Boomer stepped over his father's corpse without ceremony, flippers already methodically stripping the hut of anything useful—copper wiring from the walls, salvageable tools from beneath frozen fish carcasses, the last of the medicinal alcohol his mother had distilled before coughing her lungs out two winters prior. The defibrillator's sparking wires coiled around his forearm like a viper as he moved, its residual charge humming against his blubber in warning pulses that matched the distant cracks of shifting ice floes outside.
His father's navy memorabilia—tarnished medals and a gutted submarine compass—became Boomer's final salvage operation. The walrus worked with methodical detachment, flippers dismantling wartime relics into a makeshift navigation device, its rusted needles recalibrated to point toward distant city lights flickering like false stars beyond the tundra's edge. He left the defibrillator's smoking carcass beside his father's still warm body—not as a grave marker, but as a final schematic for anyone desperate enough to repurpose it.
The journey north wards to the Kingdom of Acorn's capital was an exercise in calculated endurance—Boomer's flippers carved precise paths through glacial crevices while his makeshift sled, assembled from dismantled fishing gear and whalebone struts, groaned under the weight of scavenged electronics. Each night beneath the auroras, he recalibrated his stolen compass with meticulous patience, its needle twitching erratically before settling toward distant spires that pulsed like infected wounds against the horizon.
By the third week, he had to kill four people who had tried to take his sled—not out of malice really, but necessity, his flippers moving with the same detached precision as when he'd dismantled their weapons beforehand. Their bodies made useful insulation against the wind; their gear became spare parts lashed to the sled's reinforced frame.
The auroras painted their frozen faces violet and green as Boomer adjusted the compass needle—now repurposed from a gutted pocket watch—toward the capital's electric glow. His sled's runners bit into wind carved ice with the same surgical precision his flippers had once applied to dismantling fishing traps, each groove a calculated rebellion against the tundra's endless white.
Behind him, the corpses of opportunistic scavengers slumped against the sled's reinforced whalebone framework, their frozen limbs protruding at angles that suggested interrupted violence rather than peaceful rest. Boomer adjusted the stolen parka around his shoulders—its lining now insulated with stripped wiring and scavenged circuit boards—before pressing onward through the screaming wind.
The capital's distant glow pulsed like a malfunctioning reactor core, its artificial luminescence cutting through the blizzard with predatory persistence, drawing him closer with each methodical push of his sled through the accumulating snowdrifts. Boomer's flippers ached with the kind of deep, marrow deep cold that no amount of scavenged insulation could fully mitigate, but the pain was secondary—just another variable to account for, like the way his father's corpse had stiffened before he'd dragged it outside, or the precise angle needed to repurpose a whalebone rib into a sled runner.
The city's silhouette grew jagged against the horizon, its spires clawing at the blizzard choked sky like the frozen fingers of giants buried beneath the ice. Boomer's flippers tightened around the sled's repurposed steering mechanism—whalebone levers threaded with copper wire—as the first outpost guards materialized from the snowstorm, their rifles glinting with the same dull sheen as his father's old seal gutting knives.
Their voices barked distorted commands through the wind, but Boomer didn't slow, didn't raise his flippers—just let the sled's momentum carry him forward while his other flipper hovered near the jury-rigged ignition switch wired to the sled's concealed fuel reserves. The guards' silhouettes loomed larger, their frost rimed rifles swinging up in sluggish arcs, their breath fogging the scopes as they squinted at the hulking shadow barreling toward them through the blizzard. Boomer's flipper tightened on the switch—not yet—counting the snowflakes between their staggered footfalls until the lead guard's boot crunched through a hidden ice crust three paces ahead.
The closer he got to the city, the more disappointing it looked—spires that had gleamed like polished teeth from a distance now revealed themselves as pitted metal towers crusted with industrial grime, their surfaces weeping rust streaks that stained the snow below the color of old blood. Boomer's flippers twitched toward the makeshift detonator concealed beneath his sled's cargo netting—not out of fear, but calculation—as the first guards' silhouettes resolved into gaunt faces pinched with malnutrition beneath their fur-lined helmets.
Their rifles trembled in their grip, muzzles dipping toward the ground as Boomer's sled carved through the snow like a blade through flesh—slow, deliberate, inevitable. He didn't raise his voice or flippers, didn't sneer or bare tusks—just let the sheer mass of his presence do the talking, his silhouette swallowing the weak torchlight from their outpost.
The lead guard's throat bobbed as Boomer's shadow draped over him, pressing down like the weight of glacier ice, and when the walrus finally spoke, his voice was a bass rumble that vibrated through their ribcages: "You're in my way." Not a request. Never a request. Never again.
The guards scrambled aside like startled seals, their boots skidding on ice as Boomer's sled rolled forward with the inevitability of a glacier calving. His shadow stretched long and jagged across the checkpoint barricade—improvised from rusted oil drums and barbed wire—its edges dissolving into the blizzard like ink dispersing in turbulent water.
The walrus didn't acknowledge their compliance; his gaze remained fixed on the capital's flickering skyline, where refinery flames licked at the underside of low hanging smoke clouds, and the smell of burning rubber and overcooked fish oil thickened the air.
One rookie guard—too young to know better—stepped forward with a stammered demand for identification papers. Boomer's massive head turned with the precision of a siege engine locking onto its target, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled the scent of the boy's fear—sweat and cheap soap beneath a threadbare uniform. Without speaking, he reached into his parka with deliberate slowness, his flipper emerging not with documents, but with a gutted radio transmitter—its wiring exposed like veins beneath skin—and pressed it into the guard's trembling hands.
The boy's fingers convulsed around the gutted transmitter, its exposed wiring biting into his palms like live nerves as Boomer's shadow loomed darker—a living eclipse swallowing the feeble torchlight. The walrus exhaled through his nostrils, slow and deliberate, the warm gust carrying the scent of tundra frost and soldered copper over the guard's face. "Fix it," he rumbled, the command vibrating through the boy's ribcage with tectonic finality. Not kindness—never kindness—just the brutal efficiency of a force of nature redistributing resources.
Behind him, the veteran guards froze mid-reach for their sidearms, their spines locking at the subsonic harmonics in Boomer's growl. He didn't turn to acknowledge their paralysis; his tusks glinted as he tilted his head toward the capital's smog choked spires, where refinery flames painted his cornea in streaks of molten copper.
The rookie's breath hitched—a wounded seal pup sound—as the walrus' shadow expanded across the snow, its edges dissolving the checkpoint's flimsy barricades into irrelevance. Boomer's flipper twitched—not toward weapons but to adjust the makeshift respirator hanging from his sled, its filters scavenged from dead men's gas masks—before exhaling through his nostrils in a plume of frost that carried the scent of ozone and tundra lichen over the trembling guard.
The rookie's fingers trembled around the gutted radio, his breath hitching as Boomer loomed over him—not with the explosive wrath of his father, but with the implacable weight of a glacier pressing down on bedrock. The veteran guards' weapons remained frozen in their holsters, their instincts screaming that any movement might trigger catastrophic collapse. Boomer's nostrils flared as he inhaled the rookie's fear—sweat-slick palms and adrenaline-sour breath—before exhaling a plume of frost that carried the scent of tundra lichen and something darker, something that made the boy's pupils dilate like a seal spotting an orca's silhouette beneath thin ice.
"Fix it," the walrus repeated, the command vibrating through the checkpoint with the seismic inevitability of tectonic plates shifting—not cruelty, but the brutal calculus of survival in a world where broken things either function or become spare parts.
Beyond the barricades, the capital's refinery flames painted Boomer's tusks in molten gold as he turned toward the smog choked skyline, his shadow stretching across the snow like a continent breaking free from glacial shackles. The rookie guard's hands still trembled around the gutted transmitter, its exposed wiring biting into his palms—not enough to draw blood, but sufficient to imprint obedience through discomfort Boomer deemed merciful compared to the alternatives.
His flippers adjusted the sled's cargo netting with mechanical precision, calculating weight distribution and concealed detonator triggers while his gaze remained locked on the rookie's trembling fingers. The boy's pulse visibly throbbed in his throat—a frantic drumbeat of survival instinct—as Boomer's shadow seeped into the frozen ground beneath them, its edges dissolving the checkpoint's feeble authority like acid on rust.
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Wind carried the scent of scorched synth-marble and something earthier: Northern Baronies beetroot simmering in a rusted drum as Sector 7's displaced children clustered around the flames. Buns' stiffening fingers twitched, recalling frostbitten mornings spent digging tubers from irradiated soil while Uncle Beauie's cough rattled the barn walls.
It was so cold, yet so hot, in all the wrong ways that was her life—Buns Rabbot's life—bent over the rusted drum as Sector 7's wind whipped through her tattered dress, pressing fabric against the jagged edges of her half broker limbs. The Northern Baronies' beetroot simmered like old blood in the drum's depths, its stench clinging to her fur like her uncle's cough had clung to his lungs.
She flexed her fingers—an erratic twitch—and tried not to think of how she almost certainly couldn't keep going anymore.
But she had to escape, the capital of the Kingdom of Acorn—Maxxopolis, had to be better than this wasteland, surely.
Buns' left ear flicked at the distant staccato of gunfire—not the erratic pop of scavenger skirmishes, but the disciplined bursts of royal patrols sweeping the outer slums.
It all only intensified as wind whipped embers from the makeshift fire, carrying sparks toward the skeletal remains of a collapsed transit hub where refugee children slept piled together for warmth. Someone whimpered in their sleep—a high, thin sound that made Buns' hackles rise—and she resisted the urge to kick the drum over, to watch the boiling beetroot spill across frozen concrete like the blood that had pooled around Uncle Beauie's body when the slavers came.
The patrol's searchlights carved jagged paths through Sector 7's ruins, their beams catching on the exposed rebar of gutted buildings and the glassy eyes of children too exhausted to flee. Buns' fingers clenched around the drum's edge, her blunt claws scoring rust as she calculated trajectories—escape routes mapped between collapsing structures, the timing of patrol rotations, the way Sergeant Simmer's prosthetic leg dragged through ash piles near the old textile mill.
Her half damaged limbs whined with every subtle shift, gears grinding against makeshift repairs, but she remained statue still beneath her tattered cloak—letting the patrol's searchlights skim over her without pause. The lieutenant's boots crunched through frozen sewage runoff a meter from her hiding spot, his breath fogging the air in ragged bursts. Buns tracked the tremor in his grip around the rifle stock—fatigue or withdrawal, she couldn't tell—but filed the weakness away alongside a dozen other vulnerabilities cataloged since dawn.
She had to get to Maxxopolis—had to—before her limbs failed completely, before another patrol found her curled in the ruins like a broken marionette. But first, she needed bait. The drum's simmering beetroot stank like old pennies and desperation, but the smell would carry farther than she dared to move.
Buns scooped a handful into a scavenged tin can, her claws denting the metal with calculated force—just enough to mimic the sound of a foraging animal, not enough to draw the lieutenant's twitchy attention. The patrol's searchlights swung westward as she lobbed the can into a collapsed storefront, its contents splattering across frost-cracked tile with a wet slap that echoed like a gunshot in the frozen silence.
The lieutenant's rifle snapped toward the noise, his squad pivoting with drilled precision even as their exhaustion showed in the way their boots scuffed against ice-slick rubble. Buns exhaled through her nose—slow, controlled—counting the seconds until the patrol fanned out toward the decoy, their silhouettes shrinking against the refinery's sulfury yellow glare.
Her remaining function in her limbs sputtered like a dying engine, but Buns pushed forward—each step a mechanical rebellion against the patrol's tightening perimeter. The lieutenant's silhouette loomed against the refinery flames, his rifle jerking at shadows cast by her deliberately placed distractions.
She inhaled through her respirator that she found, tasting ozone and the metallic tang of her own failing hydraulics, and calculated the precise moment to emerge from the ruins—not as prey, but as something far more unsettling. The patrol would expect desperation, pleading, or at worst, a half starved ambush from the dark—they weren't prepared for the slow, deliberate way she rose from the rubble, her cloak drifting like smoke from her shoulders, revealing limbs that whirred and sparked with every calculated movement.
Her eyes locked onto the lieutenant's dilated pupils, holding his gaze with the kind of stillness that made his rifle tremble; she didn't advance, didn't speak, just waited for his subconscious to fill the silence with every horror story he'd ever heard about Sector 7's discarded prototypes. His squad's radios crackled with static—deliberate interference from her scavenged transmitters—as she tilted her head with the mechanical precision of a predator noting a twitch in prey.
The lieutenant swallowed hard, his pulse jumping visibly in his throat as Buns' optics refocused with a whirring click—deliberately audible, deliberately *inhuman*. She didn't blink; her gaze remained fixed, unblinking, as the rest of the squad shifted uneasily behind their leader, their boots scuffing against frost heaved concrete.
One recruit's fingers twitched near his sidearm, but Buns' head tilted just slightly—a fractional movement that made his breath hitch—and his hand froze mid-reach. The lieutenant's pupils dilated further, his rifle muzzle dipping toward the frozen ground as she exhaled a thin stream of vapor through her respirator, each wisp curling like smoke from a cooling barrel. She let them absorb the implications of her stillness—how she calculated their every micro-expression with the precision of a sniper calibrating windage—before stepping forward.
Not aggressively mind you—no sudden jerks—just a single, deliberate movement that made the lieutenant stumble back into his own men, their armor clattering like dropped scrap metal. Her claw tips hitched faintly as they extended, millimeter by millimeter, the sound synchronized with the lieutenant's ragged breathing. She smelled it then—the sharp tang of his fear, the sour note of bladder control failing—and tilted her head further, letting the refinery flames catch the unnatural gleam of her eyes.
"Easy," she murmured, softer than snowfall but with the weight of a collapsing glacier. The lieutenant flinched as if lashed. Buns flexed her claws—not fully, just enough to make the bones hiss—and watched his throat bob like a hooked fish. She could've torn through them all in less than six minutes.
And she did, for she had to be feral—had to—because gentleness in Sector 7 was measured in millimeters between survival and slaughter. Buns' claws retracted with a hydraulic sigh as the patrol's lieutenant finally wet himself, the dark stain spreading down his fatigues in real time. She inhaled sharply through her respirator, tasting ammonia and cowardice, before turning away—not in retreat, but in dismissal—her damaged limbs carrying her past their frozen formation with the indifference of a storm bypassing insignificant obstacles.
The refinery's sulfur glow painted her silhouette in feverish hues as she limped toward Maxxopolis' outer districts, her gait uneven but deliberate. Behind her, the lieutenant's squad remained statue still, their training overwritten by primal terror at the thing that had assessed them and found nothing worth killing. Buns' internal instincts flickered—a warning of imminent body failure—but she ignored it, focusing instead on the distant hum of the capital's energy grid, its vibrations resonating through her compromised limbs like a lullaby.