"Hey, get up. Hey... wake up!" A slim and long-haired boy commanded in an overly authoritative tone.

"Stop shaking her so roughly Arton! Are you trying to help her or make sure she's dead?" Another boy with spiked hair shouted at the first.

"Uhh, I-I think we should just wait for Tetsu to get back here with an elder, guys. S-she could be dangerous..." Spoke a third boy that cowered far behind where they both kneeled.

"Rafal... don't you ever get tired of being such a wuss?" The spikey haired boy turned to question him.

"S-shut up Relti. Elder Souan says that sometimes cowardice is just cleverness in disguise." Rafal said as his face contorted to one of displeasure.

"Well if the village elders were all as 'clever' as you Rafal, we'd all be living as slaves to the forest boars just so we don't incur their wrath." Relti joked.

"Ugh" The throbbing of my head slowly faded as I forced open my tired and heavy eyes. Finding myself once more in a pit of snow I laughed aloud at my expectation of waking up peacefully in my bedroom at home.

"L-Look guys, I-I told you she was dangerous. She's laughing like a d-demon would." Rafal said as he slowly retreated away from the other two, pointing indicatively towards the girl.

"Man, calm down. She probably was just laughing at my awesome joke." Relti said with a somewhat shaky voice as he looked suspiciously down at the laughing stranger.

"Or maybe she just saw your face when she woke up. Actually no, if that was the case she'd be screaming now, not laughing." Arton said to Relti as he laughed at his own cruel joke.

"S-shut up." Relti said in a very similar manner to his cowardly brother as he began to run his fingers over his face. 'Am I really that ugly?'. His self-examination was interrupted, however, as the stranger lying down in the sharp and uneven snow next to him looked up at him, then spoke.

"Where am I, kid?" Her beautiful voice resounded harmoniously in the cold mountain air. Along with her flawless skin and perfectly proportioned face that he was just now noticing, Relti could do nothing but freeze up and gawk at her as she looked at him expectantly for an answer to her question. "Aw, .uh..." he struggled with his words for a few moments before turning away from her, his face flushing red.

'Huh?' I looked confoundedly at the strangely acting boy in front of me as he turned away his gaze. 'Is there something wrong with me?' I wondered before feeling around my face and looking my body up and down once again, finding nothing wrong. 'Maybe his people aren't allowed to talk to outsiders.' I mused as I once again examined the boy in front of me and his two 'associates'. By the short untrimmed hairs on their faces, they must've been around 16 years each, the kind of teenagers you'd see making a scene at the mall or playing around at a skate park. Except for the way that they were dressed of course. They each wore thick and bristly fur jackets which would be expected of anyone living in this arctic environment. Underneath their jackets were equally uneven leather tunics and leggings that seemed to have also been stuffed haphazardly with fur for the purpose of keeping warm. The boy seemed to have noticed my scrutinizing eyes as he stiffened up even more at my gaze.

"Rafal! What's going on here? Are you all alright?" A man wearing an intricately complicated warbonnet upon a regular fur-stuffed winter cap walked hurriedly towards the boy farthest from me along with a man nearly twice his size that met me with a piercing gaze from his dull grey eyes.

"V-Village Chief!" Rafal shouted in surprise as he hurried bowed his torso in what seemed like both respect and fear.

"Easy boy, there's no need for such things. I don't remember doing anything so great to garner such respect. Just tell me where Reltin and Arton are." The Village Chief spoke in a soft tone with a warm smile spread on his face. Such a quick and unnatural change from his earlier alarmed state was worthy of a politician that had lived his whole life through lies. But it didn't seem like the boy picked up on any such thing. As he looked up in respect and admiration to the Village Elder.

"Y-Yes sir! They're right over there." Rafal said as he pointed far behind him towards the two boys and a stranger that sat in the snow between them.

"Reltin! Arton!" The two boys quickly stood up and ran over towards the Village Chief as he called their names, lining up in front of him. The Village Chief sighed heavily in relief at the sight of them alive and healthy. "So what happened exactly?" The Village Chief asked again, now much calmer.

"T-There's a demon! It d-disguised itself as a girl though..." Rafal quickly spoke up and pointed towards the strange girl who was now dusting herself off of the snow that covered her tall and slender body.

"Stop spewing nonsense Rafel!" Reltin shouted again at his brother with thinly veiled anger in respect for the Village Chief in front of him. "We found her lying by Ice marrow's Drop Village Chief." Reltin spoke to the Chief with his hands twitching at his sides. "S-s-she's too pretty to be a demon." He spoke again but in a much more hushed voice.

"What was that?" The Village Chief asked Reltin, knitting his eyebrows in confusion and bringing his ear closer to him.

"A-Anyways! There's no way she's a demon. She just fell from up there so she probably hit her head or something!" Reltin said, pointing up at the cliff that stood nearly 200 feet above the ground they were standing on.

"From there?" For the first time the tall, grey-eyed man spoke, sporting an incredulous tone as he raised his eyebrows, pointing out the absurdity of Reltin's suggestion.

"Yes, from up there! Don't get all sarcastic just because you're tall Tetsu, I'm still older than you, where's your respect for your elders?!" Reltin shouted back at Tetsu's remark.

'That little chibi is older than that giant?' I thought in disbelief at the prospect as I stared blankly at the arguing tribesmen in front of me. I had many questions on my mind at the moment: 'Where the hell am I? What happened to my body? Who the hell are these people in front of me?' Only the last of which could be answered right now. There was no reason to lose myself in what I couldn't answer so I decided to just focus on what was in front of me.

"Um... hello?" I spoke in a small and broken voice as I questioned myself as to whether they'd understand what I was saying or not. That spiked hair boy earlier also didn't respond to my question, so maybe I could only understand but couldn't speak it? I had no idea what kind of situation I was in. As I walked forward with my question, the body I was still unaccustomed to walked jaggedly and imbalanced. It wasn't long before I ended up falling ungracefully onto my face in the snow, tripping on my own feet. The feeling of being buried in it was shamefully familiar to me after the past however many hours I was stuck in the same situation.

"You fools! can't you see how much she's struggling? go help the poor woman!" Seeing the pitiable sight of that young woman speaking in such a frail voice before falling over struck a heavy sense of guilt into the hearts of the young men and Village Chief that spoke leisurely by her for so long.

His commanding statement immediately sent the four boys running over to her side, however the extra three were unneeded it seemed, as Tetsu lifted her simply with one arm before whipping her over his shoulder like a meat sack before running back towards the Village Chief.

"N-no.. you don't have to..." Was all that came out of the young woman's mouth as she hung over Tetsu's shoulder like a bag of potatoes.

"Easy child, there's no need for such modesty! Let me and these young n's here take you back to our village, out of harm's way, for now." The Village Chief spoke to her in another warm voice. but this time with much more sincerity. He waved towards the other 3 boys to follow him who stood with mouth's agape at Tetsu's coarse handling of the girl.

It was just moments ago that I was violently pulled off my limbs and swung around like a rope before landing chest first on a steeled shoulder, knocking all the wind out of me. As I lay there, nearly unconscious, I begged the feather-hatted man in front of me to let me go but I was met with a beaming smile and generous response as if he was doing me a favor. 'You're the ones harming me right now dumbass!' I shouted in my mind, struggling to get loose from the boy named Tetsu's arms. But his grip only tightened on my back at my resistance, causing me even more pain.

"oogh" I groaned out in pain as I relented to the tribesman's determination to take me away. "Poor child, you must have been left out here for quite a while.. Hurry up boys! We have to get her back to the village quickly!" The Village Chief's words were like a Judge's sentence to me as the pace of the group quickened and my face contorted in pain at the increased repetition of shoulder strikes to my stomach...

'God, please let their village be close..' I thought, kneeling to the sky in my mind. My prayers, however, were not answered as the journey lasted another hour.