Xaxac stared down at the cup he was holding. It sparkled in the scant moonlight that broke through the continuous cloud cover, reflecting the snow that fell around him. He was freezing, but there wasn’t really anything to be done about it. Everyone had been freezing since the heat dissipated after the moon fell. He was fairly sure that almost everyone was dead. Almost all the animals were dead; all the plants were buried under the new snow. The clouds never parted anymore.

It was a dark planet lit by no sun.

“Quizzy, come on!” She shouted, so he turned to try to find her in the snow that still fell. The rain had turned to snow, but it had never stopped.

Hadn’t he been holding something?

He pulled the deerskin tighter around his form and wished it was warmer, but there was nothing to be done for it. Deer were so hard to find anymore. Where did they all go? Where did everything go?

He took off at a sprint toward the group.

“Did you find anything?” She asked.

He shook his head. “There isn’t anything. I don’t understand… where did they all go?”

“Where does the snow come from?” The other man asked, “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“It’s not a stupid question!” Quizzy snapped, “I’m starving! The plants are gone! If we don’t find the herds we’re dead! Don’t you understand that? Everything around us is dying!”

“I can’t track them,” the woman said, “I can track anything. But I can’t track them. What’s going on?”

“They’re dead!” The other man said, shivering in his skins, “They’re dead. Everything’s dead! Quizzy’s right, we’re all going to die!”

“I’m not going to die tonight,” the woman- her name was Ahnah, he had known her forever- declared, “And neither are any of you. We’ll find something.”

“We haven’t found anything for days!” their companion argued.

“I’m not going to die tonight!” She snapped.

“I can’t keep running,” Quizzy said, leaning heavily on his knees, “It’s too cold. I’m too tired. I can’t keep it up. The dragons are slow as hell. If we could find one it’d keep in the snow… we could eat for a month. Where the hell did they go?”

“If it wasn’t so blinding,” Ahnah said, “If it would just stop snowing for one day…”

“Look,” the man, Kifat, pointed and the others squinted, shielding their eyes to see what he was pointing at, “What’s that?”

A dark shape staggered toward them, though it did not seem to know they were there. It appeared, at first, to be a shapeless mass of black against all the white, but as it approached it took the form of a person, but no person they had ever seen. He was impossibly tall and thin, dressed all in black, a manner of dress which they had never seen. The material was light enough to move in the wind, but he kept it wrapped around him as if he thought it would do any good.

Then he saw them, and he broke into a sprint.

His face was the color of a corpse left out too long, his long black hair whipped in the wind, long ears stretched out from under his billowing hair, and the area around his mouth was caked in red, as if it had been covered in blood and he had tried to wipe it away, but been unsuccessful. But the most unsettling thing of all was his eyes. There was no color there, no white to them, only an all-encompassing blackness, like the void between the stars.

This thing was not human.

This thing was not supposed to be there, and it knew it.

It moved in a clumsy sprint, speeding toward them, a dark blob on the world of white.

Then, this otherworldly, inhuman monster began to shriek.

At first there were no words there, not that they understood, though it held the tone and cadence of language, but as it approached them, something glistened in those dark eyes, and they understood.

“Help!” The monster screamed, “Help! She’s dead! It didn’t work! Get down! He’ll see you!”

When he was upon them, it was obvious how big he was; he towered over them.

What was this monster afraid of?

“Xaxac!”

He turned, and saw the beautiful elf with the blue skin and the hair almost the same shade as the snow, standing just a few feet away.

Everyone else was gone.

“What’s your name?” Xaxac asked, because it seemed the most important thing to understand, all things considered.

“Lapus,” the beautiful man said. “Xaxac, I’m waiting for you. Please, find me. I’ll give you everything you ever wanted.”

“Why?” Xaxac asked, and looked down at the cup in his hand, cold to the touch and inset with crystals.

“Because you deserve it,” Lapus said, took him by the shoulders, and kissed him so deeply it knocked the air from his lungs.

“Get up, lazybones,”

Xaxac startled awake and stared up at Alex in confusion. How did he get in here? Why was he smiling down at him like that?

It took him a few seconds to orient himself, so he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“Get up,” Alex repeated, “I wanna take a bath and your butler ain’t gonna take me without you.”

“Sorry,” Xac said with his voice full of sleep, “I had a real… real intense dream. I get like that sometimes.”

“Yeah, I hear that,” Alex said as he stood and stretched his arms above his head, then smiled when he saw that Xaxac had propped up the picture he had drawn for him on the nightstand, “Aaaw, that’s sweet, darlin. Glad ya liked it.”

Xaxac followed his eyeline.

The creature from his dream was the demon in the painting. Oh. Right. That made sense. He had displayed nightmare fuel, so he couldn’t be shocked that he was having nightmares. But he did like it. Alex had made it for him, and he thought they were friends. He thought that when he got his wardrobe he might be able to hang it up properly, on the door or something; he kept meaning to ask Agalon about it, but kept forgetting.

“Yeah I like it,” Xac said, “I mean… you made it for me. I like you. I’m makin you somethin too. Are we gonna… breakfast? Or not?”

“Let’s eat in the water,” Alex said as if that decided the matter, “I hate travelin; I gotta get the road stink offa me.”

“Ok,” Xac said, because he didn’t feel like arguing, “Lemme… get my clothes on. And shave.”

“Oh my god,” Alex said in exasperation, “How long is that gonna take?”

“I gotta shave, Alex,” Xac said, almost in disbelief. Surely Alex knew how important it was to keep up his youthful appearance, “I gotta get Lee.”

“I know, I just feel bitchy this mornin,” Alex threw himself onto Xaxac’s bed as Xac picked his clothes up from where he found them on the chair by the dressing table and began to put them on, “I have a hangover.”

“Hey,” Xac said quietly and with great meaning, “Are you uh… are you mad at me?”

“What’d you do?” Alex asked, propping himself up on his elbows to look at him.

“For last night,” Xac explained, “Are you mad at me? You… hollered at me a lot and I… know I didn’t… I didn’t do… great.”

“You make me tired,” Alex huffed, “I ain’t gonna stroke your ego. I like you, Xac, I like havin sex with you, but I’m not gonna sit here and-”

“Ok,” Xaxac said, trying his best not to cry, “You don’t have to. I just… thought you might be mad at me. I wouldn’t tryin to get you to… I don’t know what an ego is.”

“Oh, lord,” Alex sat up and watched Xaxac sniffle as he buttoned up his shirt, “This ain’t even about me.”

“I guess not,” Xac said, “It’s about me. I feel weird all the goddamn time! I don’t wanna feel like this. I can’t keep feelin like this. Nobody could. It’s gonna drive me crazy. I want it to go away. It goes away when I drink. Why the hell can’t I just lay drunk? Who would that hurt?”

“Calm down,” Alex stood, walked over, and took the fabric from Xac’s shaking hands to button his shirt for him. “Calm down, ok? I get it. It’s alright. It’s ok. I swear. I ain’t mad at you. We gotta stick together, alright? I got you.” He smoothed out the fabric and continued, “Sorry I hollered at you. I’m a needy, slutty drunk. You gonna hold that against me? I’d lay drunk too, if I could.”

“I just wanna be good at it,” Xac said, looking down at Alex’s hands, “An’ I… I’m…”

“Alone?” Alex asked.

“Yeah.”

“You got friends, Xac,” Alex promised him, “We’re friends. I like you. That’s why you gotta get your shit together. You can’t let um wear you down.”

“Who?” Xac asked.

“Anybody,” Alex said, “Listen, kid, only the smart, pretty, and strong survive in our position, you understand that? I been dancin around it, but you need to hear it. You can’t keep breakin down like this or it’s gonna kill you. Stop it. Get your shit together. Keep your shit together. Whatever he wants from you, just fuckin figure it out. I ain’t losin another one. I done went and got attached to you.”

Xac smiled, despite himself.

“While you’re shavin I’m gonna get the lube,” Alex told him, “Go get your butler, and if you’re that worried about how you fuck, we can sure as hell practice again down in the bath. Wouldn’t hurt my feelins nary bit.”

Xaxac giggled, and Alex giggled with him, and he didn’t try to fight at all when Xac leaned up to kiss him.