Will of a Prince

Squabee watched Jacob fall on the ground lifelessly, his wounds secreting more blood than before. However, instead if panicking, she hurried over to one of the dead wolves and got to work. There were two things that everyone needed most in their group right now: warmth and nutrients. She took Maria’s spear and thrusted into the gut of a dead wolf, spilling out all of its intestines on the ice. The smell made her want to gag, blood now covered her face and armor, but she didn’t care. She continued slicing around the body until a square coat of fur was separated from the wolf. There was still a lot of fur left on the wolf, but Squabee didn’t know how to utilize it properly. For now, these squares that she could cut would have to do. She dragged Jacob’s body over to the group and squeezed everyone together. She started by placing the long, thick coat of fur over Maria’s head. Then, she continued to run back and forth between dead wolves until a multitude of pelts were laying over everyone.

Even though the fur would no doubt keep them warm, their body temperatures were not warm enough to sustain themselves. They needed more heat, and Squabee was already preparing her next plan. She took all of the extra fur that she couldn’t quite extract, and she piled it into one large circle. She walked up to Slimo and grabbed the two daggers hanging from his waist. Using all the strength she had, she clashed them together, hoping for sparks. Thanks to her luck, she was successful on the first try. There was fire at last in this desolate icy hell.

Squabee pushed the whole group as close to the fire as she could so that their new pelts wouldn’t also catch aflame. Almost immediately, Slimo’s skin seemed to be unthawing. Seeing the progress, the desperation grasping her heart was slowly replaced with hope. There was one last thing that she needed to do for everyone. When they woke up, if they woke up, they would all need food. As much food as she could possibly make. Luckily, she had just survived an encounter with some dangerous food. Squabee pulled all the intestines and muscles from the carcasses around her. Using Maria’s spear, she would slowly cook large pieces over the fire.

As she cooked the meat there were a few doubts rising in her head. One thing was the ice below them. Squabee only assumed it was safe enough to make a fire since Slimo had made one before, but this fire that she had made was much larger and more powerful. There was no guarantee the ice would be able to handle it. However, either thanks to her luck, or because the ice was simply way too thick, it seemed to be holding up fine.

Another doubt she had was if, even after everything, no one would wake up. This doubt scared her infinitely more. Even if it was only one person waking up, she would prefer that compared to having to travel over this ice any longer completely alone.

"Damn it. How does Sarah make cooking look so easy?! But I’d rather burn these than leave them undercooked. The last thing we need right now is someone getting poisoned because of me."

Three hours had passed of Squabee repeating the same tasks. She would fuel the fire with more fur, cook the extra meat she had as best she could, and check on the others to see if any of them would wake up. She had also moved all their armor right against the fire, so when they woke up, they would have a warm, dry outfit to wear over their other clothes. She considered removing their under clothes, even briefly so she could warm them, but she decided against it thinking it wouldn’t do much.

"Jacob’s wounds..."

Squabee stared at Jacob’s still body mournfully. He had received all of the damage in the battle. She didn’t have any medical supplies, any medical knowledge, and nothing to clean the bites he had received. Jacob’s entire healing process was currently completely relying on himself. There was no telling what would happen to him if he was left untreated. She thought of the look Jacob had on his face when he bit into the wolfs neck.

She shivered slightly, but not from the cold.

After seeing his dark determination up close, for the first time since their previous encounter, Squabee understood how Jacob could have transformed into something so terrifying.

’Is that truly a bad thing to have such vicious determination?’

She took a large bite of some charred meat.

’Perhaps it would only be bad if you were on the receiving end of it.’

Suddenly, for the first time since everyone had gone still, Squabee saw movement. It wasn’t a lot, but a slight twitch. It was from Lidia. Her finger slightly bent inward, as if responding to warmth in front of her. Squabee grabbed a bunch of handfuls of her cooked food and ran over to Lidia, shoving the meat in her face.

"Eat! Eat, Miss Lidia! Please wake up! Smell the food!"

Lidia’s eyes twitched. She was slowly coming to herself. She opened her eyelids slowly, revealing her dazed expression.

"S-Squabee-?"

Squabee didn’t wait for anything else. She shoved the cooked meat into Lidia’s mouth and helped her chew it.

"Don’t talk. Recover first."

Squabee sat with Lidia as she laid under the thick hides of the wolves.

"You did this? You built all of this for us?"

Squabee was staring into the fire, ensuring that it wouldn’t go out any time soon. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was running out of fuel quickly. She really hopped more people would start waking up now that Lidia was awake.

"Did I have a choice?"

Lidia continued biting into her piece of meat.

"I guess not."

Another silence hung between them.

"Jacob helped me. I wouldn’t have been able to get this far without him. He’s hurt really bad. I’m... worried about him."

Lidia looked at Jacob who was laying close to her.

"He’ll be fine. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about that boy, it’s that he always seems to find a way out of any situation he’s been thrown into. If nothing’s killed him yet, I don’t think anything will for a long time coming."

"Still, his wounds from the fight, even when he was fighting, he seemed like he was on his last bit of energy."

Lidia chuckled.

"Fighting desperately is just his style. No offense, but I’m not sure if he trusted you to take care of all of us alone."

Squabee played with a few bones on the ground.

"I don’t really blame him. I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it without his help."

"And yet, I’m talking, I’m breathing, there’s a fire in front of us, and we have food! I would say you’ve outdone yourself!"

Squabee looked at Lidia hopefully.

"You really think so?"

Lidia chewed her meat a bit more thoroughly before swallowing it whole.

"Eh, maybe take a cooking lesson or two from Sarah. Then everything would have been perfect!"

Sqaubee smiled and looked back into the fire.

"I expected as much."

She didn’t admit it, but she was beyond happy to see Lidia in such good spirits. Normally seeing her mood was a good indicator of what kind of position they had gotten themselves into.

"How’s Slimo and the others? Are their bodies still cold?"

Lidia sat up slightly and place a hand on each of them.

"It looks like Sarah and Jacob are doing fine, but Slimo and Maria still have a way to go. I see that you have been heating everyone’s armor. Why didn’t you put them back on everyone after you heated them?"

Squabee scratched her head embarrassingly. Well, to be honest, I wasn’t strong enough to lift Jacob’s armor. As for the others, I ended up accidently burning some of your arms because the metal got too hot, so I decided to wait. Sorry."

Lidia looked underneath her arm where there was a fresh scar, most likely from her own armor, singed into her flesh. She found it fascinating that she didn’t even feel the pain until she noticed it.

"I see. Well shit, that hurts like hell!"

"I said I’m sorry!"

"So, what’s the plan now? I can see we don’t have much fuel for the fire left."

Squabee squinted her eyes.

"Honestly, the only plan that I have right now is hoping more people will wake up. They need to eat, Lidia. It’s been way too long since any of them had nutrients. I have almost no doubt that their diet is holding their bodies back from heating up properly."

"So, you’re hoping to get lucky?"

Squabee smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

"It just so happens I like to rely on being lucky quite a lot."

"I thought your power doesn’t work that way? Or are you saying you hope the world deems them waking up as your best interest?"

Squabee crossed her arms and rubbed her chin.

"Well, not exactly. I was hoping to rely on just the normal kind of luck in the world for this one."

"Does such a thing like ’normal luck’ exist for someone like you?"

Squabee threw hands up in the air.

"Hell, if I know! If it does exist, it’s impossible for me to tell the difference between that and my power!"

Just then, another bit of movement started behind Lidia. Both Sarah and Jacob had finally appeared to wake up. Lidia smiled and looked back at Squabee.

"Well, would you look at that. Guess we got lucky after-"

Suddenly, Jacob pounced on Lidia’s back, his glowing eye burning with hunger. He tried sinking teeth into her shoulder, but Squabee reacted just in time. She threw a piece of meat right into his mouth before he could bite down all the way. Jacob swallowed the piece whole, but he still wasn’t satisfied.

He jumped on Lidia again and took a very small bite of her shoulder.

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