Deviation Actions
Literature Text
He shivered as he looked out over the landscape.
In some ways, it was his more than the rest of the world. Sure, everything else belonged to him, too, but his ancestors had once belonged to this place. On his grandfather’s mother’s side, the blood of shamans in this icy north flowed through his veins. So why didn’t it feel that way? Why didn’t he feel at home in the ice and snow and cold the way he did in the heat and fumes and depths?
He sat down on a rock, trying to ignore the way the seat of his coat caught on the ice beneath him. Back from the void and he landed here. Why not a volcano? Why not a tropical paradise not unlike the one where Sonic and he had first met? Even a temperate climate would do; even the old Hilltop—nope, volcanic.
Just thinking of the heat he missed made him colder; he shuddered where he sat. Far off, he could see the faint lights of a village, glaring on the ice and snow before him. Far off, more than three miles away, he could make out some hope for survival.
The question was, could he make it three miles?
The answer was no.
Ivo leaned forward on his knees, crossing his arms over them, sighing. “I can’t believe I’ve come this far just to fail. I should have just stayed in the void.”
“Why? Was it warmer?”
He jumped, and cried out, biting his tongue as he tumbled off the rock and onto his knees. He turned his head and found a figure standing behind him, barely different from the snow around him, just a bit more yellow. He was familiar… He was…
“Bark?”
“So you remember me. And I remember you.” The bear crossed his arms. “What I don’t understand is, why are you here?”
“I wound up here after a… regrettable incident with a time-travelling being.” Ivo felt his eyes shift under his glasses, and hoped Bark couldn’t somehow see it.
“Did you try and use it?”
“No! Of course not!” But under the pressure of the bear’s glare, he finally sighed, “Yes.”
“I should leave you to die.”
Ivo looked up at him. He could just make out his frown in the darkness. He tried to muster the strength to plead, to beg, but he found he lacked the strength. “I should have known it would end like this.”
But then a hand shot out in the dark. “You deserve to go out fighting. Come on. I’ll make some cocoa.”
He stared at the hand, and then looked up into those dark eyes. “You… you would really do this for me? Of all people?”
The bear scowled and shook his head, but his hand stayed in place. “It’s the right thing to do. No matter who you are. Just… do the same, someday. Show some mercy. Pass it on.”
Ivo took Bark’s hand. “I shall try.”
