Everyone stared in an awed silence. Milan bent down in the shallow water to feel the first print, tracing the edge with his fingers in the damp dirt.

"The sides are smooth and sloped, not like the stark cliffs of one freshly made." he spoke slowly and surely, feeling the small grains of material in his fingertips. "A watery silt has filled the heel now, from the surging of the river. It is a slight print to be sure, but quite undisturbed." He looked at Sang, but addressed all of them. "I would say five days, at the most."

Sang glanced briefly at the print he was examining farther away from the river. "Agreed," he said decisively, "maybe even four."

Murmurs started in the group, and as any possible theory of who left the prints arose, it would just as quickly be disproved by further thought. After a short time Nishita broke from conversation with an older woman and stated conclusively to Shirisha:

"If Sang is honest, then no one of the village could have possibly even been near this place before. Of all those among our people with feet that could match these, few have left the village, and even among those their time in the forest was extremely brief."

Shirisha moved her mouth to respond, but only a brief stutter came out. She was just as utterly dumbfounded as the rest of them. Nishita continued anyway, looking at Milan.

"...maybe it is one of another tribe, If there really is one."

Bibek jumped in. "When we return we shall go immediately to the elders, and ask if there are stories of encountering others passed down from our ancestors. Unless, Sang, you have seen them yourself?"

Sang responded in his dark toned voice, never looking from the ground as he searched for more tracks. "In all my time far away from the village, I have seen plants and beasts all of you have yet to lay your eyes upon, but never another man or woman." He stood up, turning back towards them. "And even if I did it would mean nothing. Look." he gestured down, Bibek still seeming not to understand. "If another village did exist, and this person came from it, they still would need to arrive here in the first place. All the tracks lead away from here, none toward."

Bibek opened his eyes wide, looking to the other hunters for confirmation, who all seemed to have realised this. It was Ram who spoke now, his voice low and amused.

"I think that may just be the hardest thing to understand of all. It is as if someone floated along like a cloud to this very spot, dropped to the ground and walked away."

Everyone stopped and stared for several moments, absorbing his words.

"Whomever or whatever it may be," Bibek said with a sudden ambition, "they could know something about Abhinatha. We should not waste any more time, and follow these tracks as quickly as we can. Milan, y-"

"Bibek stop." Shirisha interjected. She stepped towards him, holding her hand out towards the group, who after all their travels had a wear on their faces, dirt and bruises scoring parts of their skin from the long treks. She spoke with irritance but also empathy. "Do you not see how weary they are? They have come all the way here and faced their fear, their sorrow, and you tell them to continue?"

"The tracks are still fresh, and with every second we stand here they get farther away. We absolutely must go!"

Shirisha was about to raise her voice in rebuttal, when she felt a tiny prick of cold on the tip of her nose. Bibek also felt something, and so did the hunters, Sang, and everyone else. It was a feeling they knew all too well, and immediately and instinctively looked to the sky. They were met with a plethora of drifting white specks, sticking to their heads and shoulders.

It had been six days now since Abhinatha's death, and in those days an anxiousness gripped their tribe about what would happen to the weather. In those days that followed the weather had been not quite warm, but certainly snowless and chilly at worst, giving people a tiny glimmer of hope. But now it was evident to all, winter had never gone, and was slowly seething back to them.

Just about all of them except for Sang held their hands out to feel the small flakes, quickly melting them into drops of water within the heat of their palms to confirm this reality. Bibek fully recognized now what was happening, and the heat he had in his eyes just moments before vanished.

"We should turn back," Shirisha said without any objections, "and ensure everyone makes it back up the mountain safely before the snow can encompass us and hinder our path back." However, her gaze drifted back down to the stumbling footprints, and she thought deeply for several moments, looking around at all their faces bearing a variety of emotions. She looked beyond them at the tremendous outline of their home mountain, having not a single soul on it that was not worried about their own safety. "You are right though. Whatever made these tracks, however incredulous or just impossible it may seem, if it means even the smallest clue to our future then it is worth following."

"I will follow them." Sang said with hard and irrefutable intention, drawing all eyes on him. "I can go fast, faster than any of you. Whatever I find, I will bring it back to the village without fail."

Shirisha and some of them were shocked that he had even made this offer, and some, like Abhiral, showing clear discontempt at this idea. Shirisha recognized this discontempt easily. It had shown itself in many people mere moments after the catastrophe as thoughts stewed, and even just a few hours ago upon seeing Sang for the first time. The severe doubt of Sang's true intentions when being left to his own devices, especially on a matter like this one.

Shirisha never gave up hope that there was some good in his concealed heart, but even she felt that saying those feelings unjustified was a difficult place to stand.

Milan looked pained and worried, standing up and turning to Sang, speaking honestly and a perhaps a bit nervously.

"Sang, I have seen firsthand what you are capable of, and your ability to do what you say is one I do not doubt. But the truth is while what you have shown today makes it a conflicted decision, you are difficult to trust. It is plain to see that even some of us here find it to be so, and proving your goodness to the elders will be almost impossible, much less so for them to trust anything you say upon your return. Someone should go with you."

Sang squeezed his jaw a little, irked at this idea and his mention of the elders, but could not refuse. "Then who?" he said coldly, flashing his steely eyes across the faces of all those who stood before him.

No one stepped forward. Shirisha broke the silence, and said with concern "The snow is only getting stronger, and night will soon be upon us. We need to find shelter, and we will decide by morning who goes with Sang."

Sang accepted without emotion, and suggested in a similar way: "Back where the nilgai lies is surrounded by more than enough to protect you from the wind and snow. If nothing has yet taken its remains, you can roast them over a fire."

"Will you join us?" Shirisha asked, confused at the way he spoke.

"I will help you with what is needed, but I will be sleeping elsewhere." He effectively ended their brief conversation as he joined the group in retracing their steps, towering over all of them.

They entered once again the small clearing with the nilgai corpse surrounded by strikingly tall trees and rock formations. Much of its blood was now lost and most turned their heads at the morbid sight, save for the hunters who were fully accustomed to such things. Milan and the other three who led the group from the village had brought little in way of carving tools (not expecting to see nilgai at all, much less one killed by a bagha) and so became engaged with gruesome tearing by hand while they shared between them the knife that wounded the animal's original killer.

Sang pointed out which trees would be best suited for firewood, and the place of a nearby stream where Nishita and an older couple could wash everyone's mud-stained footwear. Shirisha watched him as she bound together a spit for roasting the nilgai's entrails, and saw only calm seriousness in his eyes as he oversaw everyone's activity.

Bibek returned with the firewood from a higher cliff, and his experience in his craft showed itself beautifully, creating perfect friction for a flame blazing in seconds. The hunters skewered what parts of the young animal they could salvage, hands still bloody, and once they were cooked, cut and distributed them on leaves in ragged portions.

Everyone was ravenous, having very little to eat in over three days, but still on that first bite they were shocked, realising that this was their first time having any meat at all in almost a year. Shirisha as she typically did sacrificed a bit of her own food to give to someone she thought in more need, and here it was the thirteen year old boy. He wolfed it down with the rest of his food without stopping, and his parents thanked her as she walked away.

Sang, noticing that the dusk light was now becoming a dark orange and people were slowly dozing off, firmly requested back his dagger and walked silently away into the woods.

Shirisha now sat around the fire with the only others awake: Milan, Bibek, Ahupathi, and Ram, facing a decision.

The fire crackled, beginning to dwindle while reflecting the anxiety in all of their eyes. Ram started, saying hurriedly: "We should best decide quickly; whoever is chosen will need a long and proper rest come dawn."

"I can go." Bibek said suddenly, almost without a sense of thought.

Shirisha did not want to crush a willing desire, but she felt deeply against this, especially on the idea of him going on his own. "I do not think so. There is no one else who can kindle and create flame quite so well as you, and as winter comes back to us there is never a time the village has needed that more."

"Not to mention," interjected Ahupathi, "that you made an attempt on his life just today, and though it may have been rash, there is no telling what he thinks of you, and that alone is too much of a risk. I doubt he will trust you, and alone your safety might not be guaranteed."

Bibek looked down for a moment, and then up at Milan. "Maybe you could come with me?"

Milan let out a brief sigh and looked back. "I think not, Bibek. Three would be safer yes, but with fewer people travel becomes faster, and so we should choose only one. No matter how insignificant the change may be, as the ice returns every second is precious. Shirisha's point also stands; your talents are valuable, and the ones back on the mountain need them."

As Bibek looked away, accepting this, Ram spoke up. "What about yourself, Milan? You alone could go with Sang. Not only could you maintain his speed, you proved yourself to think him worthy of forgiveness. I myself could not for the same reason as Bibek, drawing with the intent to kill in my foolish anger, and then saying so myself. Abhiral is out of the question." They glanced over at the sleeping figure against the rocks.

"With the way he feels about Sang, I have little doubt one or both of them would be dead within a day."

Milan looked deep in thought, and seeing this Ahupathi spoke honestly for himself.

"I wish to, but truthfully I am weak, and I fear my weakness now greatly. All my life I have followed, and it was plain to see in that moment after the bagha ran, the moment I left Milan on his own, I was so still I may as well have been dead." He closed his eyes, his face clearly pained. " I recognize what I cannot do, and I do not want to risk it being the downfall of our own people."

Milan seemed to break from his thought, and as he opened them Shirisha saw a deep heaviness in his dark brown eyes.

"I have not told anyone this, although Shirisha may know, but my mother fell ill just two days after Abhinatha fell. I am holding onto hope, but even as I left for this journey she had only gotten worse. I had wished once we completed what we sought out to do, I could return home as soon as I could to see her recover, or at least be there in her final moments. However, if it is I who must go to ensure our best chance of success, then I will not hesitate."

This struck all of them silent, and Shirisha felt a pain in her heart as she recalled the sick woman. Though she had only caught a glimpse, she remembered that the woman hardly moved with her face delirious and doused in sweat.

"No," She said. "I will go."

They all looked at her with eyes wide in surprise, but with the aura they felt from her as she spoke, did not interrupt.

"It is true that I may not be the fastest or most able bodied among us, but I will follow with everything I have in me. Nobody deserves the pain of leaving a parent at the foot of death when there are other paths that can be taken, even in times like this. It will be me."

They saw her now convicted in what she stood for, and in the face of such absolutes agreed with respect.

"Besides," she continued, looking off into the woods where the lone hunter had earlier disappeared, " I do not know what or why, but Sang saw in me something worthwhile enough to throw his own life before mine, and that can never be forgotten." She could see a joyful smile tugging at Milan's face while tears of relief flowed at the reality of returning, which he then moved to wipe away.

"Thank you." was all he said, quickly and with a broken breath. Shirisha nodded with a small smile herself, feeling her own emotions rise up as she saw Milan in such a state. She got up from where she sat on her knees and said "We must rest now. Dampen the flame, and tomorrow I will tell the others what was decided. I wish only that you return home safe, or as safe as you can."

Bibek suffocated the flame with a few quick strokes, and in the fading light of the embers spoke in admiration.

"The best of fortune to you as well."

With that they dispersed silently to sleep, and were left with hazy thoughts about the dawn.