Dorhan

I set my foot on the threshold and watched nothing but the snowfall. What I don't turn to look at ceases to exist.

• GarsaWhat business does the king have at that shrine? Not even our scent reaches there.
  DorhanYour nose isn't the whole mountain.
• OllenThe threshold stone rang long today. Its weight has grown.
  DorhanIt's an old stone.

I have sat with this face for a hundred years. No reason to change it has ever arisen.

• BisYour Majesty, your eyes are lighter today than yesterday!
  DorhanIt's the light.
• GarsaAm I the only one who hears that as a reason showing up?
  DorhanThen it must be only you.

Sitting here, I take my breath in three parts. One breath all at once makes a sound.

• OllenI know that count too. Counting sound is my work.
  DorhanDon't count it.
• GarsaHasn't that seat's stone felt colder lately? Or is it just me?
  BisBig brother, you're not supposed to sit there!

I went to the gorge my feet never used to go, brushed the snow off at the cairn, and came back. I thought a hundred years would be enough to forget, but the path remembered first.

• OllenSnow never settles in that gorge. The wind still sweeps only that one spot.
  DorhanIf sweeping could make it disappear, it would have disappeared long ago.
• BisThe others told me that's a place I'm not supposed to go.
  DorhanThen don't go.

Something settled on my shoulder, and I was about to tell it to move. Morning came while I was still about to.

• GarsaLately the king's been going around smelling of human.
  DorhanIf your nose is that good, go smell your own den hollow first.
• OllenSometimes the old things are the warmer ones.
  DorhanI didn't keep it because it's warm.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, no one had bitten me. After a hundred years, that was the stranger thing.

• BisThat was the first time I saw Your Majesty sleep. I didn't tell anyone!
  DorhanYou just told me.
• GarsaI was in the den hollow at that hour. I have six witnesses.
  DorhanI didn't even ask.