[RiDragon]

[Front Gate #1
Word Count #569]

The bright pink colored beast stared curiously at the letter left at the mouth of her cave home.  She didn't even know that anyone was aware she lived here!  Well, seems like they were friendly, since they gave her a note rather than an angry mob.  Jelly wolves weren't too common of a species to see around these parts, and often they were assumed to be monsters.  People tended to fear giant gelatinous creatures that you could faintly see the bones of through slightly transparent skin.  She didn't blame them though, her kind tended to...  Well...  Eat people.  She tried to not do that.  (Unless they wanted to be eaten, or maybe if they needed a temporary hideout from the cold.  Her stomach was actually quite a comfortable place to temporarily stay, and she never digested anyone, promise.)  She popped the note in her mouth and ate it, it sat neatly in her stomach visibly through her jelly-like belly before dissolving.  What?  Littering was wrong and she had no pockets!

Marmalade stretched her set of four jiggly chubby arms and started off towards where the directions lead her.  Luckily, it didn't seem to be too far away!  Every step in the snow she took lead a faintly pink watermelon scented footprint behind her.  The snow never bothered her much, if anything she much preferred the cold, it was so nice to curl up in her cave naturally warmed from the earth, she could just sleep for the entire season it was so comfy!  Good thing she took a moment to check outside though, this little treasure hunt sounded fun!  She hoped there was someone---  er, something she could eat there though.

She was moderately surprised at how large the fence was, which was quite a nice treat for her!  Usually human doors were much too small for her kind.  She pressed against it, not even realizing that it was frozen shut due to her large size and strength.  She carefully stepped inside, alert just in case anyone was around to be afraid of her.  She sniffed deeply at the air, though all that filled her lungs was the chilly air.  She tried to listen for anything, but the snow made everything muffled, almost eerily so.  She felt a shiver run up her spine.  This place felt like it could eat up any possible sound she could make.  She inhaled deeply and hacked up the note that she had eaten earlier, spitting it out onto her hand in a puddle of gloopy pink slime.
She wiped the slime off and gave the note a second look.  No...  Nothing else besides the address, just as she remembered.  She sighed and threw it back into her mouth.  Guess the only way she was going to find out the deal with this place was to explore it.  She wasn't too worried about her safety, being a relatively immortal giant creature, and despite how soft she looked her skin was quite rubbery and hard to break or cause damage to.  She was more worried about getting lost and unable to get back to her nice warm cave...
Oh well, it's been quite a long time since she's really done anything but sleep.  She shrugged her shoulders and looked back at the gate one final time before heading towards the forest, assuming the cottage to be much to small to attempt to get into.

[RiDragon]

[Front Gate #2
Word Count #706]

Marmalade got down on all fours, sniffing at the ground curiously.  She hadn't noticed this before, but there was no scent of life around here.  If she had fur it'd be standing on end!  It seems that this place was almost completely empty.  Was she the only one invited?  Or...  Maybe something happened to the others?  Heck, there weren't even any birds!  Well...  She guessed birds weren't all that common during the colder months anyway.  Maybe she was just being too paranoid.  That forest in the distance though...  It just seemed so empty, like all life was swallowed up by the snow.  The cottage had smoke coming out of it, at least.  Someone had to be there to tend the fire, right?  Maybe she'd take a peek inside just to see after she sniffed around the woods.

[RiDragon]

[Frozen Forest Post #1
Word Count #116]

As she neared the forest she finally noticed the flowers, oh those flowers!  So pretty!  She galloped on all six limbs towards the flowers, sliding to a sudden stop and causing snow to fly everywhere.  Oh, something wasn't quite right here.  Not every tree was a pine tree, for one, but they were still completely green.  But when the wind blew they didn't really move?  She sniffed at the flowers and recoiled slightly.  They were completely frozen!  She chomped down one of them, swallowing it whole without chewing.  Completely and utterly frozen!  It still felt pretty solid in her stomach too.  She ate a couple more of them just in case she would needed them later.

[RiDragon]

[Frozen Forest Post #2
Word Count #301]

She looked behind her to see the tumble of snow she had made running over, but to her surprise it was completely gone!  What happened?  She knew for a fact that she had threw up a bunch of snow when she had slid to a stop.  She stood up and spun around a couple times, but each time she spun it seemed that she was making a completely new set of prints!  What was happening here?  She stood on her hind legs and walked backwards a few paces, watching with confused wonder as her prints filled back up with snow again.  Despite how unnatural this phenomena was, she was actually quite comforted by the weird magical erasure of her prints.  That explained why, even though the letter seemed to be addressed for multiple people, there were no other prints around anywhere.  Much better than having to fight some sort of big and mean snow beast who ate travelers!  She walked backwards more, delighted to watch her prints vanish each time she took another step.  Even after she tripped backwards over a log into a snowpoff.  

[RiDragon]

[Frozen Forest Post #3
Word Count #520]

She blinked snow out of her four sets of eyes and wiggled around in the deep snow she found herself in.  After some effort she was able to roll off her back, and face planted into the snow.  She struggled a bit more before getting herself out all the way, sitting on her haunches and letting out a quick sigh as her tongue lolled out of her mouth and pink glittery drool splashed onto the previously pure white snow.  Wow, that was a lot of effort.  Being a construct of jelly slime and love, she couldn't really run out of energy, but that didn't mean she could feel lazy about putting in too much effort.  She yawned deeply and stretched, phew, if this wasn't such a weird place she might've taken a nap right then.  Actually...  The snow looked really fluffy and comfortable.  Plus some places looked like she could curl up completely under the snow.  Who knows when she'd next get to go somewhere with snow that deep?  She found herself digging into the snow before she even made a conscious decision to do so, sliding her pudgy wiggly body underneath the snow and comfortably curling up underneath.  Above, the snow closed the hole over her and smoothed itself out, making it seem like she was never there.  

[RiDragon]

[Frozen Forest Post #4
Word Count #628]

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Frozen Forest.


"Hellooo-ooooo?"  A high pitched kids voice echoed through the forest.  A girl in a puffy sweater waddled through the thick snow, seemingly unaffected by the chill in the air.  She didn't even show a hint of a shiver or anything.  She paused on her quest to pick a frozen flower and examine it, though she threw it aside after a few seconds.  She didn't seem too concerned at the fact that she was deep in a frozen forest with no way to tell where she came from at all.

[RiDragon]

[Mirrored Lake #1
Word Count #167 ]

The girl interrupted herself before she went to call out again, eyes sparkling with excitement.  A lake!  She's never seen a lake before.  She could just barely see the glitter of it in the distance.  With an excited cry, she started to run towards it, abandoning the path she had been trying to take through the forest.  Though as suddenly as she had started running, she was gone, having fallen into a previously invisible hole in the snow.  Luckily she handed on something squishy and warm!

The creature underneath her let out a snort of surprise, groggily waking up from its sleep.  "Ohh, what time is it...?  Hnnrrr."  She started to fall back asleep before jolting herself back.  "Oh!"  She and the child stared at each other for a good thirty seconds, mirroring each other's head tilts.

The child giggled.  "Hello miss monster!"

"Uh, hello miss little girl?"  the jelly wolf replied with an awkward smile.  She wasn't used to humans being so friendly and not screamy.

[RiDragon]

[Mirrored Lake #2
Word Count #389 ]

The girl scrambled off of her apparent new friend and out onto the solid snow, marmalade following slowly after after a few moments of rocking herself up to a sitting position.  She shook a bit of snow off her head and snorted the rest out of her nose and watched as the little girl bounced off.  With nothing better to do she hefted herself out of the pit she had dug for herself and followed after the girl with her tail up high.

"I'm Mimi!"  The girl said even though she had no way to really know that marmalade was behind her.

"I'm Lady Marmalade, sometimes known as Jelly."

"Nice to meet you miss Jelly!"

The wolf-like creature chuckled warmly in response, though she was still acutely aware that something had to be up for this child to be out here all alone and untouched by frost.  "Are you not cold, little one?"

The girl shrugged.  "Nah!"

Fair enough.  Perhaps humans were more resilient than she thought.  Though the fact the flowers and very trees were basically frozen solid while the girl was fine was a tad off-putting.  She soon realized that the snow was becoming less and less deep as they approached what appeared to be some sort of lake, frozen of course, just like everything else in this forest was.

[RiDragon]

[Mirrored Lake # 3
Section Word Count #570]

Marmalade sat back on her hind legs to watch the little girl play on the crystal clear ice.  She truly looked like she was having so much fun frolicking after the pretty fish that swam just underneath the surface.  Marmalade smiled absently at the cute little one before her mind slowly clicked to a conclusion:

This little girl was playing in the middle of a frozen lake.  A large one.  And she had no idea how deep the water was or thick the ice was.  By the looks of it, it had to be deep enough to comfortably house several large breeds of koi that she knew needed ample space.

Her smile vanished as she scrambled up, moving much faster than one would expect such a pudgy creature could.

"Oh dear.  Little girl!  Little girl!  Oh dear, what's your name?"

"Mimi." She replied, unaware of the dangers of drowning or hypothermia as she chased the pretty koi fish along the surface of the ice.  She didn't even slide or slip at all, despite the flawlessly smooth surface with no visible footholds

[RiDragon]

[Mirrored Lake #4
Section Word Count #741]

Marmalade went stretched out a large paw and placed it softly on the ice before she pulled it back up again.  She knew her heavy weight may just make the whole situation a thousand times worse, maybe even causing the ice to crack open when it otherwise would of been fine with only the lightweight child walking on it.  She gently tested the ice with her weight, to which I groaned in response.  When she took away her paw once more, she could see hairline cracks on its surface, which curiously patched themselves up again.  A couple curious iridescent koi swam around the spot she had stepped, mouths making little Os as if they were begging for food.

She nervously looked back to Mimi, who at this point had quite a few of the presumably magic fish both fleeing and chasing after her in an odd sort of tag.  She hoped that, if the child did fall in, the weird properties of the lake wouldn't close up the gap above her.

[RiDragon]

[Mirrored Lake #5
Section Word Count #862]

With careful steps, the beast slowly inched her way across, each step causing minor cracks to form before fixing themselves as soon as her foot left the surface.  It was not as easy as the child made it seem to walk on the ice.  Luckily the fish's curiousity about the brightly covered creature overtook their playfulness with the girl, which lured her closer to Marmalade.

When Mimi was within reach, Marmalade gently grasped the scruff of her sweater in her teeth, lifting her up like a cat would above the ice as she waddled back to the shore.  The girl didn't protest much, instead enjoying the ride.

"Mmmkay lishle one, lesh go somewhere you can warm uff, you mush be freeshing."

[RiDragon]

[Frozen Forest #5
Section Word Count #925]

Marmalade vaguely remembered seeing a large cabin opposite of the forest, or maybe it was a barn.  Well, it was something large, and it had doors big enough for her to squeeze through, so it had to be good enough for them.  She never had a good sense of direction, but the forest seemed to be done with its tricks for the day, allowing her to travel in a relatively straight line and come to the edge of it far earlier than she remembered walking through it.  Oh well, perhaps the little girl was a good luck charm.  She took a moment to get her bearings, the little girl hanging from her sweater swinging gently and squeaking with glee as she swung along with the beast's head movements.  The gate was where she remembered it, at least, but where would she take the girl if she left?  The next village she knew of was quite far away down a winding road, and judging from the darkening of the sky and the scent in the air, a blizzard was due to roll in any moment.  The little girl would be safe in her stomach, of course, but she didn't want to traumatize the thing.  Yes, her stomach was completely breathable, but it was still filled with fluid, and tended to be quite shocking until it filled the lungs and allowed breath.  The child might not understand that she wasn't truly drowning, or someone could walk in at the worst moment and think she was really trying to eat her.  No, it'd be best to take shelter.  She had been invited here, after all, she had the letter sitting in her gut to prove it!  If anyone asked she'd show them.  If they didn't try to stab her first.

[RiDragon]

[Barn, Post #1
Section Word Count #199]

Her thoughts were interrupted by a rumbling sound from the sky as drops of hail began to bounce off her elastic body.  No use staying out here pondering what to do, this poor kid was gonna catch pneumonia at this rate.  From what she could tell, her feet were pretty wet from the snow and rolling around on the ice, and the wind was going to give the poor thing a chill.  She padded towards what she now realized must've been a barn, which luckily had large doors for horses and such so she didn't need to shimmy herself inside a human-sized door.

She used one paw to open the door and the other to be sure Mimi wouldn't swing around too much (though she seemed to enjoy the swinging,) balancing on her extra two forepaws and hindpaws.  The inside was instant relief from the wind and cold.  She closed the door behind her with her tail and gently plopped Mimi onto a pile of dry hay with a sigh.

"Okay little one, you should be protected from the hailstorm in here."

"Hail won't hurt me!"  The girl said, puffing up her chest as much as she possibly could.