rate visible to the naked eye, growing colder by the second.
When the red-hot charcoal in the cabin's small stove finally burned itself completely out, the interior plunged at once into a darkness so broad that a hand held before one's face would simply vanish from sight.
Before such a display of nature's overwhelming might, Jasnah and the sled dogs huddled tightly around her all shook without pause.
"Awoo!"
The blizzard's savage, howling voice was like a thousand banshees screaming just outside the thin cabin walls, shrieking their mournful wails at the helpless creatures huddled inside.
Under the continuous assault of the raging wind, the small cabin swayed violently side to side—should the reins finally snap under that pressure, what awaited them all would be nothing less than a shattered sled and broken, frozen bodies across the mountainside.
In the ceaseless dark, Jasnah clutched tightly at the two lead dogs crouched close beside her, drawing what warmth and comfort she could from their thick fur.
Her breath came in irregular gasps, as though she had just endured some non-stop physical exertion, her heart was trembling and roiling helplessly in the grip of fear and yet, on that pale face of hers, a smile emerged unexpectedly. A self-mocking smile.
Over the years, Jasnah had long since lost count of how many brushes with death she had really survived across her dangerous career.
She had believed confidently that no matter how hopeless the crisis she found herself facing, she would never feel despair settle over her.
But that particular confidence of hers had shattered entirely the moment she encountered Bryan Watson.
He was an insurmountable barrier she could never hope to match—before Bryan Watson, not one single spell of her magic had done a thing against him.
That night on the outskirts of Berlin, facing Watson as he tore into their base, there had been nothing she could do—she could only watch, entirely helpless, as Watson burned half a century of their effort to ash before her eyes!
And now, in this dark, freezing cabin, the very same helplessness and powerlessness coiled in her heart just as it had that terrible night, facing Bryan Watson as he stood in silent judgment like some solemn, terrible god made flesh.
So many sled dogs, thick-coated against the cold, packed together in that cabin still holding the last, fading warmth left by the dead stove—the cold itself had not reached the point yet where it could reap a life.
And yet this particular agony as though death itself stood patiently at her side, scythe already raised and ready to fall at any unpredictable moment—was far more terrifying than facing death outright would have been.
Crack!
Amid the roaring, non-stop howl of wind and snow, a stray, singular sound suddenly cut sharply through it all.
The sound itself was barely audible against the storm's fury, but to Jasnah's ears, her nerves strung already to their limit, it landed with the force of a explosion, and every hair on her body stood on end at once.
Not to mention the way the whole cabin slid abruptly in response to whatever had happened—it sent Jasnah's heart leaping straight into her throat!
"Enno—"
Her voice came out as though she were choking, carrying with it faint edge of a held-back sob.
"Mm—"
Jasnah could not understand how, faced with such dire straits, Enno's own voice could remain so steady, so completely calm throughout.
And yet that calm, unperturbed voice truly did offer her tremendous, unexpected comfort in that terrifying moment.
"It's all right. I lashed down more than one line—"
Enno added.
Crack—snap—thud!
A pine branch broke off somewhere nearby, swept up and hurled violently by the wind and driving snow onto the roof of their small cabin—the sound was so close that Jasnah's heart which had only just begun to ease under Enno's calm reassurance immediately lurched again in new fright.
In the total darkness, a wrinkled hand reached out slowly through the fur of the surrounding sled dogs.
The dark had entirely sealed away all sight between them, and yet those searching fingers still found the exact place where Jasnah's own hand lay, and held it tight.
Jasnah's hand trembled at the contact, but she did not pull away from it instead, she simply allowed herself to feel the wrinkled hand gripping her own steadily.
Rough in its texture, yet very warm—it soothed, in a single instant, that panicked, unsettled heart of hers.
"It's all my fault—"
Jasnah bit down hard on her own lips, her voice was filled entirely with held back tears.
Enno said nothing further in response to that. He released Jasnah's hand for a brief moment, patted the back of it gently in reassurance, and took hold of it again immediately after.
"Are we going to die here?"
In the darkness, sparkling tears clung to the corners of Jasnah's eyes, and yet, curiously, a small smile rose to her lips even as she asked it.
Though she could not make out Enno's face in the dark, in the long, silence that followed her question, Jasnah could still sense that he was looking at her, his expression showing a tangle of complicated feeling she couldn't read.
"No—"
At last, Enno said.
"Neither of us is going to die."
"Mm—"
Jasnah nodded softly at that, accepting it. She did not ask him how, he could be so certain of that promise.
"I believe you."
The storm raged on outside, fiercer with each passing minute, as though it meant to bury the whole world entire beneath it and from the icy sensation seeping through the hide at her back, Jasnah could tell that the accumulating snow had already buried the sled itself halfway up its frame.
But she found that she was no longer especially afraid of that fact.
'Enno's hand—it really was very warm.'
"I don't hate Muggles as much anymore, I think."
The tension in Jasnah's whole body eased and softened at the admission. She rested her chin against the crown of the sled dog curled protectively in her arms, and there in the darkness, her pretty face wore a contented relaxed smile despite everything around her.
Through all these days trapped here, the same question that had turned over and over relentlessly in her mind seemed, at last, to have finally found its answer.
"Let wizards hold their heads high, let Muggles grovel before them."
Jasnah tilted her face up in the dark, her gaze was piercing, in her mind, through the cabin's roof, through the murky darkness, through the sombre clouds gathered above them, as though she could glimpse the bright sky waiting patiently beyond all of it.
"Wizards, nobler than Muggles. Heh—what a ridiculous notion, when you actually say it aloud. Isn't it?"
"Mm."
After a few breaths of silence, Enno's voice came in response.
"If my own father were still alive, I would want to convince him to give up his hatred of Muggles. He was never going to succeed at his cause—nor was Voldemort—they were always, inevitably going to end the same way Grindelwald did—"
Jasnah lowered her head at that, her free hand continuing to stroke the sled dog's head absently.
"I, too, need to pay the price for my crimes."
Enno's gaze pierced through the gloom, fixed on Jasnah's downcast face, and for a moment, the heart sitting in his own chest—hard and unyielding as old, settled ice could not help but stir with fresh emotion.
'The price.
So many people, across so many years, had never deserved to bear so crushing a fate as they had and all of it had sprung from that hollow, empty ambition.'
Neither of the two people sheltering in the cabin spoke again after that exchange. In that dark, enclosed world there remained only the blizzard's furious, constant roar and the sled dogs' occasional whimpering.
There was no way to tell how long the storm had actually lasted around them.
Jasnah remembered only that she had eventually slept, and when she woke again, Enno was already driving the dogs that had crowded around the stove back gently toward her side.
He himself was working steadily to force more charcoal into the smouldering, dying stove, and had lifted a corner of the heavy curtain at the back of the cabin, letting the outside wind draw the accumulated smoke that filled the cabin's interior out into the settling storm.
Perhaps it was the smoke's particular doing— asnah felt herself growing steadily hazy and dull again, her thoughts were slowing.
So, before she had been awake for very long, she slipped again into sleep.
Once she'd grown used to it, the wind's own continuous howling had become, strangely, something close to a rare and welcome lullaby against the darkness.
This time, she slept for a very long while.
A strange, hurried rustling sound went on for some considerable while without waking her, until at last—
A long, drawn-out howl set off a sudden chain reaction, and the scattered, half-hearted barking of the dogs somewhere outside the cabin finally roused her from sleep.
Gazing toward the curtain thrown back at the back of the small cabin, it took the still-groggy Jasnah a moment to realise that the sled dogs who had crowded protectively around her were all completely gone—they had already climbed out through the opening, and Enno, too, had left the cabin at some point without her waking.
'I'm still alive?'
She genuinely could not say for how long, but the shrieking of the wind had finally stopped, and outside the cabin came now only the disordered, muffled scuffle of the dogs' moving feet against snow.
"Enno?"
Jasnah called out into the sudden silence, but there came no answer in response.
A faint, worried crease formed on her own forehead at the silence.
Her mind, now fully awake, seized at once on the thin thread of danger and urgency drifting in the air around her.
"Enno!"
Jasnah called out again, more urgently this time. She forced her own stiff, aching body into reluctant motion, crawling on hands and knees toward the back opening of the cabin.
Bang!
The instant her head emerged from the cabin's opening, a violent gunshot rang out through the air!
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