Night in the Winter Woods

Introductory note: this piece contains elements of non-consent/reluctance as well as mild macrophilia. I have also used the word 'girl' extensively, as neither of the characters have names, however I would like to stress that this is an adult character over the age of 18 (physically, mentally and chronologically), and the word is used purely in the colloquial sense, as a synonym for woman.

The woods were dark, the snow was thick, and the girl was running. In the deep cold silence that cloaked the black trees, the sound of her feet in the snow was like the crash of thunder, each step signalling her presence to the creatures that hunted there. The girl knew this. Her breath came in short, panicked gasps. Her throat burned as if the frozen air were fire. Her dress, which had been soaked in sweat as she ran, had frozen solid, and sparkled in the moonlight as it beat against her skin. Her dark lashes wore jewels of frost, the lips through which she panted were deep blue. Somewhere in the dark behind her, a wolf howled. The girl's blood ran cold. She desperately willed her aching legs. Ankle deep in the snow, she could no longer feel her bare feet. Instead of speeding up, her pace was slowing, her arms and legs sluggish from the cold. Another howl, closer this time. A sob escaped her. Her eyes darted wildly through the trees, searching for something, anything, that might provide shelter from the terror of the winter night. At last, they alighted on a shadow, a patch of darkness within the darkness, a hulking shape some way ahead among the trees. With a strangled cry she made a desperate leap for it, stumbling, falling once or twice onto her hands and knees, the shapes of the trees swimming around her as the cold penetrated deeper. In a few agonizing seconds, as the wolves howled again into the night, she reached it. Her hands clawed at it in the dark and felt the smooth wood of what could only be a door. Her numb fingers searched along its length and width and finally found a handle. In a few moments, she had opened it, leaped inside, and slammed it shut behind her. Now, she was completely in the dark.

The inside of the house was deserted and cold. She breathed deeply, steadying her racing heart. The smell of wood and animal skins filled her nose. The smells were old ones, not coloured by the acrid scent of smoke or the bitter-sweet smell of living flesh. Her muscles relaxed as she realised she was alone. Tentatively she began to grope about in the dark, her stiff joints searching for the skins her nose had alerted her to. If she did not find a cloak or coverlet, she knew that the wolves would be the least of her problems. By morning, she would be dead from the cold. Her hands found another hard, wooden surface, around chest-high. Some kind of workbench, table, or shelf. She ducked beneath it, searching still, and found pots, jars, her fingers running softly over the blades of weapons or tools. A hunter's cabin, she thought. She turned, feeling out in the darkness. Eventually, her skin met with softness. She reached eagerly with both hands, her fists closing over a thick pelt. A sigh of relief escaped her as she drew the blanket over herself, sliding beneath it into the cold bed, wrapping herself in the hide until she was completely hidden within it. The mattress beneath her was soft, perhaps made of felt or dry grass or even down. She nestled deeply, the warmth of her body returning. Her hands and feet burned fiercely as they regained feeling, and tears prickled in her eyes, trickling down her cheeks and wetting the fur beneath. But the warmth, the feeling of safety, and the exhaustion got the better of her. Before she knew it, the girl was fast asleep.

***

The girl woke slowly, her eyes blinking open to darkness. She was deliciously warm and comfortable. Relishing in the strength that had returned to her limbs, she stretched. Her hand reached out and brushed against something warm. She froze. In the darkness beside her, terrifyingly, appallingly close, something was breathing. Before she could think, a whimper escaped her. The presence beside her stirred, a large, heavy body shifting in the dark. Warm breath blew against her cheek. Her heart pounding, she kept perfectly still, praying whatever was lying beside her had not heard her cry.

"I see you are awake." the voice broke the silence of the cabin like the boom of a drum. The girl's heart stopped. The massive presence beside her, the voice that spoke words she understood, in an accent unfamiliar to her, could only point to one conclusion. The cabin belonged to a titan.

"H-how long have you been here?" her own voice, which she had willed to be steady, sounded thin and frightened.

"Not long." said the titan. The girl stiffened as he shifted beside her. Her eyes, accustomed by now to the darkness, perceived him as a deeper shadow looming frighteningly close, "I was surprised to find you here. We are very far from the nearest human settlement. And you slept so deeply, even the racket I made before I realised you were here did not wake you."

She swallowed. His body shifted again, and she realised he was closer. Each breath of his swept her hair across her face like a hot wind. She wanted to withdraw from him, but her muscles seemed to have stopped working.

"Why were you out in the cold?" he asked softly "It's not safe for those who do not know these woods. And are not dressed for the weather." The girl's heart leaped as she felt his large hand pulling at her dress, still damp from the melted snow. Her strength returned. With perhaps excessive force, she ripped her dress from his grasp, sliding away from him in the dark until she had escaped from under the blanket and stood by the bed, looking down at the shadowy shape within. As she watched, it grew larger, the titan propping himself up on an elbow. His eyes glittered in the dark.

"You wish to leave?" he said. It wasn't really a question. The girl's heart was still hammering away, the shaking in her limbs only worsened by the cold of the room beyond the blankets.

"I know what you are." was her answer. This time, her voice did not shake.

"And you think I will kill you if you stay." There was no surprise, no indignation in his voice. It was not a wild assumption for her to make. Beyond the woods, across the many frontiers of the world, the titans and the humans waged their endless war. As is always the case in wars, while the men died on the front, the women died in the raids. The girl knew the stories: a titan was no friend to a human woman.

When she did not counter this assertion, he spoke again: "You wish to choose the manner of your death. And you have chosen the cold."

Despite herself, the girl could not contain her shaking. Even in the cabin, it seemed the chill had penetrated deeper. The cold went beyond the flesh and into her very bones. Her damp dress clung to her, illuminated by a shaft of moonlight from a crack in the wall, and she realised all at once that he could see her plainly. What little blood remained to colour her skin rushed to her cheeks.

"You mistake me." said the titan. In a single motion, he reached out, his long arm easily crossing the distance between them. His hand, silver in the moonlight, met the curve of her waist in a gentle caress. For a moment the girl was caught off guard, and the fingers were allowed to trace a path from her hip to the hollow of her armpit, the thumb alighting for an instant on her breast. Then she jerked back. The hand remained suspended in the moonbeam, each angle and curve thrown into otherworldly relief by the play of light and shadow.

"I understand you well." she said. Rage filled her, boiled in her chest. Her arms ceased to tremble as the hand withdrew. She stood in the shadows against the wall and glared at the place where she knew the titan lay, though even his outline was now hidden to her by the moonlight that separated them.

"Do you?" he said. In a rustle of furs, he stood, his shadow rearing up in the dark. Her eyes followed his ascent, up, up, up, until at last he rose no longer, and his head was lost in the blackness near the ceiling. The girl did not know if he was large among his kind, but in that moment, he seemed very large indeed. When he spoke again, his voice came from a great way up, but still far too close for comfort.

"You think you are choosing between death by cold and death by my hand. You need choose neither."

"Is that so?" said the girl. She began to inch, slowly, agonizingly slowly, towards the door. From the darkness above, the invisible eyes followed.

"If you leave this place," he said, "you will die - from the cold and the wolves both, for they both wait just beyond this door." The girl continued her imperceptible retreat, step after minuscule step. The door was almost within reach. The titan made no move to stop her.

"But if you stay," he continued, "I will keep you warm. And when the cold begins to break, I will allow you to leave this place if you wish."

The girl laughed. It was a mirthless sound, thin and dry as the leaves that clung to the trees of the woods beyond.

"Let me be plain - I do not mean to kill you, now or ever. I have no desire to harm you at all."

This statement did make her pause. Despite the adrenaline rushing through her, which had given her the strength to utter those few words with such venom and had stayed, for a time, the tremor in her limbs, the cold had begun to affect her again. The winter wind howled through the cracks in the walls and the cold cast cruel snakes under the door behind, biting at her bare ankles. He noticed the gooseflesh forming on her arms and legs and pressed his advantage.

"If you leave this place, you will die" he repeated, "a violent death I would not wish upon another, even an enemy. The cold you know, but the wolves you have not met. They are no less cruel, and far less gentle. Your death would satisfy their hunger, but what remains of your life would be their sport."

"And if I stay?" the girl asked. Her hand groped behind her, found the handle to the door, grasped it tightly, "What sort of sport would you make of me?"

"You would live." he said simply. He made a move as if to approach, and the girl twisted the door handle impulsively, but he merely lowered himself back onto the floor, a hulking outline among the shadows of the blankets.

"What will it be?" he asked. The girl stared at him, for a moment forgetting the door behind her, the cold that was beginning to numb her senses, the moaning of the wind and the distant howling of the wolves.

"You offer me a choice?" she whispered, unable to hide her shock. In her efforts to get to the door without being noticed, she had failed to realise he had made no move to stop her.

"Of course." he said. Then he laughed, the sound making the door handle within her fist rattle.

"But then" he added, "it's not much of a choice."

The girl faltered. Her mind was awash with emotions, fear, rage, hope vying for her attention in a flurry as thick as the snow outside. At last, something settled her resolve. She drew herself up, erect and dignified in the thin dress that clung to her body like wet paper.

"I'll take my chances with the wolves." she said, and with all her strength she wrenched the door open.

The wind roared into the room like a hurricane, splinters scattering among the whirling snow as the door hit the cabin wall with a crash. The girl was flung to the floor of beaten earth, already clothed in a blanket of white. With a cry she leaped to her feet and launched herself into the storm, stumbling then running, too fast to look behind her.

***

If she had been cold before, it was nothing to what she felt now. The winter wind had gathered force while she slept and was now a raging blizzard. Deep snowdrifts, waist-high in places, impeded her progress at every step. Her feet, which had burned fiercely as they met the frozen ground, were completely numb, her hands blunt clubs as they pawed at the snow before her, trying to clear a path for her escape. She had no idea which way she was going: even the stars were obscured by a white blanket of swirling snow. The tears that had formed in her eyes when she realised how slim her hope of escape was, had frozen into crystals. Her nose, ears, lips and nipples were on fire as the blood started to freeze within them.

A long howl sounded behind her, then another. Her halting pace quickened. She needed to find shelter. She needed to find warmth. For the first time since her wild race into the night, she stopped to look around her. The trees were large in this part of the forest, their bare black branches like wiry arms barring her way at almost every turn. Or - the thought formed slowly in her cold-numbed brain - like rungs on a ladder, crafting a path to safety. With her remaining strength, she reached out and grasped a branch with both hands. Sobbing with the effort, she pulled her waist, then her hips, and finally her legs from the snow. The cold hit her with the force of a battering ram, the wetness that clung to her skin freezing immediately in the wind and chilling her deeper. Without stopping to think, she began to climb, hand after hand, breath after agonizing breath. Her body was almost spent, but her muscles remembered, remembered days in the sun, far away from here, and climbing trees that were green and heavy with fruit, laughing with the abandon of a child. As she made her way up, she became aware of the sounds of shuffling beneath her, of whimpers and barks in the dark below. The pack had finally come. Sanctuary or prison, the tree was where she must make her final stand.

Flecks of ice and snow stung her cheeks the higher she climbed, but the girl did not heed them. The howling of the wolves below became distant. She dared not look down. Her world was only made of cold and the tree beneath her toes and fingers. There was only the climb. After what seemed like eternity, her fingers closed on something that was not another branch. Her eyes struggled to focus in the dark and snow. She wrenched her other hand up to meet the first. She dimly registered that she had found a hollow - perhaps the abandoned nest of one of the great birds who hunted in these woods and were the stuff of bedtime stories for children. A gasp of relief burst from between her chattering teeth. Her strength was almost completely spent. Her muscles bunching with the effort, she pulled herself bodily into the hollow, collapsing into it face first. Her nose smacked against the prickly base of the nest and was assailed by the rank odour of bird droppings. She did not care. Here, at last, was a shelter from the ravenous wind. She pulled herself in further, felt straw and old feathers around her and gathered them close her with clumsy fingers. Shaking with relief as much as from the cold, she tried to regain her lost heat. The wind reached the occasional hook into the hollow to tug at her dress and hair. Her shaking did not abate.

As the night wore on, she began to feel a dull heat spreading through her. At first, she welcomed it, feeling it seep into her like a balm, relaxing in the knowledge that the cold would not claim her this night. The warmth grew, until she felt it as the heat of a close fire. She struggled to free herself of the feathers and sticks that filled the hollow, reaching for the cool wind to soothe her burning flesh. But the fire only burned hotter. Her movements became weaker. She struggled less and less. At last, in the grip of a cold so deep her body couldn't even recognise it, she drifted into darkness.

***

Warmth. Not the frenzied heat of a body struggling against hypothermia, but real, genuine warmth. The girl opened her eyes. The world around her was dark. Here in the North, the nights of winter bled into each other, so that a fitful sleeper might miss the brief splinter of daylight that peeked through the icy haze before diving beneath the horizon again. She did not know if she had missed it, or if this was yet more of the same, endless night. She grew more alert, her memories coming back to her. From above and behind, quiet beneath the roar of the storm outside, came the sound of deep, slow breathing. Her insides turned to water. She was lying on her side, her back pressed against the source of the warmth, the real warmth of another body, the warmth that, by all accounts, had probably saved her life. The girl did not need her frenzied look about her to register where she was. The bitter-sweet smell. The animal hides that covered them both and helped create this small cocoon of life against the bitter cold. The massive arm enclosing her like a trap, the hand resting inert beside her wrist, whose thumb was almost its equal in girth. Without thinking, she reacted - flinging the arm from her with all her might, inadvertently pushing herself further against the unyielding wall of flesh behind. The soft breathing stopped as she struggled to withdraw from both arm and chest, realising only now how little of her original strength remained after her close call with death in the snow.

"Easy." the familiar voice rumbled behind her, "you need to recover your strength." The girl had attempted to stand, only to feel the blood pooling in her feet. She collapsed onto the bed once more.

"You lied!" she sobbed, "Why did you bring me back?"

"Why?" the voice was no longer soft. A huge hand grasped the girl's shoulder, turning her around to face its owner. She did not struggle - her eyes tried desperately to pierce the dark, but the titan's face was still only a hazy blend of shadows.

"You were nearly dead when I found you," he growled, his eyes flashing, "and lucky I did. If I had waited much longer your track would have been completely covered by the snow. But I had a hunch when you left. I bet myself that you wanted to live. I told myself that, if I found you, you would by then have realised how stupid a gamble you had made. I was wrong about the wolves, I'll give you that. Even half frozen you had your wits about you and somehow managed to escape them. I admit that when I saw their tracks overlap with yours, I felt sure you were dead. But the wolves were still at large - I could hear them howling in the woods around me. And I knew they would not have had time to finish you off and return to the hunt so quickly. So, I followed you further."

"How did you manage to reach me?" the girl whispered, confused. The hand on her shoulder had not withdrawn and lay heavy upon her, but she did not push it away. "The branches were too thin to bear the weight of your - of your- "

"Of my kind?" he finished, "Yes. I did not climb after you. You were still within reach."

The girl was silent. Away from the warmth of his body, she was growing cold again. She shivered.

"For pity's sake, put your pride aside! Do you want to live or not?" he said, his fingers tightening on her arm with frightening strength. She winced, and they relaxed again. She realised he could see her, even in the dark. She looked away from him then, suddenly unable to meet his gaze.

"Yes, I want to live. I am not... proud" she said, but her tone was no longer sure. At this, he laughed.

"You chose death over lying with me, even though you had barely escaped the cold. And now, even after nearly freezing solid in the storm, you are thinking of choosing it again. If that's not pride, or stupidity... I might be tempted to call it courage."

A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"That's better." he murmured, and his hand slid to her back to draw her close to him. She was pressed against his chest, which was bare beneath the blankets, her face lost in the tangle of his hair. The smell, the heat of him, were so powerful she forgot, for a moment, the cold beyond, as his other hand drew the furs above them, blocking out the dim moonlight.