Silvers and Snow

A crackling fireplace softly illuminated a dark living room. A Kritty and Aerkit was asleep near the fire, occasionally mewing softly in their sleep. The room was mostly silent...But then a loud, clanging sound broke the silence. Out of the hallway came a Saggitari in Silver armor, each footstep making a racket. The cats didn't seem phased by the sound, still sleeping soundly. The Saggitari made his way to the front door, but before he could open it, a spidertaur grabbed his left arm and tugged it.

"Where are you going? It's freezing out. I don't think anyone would buy Zatarin Popsicles." The spider said in a quiet voice.

Zatarin lifted up the mask of his helm and let out a loud sigh. "I'm not going to freeze, Karia." Zatarin gently pulled his arm away. "I heard someone saw a monster from Tigereye outside town, but that's so far away from here I don't see how it can be. So I'm going to go look. I'll only be gone for...Maybe a few hours." He spoke calmly and looked down towards Karia.

Karia stared up at him, her six eyes unblinking. "Fine, but if you take too long I'm going to look for you." Karia patted the side of Zatarin's armor before darting off across the house, each step making a soft tapping.

Zatarin let out a confused snort at how fast she took off. "Well, bye to you too." He shook his head before opening the door. The ground outside was covered in a thick blanket of fresh snow. Snowflakes instantly blew into the house and Zatarin quickly made his way outside and shut the door. Snowflakes started to stick to his face and he awkwardly licked at his snout before putting his face mask back down to keep the snow out. As he started to make his way away from the house, Karia opened the door and yelled. "Bye-bye, metal boy!" She giggled and slammed the door shut. Zatarin froze in his tracks and looked back quickly, but she was already gone. "...Metal boy?" Zatarin questioned to himself before looking away and resuming down the path.

The snow was deep enough to cause him to have to walk slower than usual, it reaching up past his ankles. He found it somewhat annoying. He's not used to so much snow, at least not in Dragonsmaw. He eventually made his way out of town, and the snow only seemed to get deeper, and the snowflakes bigger. His exposed tail was starting to look like a long frozen hairball. He would try to flick the snow off, but it had no effect. There wasn't much out here besides some trees, pines covered in snow and other types of trees which were shed of their leaves.

Off in the distance something small and Silver could be seen darting about as if frantic. Zatarin spotted the figure and started making his way towards it. It was not only a Silver color, it was quite literally a Silver. Or so they called them. A monster usually seen in Tigereye. The small monster saw Zatarin heading its way and it dived in to the snow to hide. Zatarin saw where it had dived in, and expecting it to still be there he took off running before jumping and landing on his knees. He reached in to the snow but the Silver was gone. Zatarin lifted his face mask and sniffed at the snow. He accidentally sucked snow up his nose and sneezed.

"Where did you go..." He questioned. Soon after, the Silver popped up in another spot. Zatarin saw it and chucked. "Is this some sort of game? I don't usually like games." He let out a soft growl and tried to pounce on it again, but he ended up falling on his side clumsily instead. The Silver stared at him before chirping softly and inching towards him cautiously. Zatarin blinked rapidly and grinned at the small monster. "If you bite me, you're dead." The Silver froze up and looked over towards a fallen tree. It chirped again and darted over to the tree as if it wanted Zatarin to follow.

Zatarin let out a snort before he made his way to his feet and stood up. There was a large print left in the snow from where he had been. "What do you want? You're too small to fetch an entire tree, you know?" Zatarin followed the Silver without much caution. The small monster was not much to fear to him. The Silver flicked its long, whip-like tail and started to dig at the ground near the tree. "What, is something under there?" Zatarin pressed his paws against the tree and the Silver backed up as if waiting expectantly. "I might be strong, but I'm not lift an entire tree strong." Zatarin looked at the Silver. "I doubt you understand a word I'm saying." He shrugged and faced the tree before trying to push it.

It didn't budge at all. The snow around it only helped hold it in place. Zatarin backed away from the tree and placed a paw to his chin. "I don't think I can move it, sucks for you." Zatarin looked to the Silver again and it was staring at him with big sad eyes as if begging. Zatarin ended up laughing at its face. "Is a monster really going to give me that face? You might be smaller and a bit cuter than some, but you're still a monster. What do you expect me to do?" Zatarin crossed his arms and the Silver whined at him. It flicked its tail and flung snow at Zatarin.

"I don't think that's a proper ice attack, lizard breath." Zatarin looked at the tree again in thought. "I have one other idea, but it might end badly." Zatarin moved further away and the Silver followed him closely. "I'll just...Blast it." Zatarin touched the earth amulet attached to the chest of his armor and the ground began to shake. The Silver looked around frantically and moved closer to Zatarin. Chunks of earth floated up from the ground and began to slam in to the tree, dirt and snow flying about. The Silver let out a screech of panic.

Eventually it all stopped. The fallen tree not only was moved, but had bark stripped away and was broken. The sight of a hole could be seen that was once under the tree. The Silver scurried over and looked inside the hole. "Now, what was so important about this?" Zatarin watched the Silver. Soon, another Silver popped its head out of the hole. And then five more. Some of them were munching on infection plants which they held in their jaws. "Oh, great, there's more of you. Why are you...Eating those foul fungi? Where did you even get them?" The Silvers all looked at Zatarin and started chirping and squeaking before dropping their meal, piling out of the hole and running over to him. All seven surrounded him while making a racket.

"I didn't sign up for this." Zatarin gave the Silvers a funny look before they all started clinging on to him and trying to knock him over. "Hey, don't be picking a fight now!" He exclaimed before being knocked over in to the snow. The Silvers swarmed on top of him and pawed at his armor. The Silver Zatarin first encountered poked at his snout. Zatarin let out an exhausted sigh. "I'm not a jungle gym." Zatarin playfully snapped his jaw at the Silver poking his snout and it let out a surprised screech and fell over. "Why are you all even out here? Shouldn't you be, you know, in Tigereye? Not like you all can answer me."

The Silvers all perked their heads up and ran back to the hole and dived in. Zatarin blinked slowly before sitting upwards. After a moment they all scurried back out with more infection plants which they started munching on. "Did you just come here to eat those things?" As Zatarin asked that, one of the Silvers ran over with a plant in its mouth and it held it out at Zatarin expectantly. "...Oh, no, never. I'm not eating that. No. You eat it." Zatarin made a fake gagging sound and the Silver looked confused. It then just tried shoving it in his mouth. "HEY, N-" When he opened his mouth to talk the Silver shoved the plant in and Zatarin bit down by mistake. With a disgusted look, he spit it out. "HOW CAN YOU EAT THAT?!" Zatarin frantically wiped his tongue off with his paws. "Thanks for the offer, but NO thank you." He said firmly before standing up. The Silver looked at the bitten plant on the ground before eating it instead.

"I'm leaving now, bye pests. Make sure not to bite anyone." Zatarin watched the one Silver rejoin the others. They shoved the remaining plants back in the hole and they all ran over to Zatarin and started to pile snow up together. "What now...Are you making a snowman? Looks more like a snow pancake." The Silvers ignored him and kept piling the snow up. "Fine, let me show you." Zatarin waved a paw at them to tell them to stop and he scooped the pile in to a ball shape slowly. The Silvers watched with curiosity. "And then you just...Roll it." He pushed the snowball and it rolled a short ways. The Silvers eyes lit up and they all excitedly started trying to roll it around.

"You're all like cats with a ball of yarn. I bet if I hadn't helped you all would be trying to eat me. Don't expect me to bring you all home or something, I'd never." Zatarin watched the Silvers as they kept pushing the snowball around erratically. They were managing to make it bigger at least. He made another ball of snow and started to roll it. "What am I, five suddenly? Why am I doing this?" Zatarin grumbled as he continued to roll the ball.

It didn't take long for it to get to a decent size. He looked away from what he was doing to see if the Silvers ruined theirs yet. Instead he sees a ball of snow that might be too big. "Whoa now, what have you all done? That's too big!" The Silvers looked at Zatarin and stopped pushing the snow around. "Too late now." Zatarin suppressed a laugh and picked up his ball of snow and made his way over to the Silvers. He then plopped it on the much larger ball. "Now we just need to...Make it look like something." Zatarin walked over to the remains of the fallen tree and snapped off two branches before walking back over. He stabbed the branches in the snowballs to make arms. "It's a fat faceless thing now, see?"

The Silvers started to chirp loudly and dig at the ground. One of them found a rock in the snow and held it up towards Zatarin. He slowly grabbed the rock and jammed it in the middle of the head of the snowman. "Now it has one eye, how tragic." The Silvers started to scoop snow up at the back of the snowman and trying to pack it down. It looked like a poorly made tail. Zatarin looked at what the Silvers did and nodded. "Yes, good job. You know what a tail is. What a hideous snow monster." Zatarin smirked and the Silvers all ran off suddenly. "Huh, where are you going?" They didn't seem like they were coming back. Zatarin stood there for a short while before figuring that out. He didn't see a reason to go look for them, so he decided to make his way home.

The next day, there were poorly made snowmen all over town and even outside it. Perhaps teaching monsters to make snowmen was a bad idea.