Silvery fur, covered by a thin layer of ice that reflected the pale landscape, defied the snow, and there was no warmth to shelter them, as the Sun was hidden by clouds that turned the sky gray.
Kessa pressed forward, each step a battle against the cold that penetrated to the bone, each breath a sharp blade slicing her lungs. The wind howled across the glacier like a frightening ghost, stripping ice crystals from the white walls seemed dead mountains around the troop.
Behind her, the surviving Gray-Apes dragged themselves across the frozen plain. Their silvery fur, once beautiful as the moon's glow, was now matted and brittle. Their yellow eyes, which once seemed intense as the rising Sun, had become opaque and empty of hope.
There were few now. Few souls resisting the Eternal Winter that had consumed their world for countless seasons.
Kessa paused atop an elevation of ice, her small silhouette against the white immensity. She looked back, observing her scattered troop across the slope.
They were almost strangers, united only by the desperation of survival.
With Mogu's sudden departure, the troop's leader, she did not hesitate to take the reins. Her rise to leadership was swift, becoming a beacon of hope and resilience for the few who persisted in the fight for life.
— Keep going! — her hoarse order cut through the wind, which was actually an encouragement. There was no room for weakness, much less to stop.
One of the youngest stumbled, his knees giving way on the ice.
Kessa quickly descended, supporting him with surprising strength for her thin body. She could feel his bones through the skin, life, increasingly, draining away like sand through her fingers.
— I... I can't — he murmured, his golden eyes meeting hers, seeking permission to give up.
— Together… — Kessa responded, firm as the ice beneath their feet. — we can!
Around them, the plain stretched infinitely.
Frozen corpses of other Gray-Apes dotted the landscape like macabre monuments to the power of the Eternal Winter. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, trapped in their final poses of despair, covered by snow and oblivion.
Kessa did not know these petrified faces, but she felt a deep connection with each one — they were all victims of the same cursed storm, of the same cruel world that had stolen everything from them, including the enjoyment of spring and summer.
The sky above was a dirty white, cloudless, lifeless. Just the unending void that sucked away all color and hope. But Kessa held a belief buried deep in her heart, a faith that fueled her steps when nothing else remained.
Mogu. The Summer Bearer.
He was not just another one in the troop; for Kessa, he possessed an unmatched essence that she had never known how to define.
Before the great cold struck everything, Mogu had left on a suicidal mission: to ally with a Silver-Claw, a natural predator, to seek the world's salvation. In the eyes of the others and Kessa, breaking the barrier between hunter and prey was a delusion, but Mogu followed his path and disappeared on the horizon.
Today, wandering through the desolation of a breathless world, Kessa protects this memory as if it were the last spark of warmth in a universe of ice. As she walks, her prayers are directed to the ape who dared the impossible.
In silence, she implores that he is still fighting, that he has not given up on all of them. Deep in her soul, she needs to believe that all that agony has a purpose and that, somewhere, the end of this winter finally awaits them.
- - -
A faint light was born on the horizon, so tenuous that Kessa blinked to make sure she was not imagining it.
She froze. Her instincts became even more alert after years of survival screaming for caution. The troop also noticed, heads slowly rising, eyes wide, fixed in the direction of the brightness that persisted in growing.
The light was emerald — a color Kessa had almost forgotten existed. Green as the leaves that once covered the trees of her homeland, vibrant as the life the Eternal Winter had devoured.
The luminosity expanded across the pale sky like ink spreading in water, staining the void with shades of jade and turquoise.
— What is that? — whispered one of the older females in the group, the tone of her voice trembling between fear and admiration.
Kessa did not answer immediately.
Her heart pounded, and for an impossible moment, a memory flashed through her like lightning: Mogu, standing on the edge of the forest that no longer existed, looking back one last time before leaving with the said last Silver-Claw guardian.
There was determination in those eyes. There was a promise.
He succeeded.
The realization hit Kessa hard, stealing the air from her lungs. Tears began to form in the corners of her yellow eyes, but not of despair — of a feeling she had not felt for so long that she almost did not recognize it: full hope!
— Mogu — she murmured, almost to herself, her eyes fixed on the greenish light. Then, louder, with conviction that made the others step back in surprise: — It's Mogu! He succeeded!
The emerald tone now dominated half the sky, pulsating with a rhythm that seemed alive, like a beating heart. And thus, like an impossible event, the wind began to stop.
It did not diminish gradually — it simply ceased, as if a huge hand had covered the mouth of the world. The silence that followed was almost deafening after so long listening to the constant howl of the eternal storm.
Kessa felt a touch on her face.
It was not snow. It was... a weak warmth.
As if it were a whisper from him, so faint it could be imagination, but it was there. A promise from days ago that her body had almost forgotten, but her soul still recognized.
— It's him! — Kessa said, louder now, her voice charged with conviction, turning to face her small troop of survivors. — Mogu! The Summer Bearer! He left to save the world, and he was able to!
— Wasn't he a traitor? — asked one of the males, confused.
— Mogu will always be part of our troop! — Kessa replied and her speech wavered, trembling with emotion. — He left us before the great cold, allied himself with danger — a Silver-Claw feline — for a journey that everyone thought was madness. I myself didn't believe it. It escaped me to know there was purpose in that departure!
One of the elders of the troop pointed with an anxious hand to the glacier behind them.
The wall of ice was crying. Liquid tears ran down the fissures, dripping as if the glacier itself were relieved, tired of being snow and frozen crusts.
The troop gathered around Kessa, instinctively seeking her strength and her leadership. She raised her arms to the emerald sky, letting the light bathe her face, feeling the truth of it all in every fiber of her being.
— Mogu did this! — she declared, tears now streaming freely down her face. — He and the Silver-Claw... whatever they faced, whatever they sacrificed... they won! The Summer Bearer fulfilled his duty!
The emerald light did not stop, now covering the entire visible sky.
Kessa had an intuition — not just in her body, but in her soul. It was as if she could perceive Mogu nearby even through the impossible distance that separated them, feel his triumph, his achievement.
— Mogu did not forget us — she whispered, more to herself. — He promised to save the world, and he did.
The ice at her feet cracked, not dangerously, finally freeing itself from the invisible chains of the Eternal Winter. And Kessa, leader of the last surviving Gray-Apes, watched with stretched eyelids, barely daring to breathe, daring to believe that her faith — her faith in him, in Mogu — had been rewarded.