The cold air condensed in front of the young leopard male's mouth and the snow crunched beneath his feet as he walked along the plain. He reached the top of a small hill, then stopped and placed a paw to his forehead in an attempt to shield his eyes from the sun before looking into the distance. There was nothing to see except for snow and the occasional leafless tree.

He turned to his right to look towards his friend, a male black spaniel who had caught up to him. "Do you see anything, Chris?" He asked.

"Nothing, Damon. Tell me again why we are here?" The dog answered before rubbing his paws together in an attempt to warm them up.

"We're here because we're sick of hardtack bread and cabbage soup." Damon snarled back. "There has to be something else out here to eat. Blue wheat, winterberries, even rootspice would be a welcome change."

"As the only things we have found today are tree bark and snow, I think we should go home." Chris sighed. He stopped rubbing his paws together, placed them in front of his muzzle and exhaled into them before rubbing them together again.

Damon let out a sigh of his own; the cold had weakened his resolve as well. "You are probably right. We haven't even seen any snow flurries like the elder said we would."

"He is usually right about such things. Perhaps the years are now catching up to him." Chris said.

"Perhaps." Damon replied. "I wonder why he insisted that we stay in the village, though. Even if there were something to fear from snow flurries, the sky is clear." He said before curiously looking up into the sky.

Chris nodded his head in agreement. "Aye. But those were his words: 'Do not leave the village, snow flurries will be about.' Very odd."

"Hm. It is something we can ponder over yet another bowl of cabbage soup, I suppose. Let's go home." A resigned Damon said. The two furs turned around and started walking down the hill and back the way they came. Damon absent-mindedly looked at the ground in front of him, but the only things to be found there were snow, his friend's footprints, and his shadow...which began to grow.

Instinctively, Damon looked at the sky behind him and gasped at what he saw. A creature was rapidly descending upon them from the sky. It had the body and head of a wolf-person and was nearly as white as the snow except for the gray bat wings that took the place of its arms. Talons several inches long extended from its toes. A loud hiss came from its mouth as it descended talons-first, terrifying Damon and catching the attention of Chris, who turned his head around to find the source of the noise.

"Get down!" Damon exclaimed. The two furs fell to the snow just before the creature swooped over them, its talons futilely grasping at the air when they had just stood.

"What is that thing?" the now-frightened spaniel asked while scrambling to get to his feet.

"Who cares? RUN!" exclaimed Damon. He and Chris began running, following the trail their footsteps had made in the snow. The terrified furs ran for their lives, occasionally looking up to the sky in search of their assailant.

They soon saw an old hare walking towards them, it was the village elder. The old hare's back was slightly hunched, and he walked with the aid of a cane, but his eyes were bright and his mind was sharp. In his free hand he carried a brass horn. Damon and Chris stopped running as they reached him. They both did their best to try to warn him about the creature, but they were both out of breath from running.

"Elder..." gasped Chris.

"Creature..." wheezed Damon.

"I know." The elder calmly acknowledged as he looked up into the sky.

Chris and Damon looked at each other in shock at the elder's indifference to what they felt was a precarious situation. Before either of them could utter another word, the elder spoke again.

"Here it comes," he said, raising his head slightly. Chris and Damon recoiled in horror as they turned and saw the flying creature swooping down towards them again. The elder calmly lifted the horn to his lips, drew in a deep breath, then blew into it has hard as he could.

An ear-splitting noise came from the horn. The creature, clearly finding the sound unpleasant, tried to raise its wings to its ears in response. It quickly spun out of control as it descended, and hit the ground next to the three furs with an awful crunch. The elder stopped blowing into the horn, caught his breath, and then turned to the youngsters, an angry look now on his face.

"Why did you children not heed my warning?" He said, steadying himself in order to poke Chris in the chest with his walking stick. "I told you, to tell him, not to leave the village," said the hare, angrily swatting Damon on the arm with the stick before placing it back on the ground to steady himself.

"I heard you, you said there were snow flurries about," said Chris.

"Yeah, and that is no snow flurry," Damon said, pointing at the creature.

An indignant look came across the elder's face before he angrily shouted: "I didn't say snow flurries! I said SNOW FURIES!!"