Cold & Native

Ryan Heckler was in the middle of one of the coldest winters he had ever been in in Alaska and he had bought all the groceries he could get. It was supposed to get colder still and the after market thermometer in his car told him it was already way below the usual temperatures in these regions.

Soon, he would have to park the car and drain the water in the cooling system.

Anti-freeze only goes so far before it gets simply far too cold.

The Defender crawled through the heavy snow falling in thick tangles despite the icy temperatures. There was just so much of it that there wasn't enough room for the snow to fall in single flakes. The monotone chugging of the turbocharged diesel was definitely a calming note in this unfortunate situation. The engine always gave off this burly note that seemed to say "whatever" with a shrug. But even though Ryan had boarded up the front grille the engine wouldn't really get warm, although if he were to push the car a little faster that issue would probably solve itself.

The problem was he could barely make out where he was going in the apocalyptic levels of snow falling at his current speed, much less at anything faster than idling in second gear.

Staring out the front window, the heater turned up to a moderate degree to keep the various lubes and greases used inside of the cabin from congealing too far but far enough down to keep from robbing the engine of the heat it needed to run without destroying itself, Ryan hummed along the tune that was playing on the stereo.

Ryan had replaced enough turbochargers on the diesel already. He didn't want to ruin another one by running it too cold at high power. The folks in town kept telling him he should finally ditch the unreliable Brit, as they christened it, but it had something that a pick up truck didn't have: Ryan could heat his boot.

To him, this was far more valuable. Add in the fuel economy of a 2.5 litre diesel against some 4 litre v8 monster and the Defender was definitely a worthy contender. Yes, fuel up here was cheap, but fuel also weighed down a car. He could travel further with less weight on a tank. That was definitely worth something.

The defender kept chugging along and Ryan kept his eyes on the road, mittens around the steering wheel and a bandana on his face to keep his breath from condensing and freezing on the unheated instrument cluster panel. The constant strain of carefully managing the heavy truck and keeping it on the road had slowed his reaction time and attention to detail so much that he almost ran over the large bump in the snow. What did not escape his notice was the red spill in the pristine white surface.

Ripped out of his stupor by what appeared to be blood, Ryan stomped on the break and the clutch and the Defender stopped almost immediately. The e-brake ratcheted in to place and the door swung open to allow a stupid amount of snow in with nothing Ryan could do against it but quickly jump out and shut it again. The yellowy car lights illuminated the bump very well now as they were only four feet from the spill. Ryan's boots sunk deep in to the snow as he stepped around the back of the car, lifted a completely snow coated shovel from a rack and made his way to the front.

The shovel made the fight against the falling snow easy. He quickly unearthed what lay below and was somewhat surprised to find short, sand-coloured fur. Nothing up here had that kind of colour. What the hell? The blood was seeping from a wound that he laid bare next, then he began to uncover the whole thing. Most of it was wrapped in some kind of cloth, like a mummy, some of it was covered in leather. Was that the sand-coloured fur? Who would dress up some large animal like this? Or was this some gigantic man? The dude had to be at least 7 feet, if the bump was to be the full size.

Ryan uncovered the rest, then shoved the snow off with his hands where he felt the shovel might be too close for comfort. He worked his way down the right side until he found the end of the thing. Everything was wrapped in leather, some kind of pelts held by the thing with strings. Where the fur on the pelts edges reached the surface, they were soaked and frozen.

There, he paused for a second and looked back up in disbelief. This thing was huge. But what he knew was that it must be some kind of animal. The two legs he found were partially folded and while the shape seemed humanoid, the fur he had found earlier told a different story.

He went back up and uncovered the more of the front when something caught his eye. He looked over the thing again, completely still, waiting for whatever had made him stop to register consciously.

What had it been?

Maybe it had been something else, something must've ripped that wound. He quickly looked around, but saw nothing. Not that he would see anything anyway in the almost pitch dark snowy hell he was in.

There.

Again.

This time he caught it. The damn thing was breathing! It was a flat, almost unnoticeable move in the furs, more of a slight shift against the strings than a lift and dive. He pulled one of the mittens and the underlying skin tight glove off and felt the cold and snow bite in to the skin almost immediately, just before he stuck his hands between the furs. It was less cold, but still not even remotely comfortable. He dug further until he felt a fur that seemed impossible to shift. It felt attached, like an actual skin to the thing. The hard thing beneath felt like a bone.

Another breath.

"Holy cow!"

Ryan's mind was racing. What the hell was he supposed to do? Could he get it out of here? He wasn't weak, ever since he made it up here he had been chopping wood like a madman, at least compared to the amount of wood his parents had used to keep around back in Europe. That had quickly built up a decent amount of muscle.

Alaska was no place for fat people, simply because the entire state seemed hell bent on burning it. Manual labour in subzero temperatures never failed to get anyone to lose weight and chopping wood the old fashioned way with an axe was definitely not hurting someone's upper arms either.

Still, he wondered how the hell he would get something this big in to his car. It probably weighed loads.

Ryan pulled his hand back out, then stuffed it back in to his glove and mittens as fast as he could. God damn, he was already losing some of the feeling in his fingers. This shitty fucking weather.

For a second, he considered ending the thing's suffering, but then his curiosity and imagination that allowed him to live up here, writing novels, got the better of him. He just couldn't leave it, whatever it was.

The shovel quickly laid open the rest of the thing. It had some weird features up top, such as some very heavy muscles on it's chest. There was, even through the layers of furs, noticeable bulge there. They were not connected to the front legs, which were only a fraction as thick as the hind legs. And while those ended in stumps, these ended in something flat.

No time for further exploring. The thing had a slightly shorter head than, say, a cow would have had and had this completely wrapped in fur as well. There was a slit for the eyes but some of the bandages had fallen down and covered everything.

Ryan pulled it towards him and felt it roll over. The weight would be manageable if he were to drag it, he figured and walked around, then bent over and tried to lift it under it's, for lack of a better word, armpits.

And the bloody thing was heavy.

The head lolled back and almost hit him in the groin, but Ryan took a step back and then started to pull it through the snow that now piled up almost half a mete- one and a halt feet. Foot? He'd never get used to this.

Arriving at the back, he opened the back door of the Land Rover and tried heaving in as much of the thing as he could, but the cold weather was zapping him of his strength.

Ryan carefully put the creature back down, then instead climbed in himself and did some other necessary things like folding over the rear seats and rearranging his shopping to make room for the big package he would lift in as soon as he could.

He did a few push ups to get the blood flowing again and some heat in to his muscles while using the ones he wouldn't need for this task, then felt ready for another try.

With all his might, he couldn't get it up.

For a second, Ryan felt defeated. Then he jumped back outside and looked around. There had to be a solution to this.

And there was. In order to make getting items on to the roof rack easier, the manufacturer had fitted a wide roll that things could roll over at the edge of the roof. All he needed was a rope and there was the weird thingy...creature...whatever lift mark one. The rope went around the front of the thing and was knotted tight in the back, then Ryan pulled. This time, it felt a lot easier. He still needed a lot of power, but the thing came up rather quickly and he managed to push the upper half in. The rope went in behind it, pulled all the way through the roll so as not to be forced to untie it. Then Ryan jumped in and pulled the legs in, tucked them against one of the side windows and climbed back out after he was satisfied that he could shut the door without anything stopping him. With a brief motion, he swept out as much of the considerable amount of snow that had accumulated during the time the door had been open out and shut this one, then picked up the shovel, put it back where it belonged and climbed back in to the driver's seat.

The car was still idling, he just pressed the clutch, pushed down the handbrake and shoved in first gear, then shifted as soon as he could.

It took another twenty minutes to his house, during which the occasional, irregular breathing kept him on his toes and his eyes darted to the centre mirror every few seconds.

Ryan pulled in to the spot right next to the front door, killed the engine, jumped out and opened the back of the Defender and reinstalled the thingy lift mark one, then pushed the package as far as he dared to. The legs were hanging out again. Then he lifted the front with the rope again and slowly lowered it down to the ground. He pulled the rope out of the roll on top of the car, then used it and a guiding hand to drag it to the front door.

Finding keys and using them with mittens on is almost impossible.

Taking of the mittens in the bitter cold was incredibly annoying, but there was no alternative. With the door opened, Ryan almost fell in to the second front door, the one he had installed to keep the cold air out. This one, luckily, had just a simple hook mechanism. The first one was to stop unwanted guests.

The doors each had a wooden doorstep that protruded out of the ground quite a lot, so Ryan let go of the rope and took hold of the armpits again then dragged the package up the single step up front and through both doors. He quickly shut them behind him and revelled in the warm air that enveloped him in the dark for a second. The light switch made it's quiet 'click' as he reached for it and a warm, golden glow lit up his living room.

Instead of getting off his jackets and boots and hanging them on the coat hanger as usual, he threw the jackets over his couch and dragged the package to the fireplace. Three logs were already waiting and he splashed them with alcohol, then set fire to the ensemble and watched the fire race along the splashes of alcohol for a moment to make sure that it worked.

Then, he went about looking at the wound.

Most of the area was either crusted with blood or had thick congealing blood on it. Blood thickens considerable at lower temperatures which must have happened here. But the ceiling light he had switched on was too dark to see anything else so Ryan stood up and moved one of the reading lights closer and directed it on the wound then switched it on. The wound would also need to be cleaned so he went in to the kitchen, filled a bucket with warm water, threw a piece of cloth in there as well and hurried back in order to see the thing take another short breath.

"Shit."

Right. Breathing.

Ryan put the bucket down and went about uncovering the head. He pulled his knife out of his belt and started cutting the strings apart up front, the thin bands of cloth and furs whenever they had frozen together and quickly reached something as cold as ice, wet and rubbery. It looked black. Then he began to tear off everything around it and sat back a little dumbfounded. A square-ish snout stared back at him, sand coloured fur with a pair of black nostrils that were dripping some kind of snot. At the bottom was a pair of grey lips, which looked rather unhealthy. Below the lips, the fur turned into a very light grey, almost white.

Slowly, he lifted more an more of the cloth, fur and leather off and followed the snout upwards. It eventually turned upwards toward the eyes, which were closed. They were separated by a rather wide bridge in between and pointed mostly forward. Above that, he found a lot of long bright blond hair that was currently somewhat frozen. To both sides of the head was a rounded ear, now folded against it and giving the whole head a weird, horse-ish look.

Ryan touched the head, felt the bones beneath and dragged one of the eyelids up until he could see the bright green iris in the middle of a white eyeball.

It had to be real. Nobody could fake something like this that good.

Another breath, followed quickly by a ragged one.

He focused again and started to open up the rest, at least the top layer. The furs that were soaked and cold had to come off, they couldn't stay on it. Hypothermia was a bitch.

Next, he cut the stuff along the neck and almost nicked the blond braid there, then continued on down the chest and came to the weird chest muscles he had noticed. But when he pushed his knife between the strings there, he noticed that it wasn't a muscle at all. It softly gave way and it suddenly hit him like a sledgehammer:

This was no it. This was a she!

And judging by what she carried around on her chest, one hell of a she. He quickly looked down her figure and found more signs. The thick legs, the wide hips that even all this insulation couldn't hide. Oh. The wound.

While the snout was definitely off putting, as was the size and weight of the... woman? Mare? Anyway, her rack definitely did spark something in his imagination. Each one of those things was larger than his head, or hers for that matter.

Then he remembered the wound and realized that he would have to cut all the furs off - he needed to see in order to treat it correctly. So the knife went in to more and more cloth and string and he quickly peeled the layers off, sometimes nicking the pelts, sometimes managing to get them off in one piece. While the middle layer had been just moist, her fur and the lowest layer must have been completely wet at some point. There were ice blocks in her fur and the lowest pelt was almost completely frozen. It was so cold, in fact, that a piece of the pelt just broke off.

Now, Ryan could see for the first time just what exactly he had dragged in from the cold.

The mare, which he thought was the correct term since she did have somewhat weirdly jointed legs, a shorter thigh and most importantly hooves, had sand coloured fur on the back and flanks, but from her lower jaw all the way down in to her weird tube skirt, it was white with a hint of grey. The same white-grey also adorned her elbows and hands.

Her massive mammaries were contained in some kind of support framework not unlike a bra, but somehow the description bra wouldn't quite fit on the weird mixture of wood, grass and other material easily found outside in warmer climates.

Still, it was somewhat flexible, although not by much. It also seemed to have a considerable amount of hair woven in. Where this rather inflexible contraption was, the boobs probably wouldn't be able to jiggle at all - hence why he had mistaken it as muscle underneath all the wrappings. Below that, there was still quite some space until he found the navel surrounded by well articulated strings of muscle. The breasts really sat that high, the were starting just below the collarbone.

Then came a small tube of straws and hair woven to a sort of micro skirt, which was stretched over very well pronounced hips, which were followed by some of the most powerful legs he had ever seen. They looked unlike the well defined muscles of body builders and more like the muscles that you build over years of work outside - or in this case, running, probably.

Apart from that, the legs seemed normal enough - until he arrived at the foot, or the lack of one. Instead, just below the shin was another short and bone-y part of the leg, not longer than his hand which ended in a massive jet-black hoof that was surrounded by some once wild fur. Now it was just frozen toothpicks. They way everything was arranged suggested that she only walked on the hoof. On the left side of the left thigh, there was the wound.

Months of isolation had made unsure about how to behave around women. He knew that the garments would ideally come off too, but he was worried about undressing a lonely womanly thing alone out here in nowhere. She might get the wrong idea.

So he draped a heavy blanket from his couch over her instead and focused on the wound that sat on the upper half of her thigh, just below the skirt thing she wore.

The blood had started to flow a little more freely after being slowly warmed up, so with cloth and water, he was able to remove most of the dirty blood around the wound. What he saw, now even more clearly, was that something had tried to bite her. Judging by the marks, he guessed it must have been some kind of wolf, but he was no expert on the subject.

What he did remember was that most animals had lots and lots of nasty germs on their teeth. The disinfectant wasn't too far away, he really should pour some of it down those wounds. They looked pretty deep, even though they had apparently bit all the way through the furs.

Ryan stood up once more and fetched his first aid box. This was one of the first things people told you to get out here, lots and lots of simple things to treat stupid mistakes.

If you lived as far outside of town as he did, most of them even went so far as to get a hold of antibiotics. He had too, but not a lot since those were prohibitively expensive and had a sell-by date that wasn't too far in the future. So instead, he settled for the iodine based disinfectant. It stung like hell, he knew that, but sometimes you need pain to really drive a lesson home.

Besides, somehow it did not feel like it was working if it did not sting.

He drenched a patch of gauze in disinfectant, then reconsidered, hesitated for a moment and instead just poured it in to the wounds.

The mare twitched.

Ryan stopped immediately and watched her for any sign of waking up, but nothing else happened. After half a minute, he poured some of the disinfectant in to the last hole and waited for another twitch, but nothing came.

This was not good.

Deep down something told him that living things ought to respond to pain. She had only responded once.

He doused a few more patches of gauze in disinfectant, laid them on her and decided that the little bit of modesty her clothes were giving her needed to go. This was cutting it too close for considerations like that.

Before he attacked this though, he took the time to finish a properly sealed bandage.

Ryan looked around for a way to open the bra-substitute, but failed to see anything and instead just cut it open at the sides and lifted it off over her head.

He tried to not look at the awesome boobs on display, but couldn't help but stealing a quick glance at them.