Juhani is so uncertain of where he is going. The forest is like a maze at the best of times, but even more so now that the shadows are jutting across the land in these vast, ugly stripes. They blend with the snow, making it harder to pick out the mounds of snow and keep himself moving in a straight line. Twice, Juhani finds himself walking in circles, encountering his own boot prints again in the snow as proof of his own mistake. It is soul destroying, but he is trying so very, very hard to not lose faith and to keep hope. If he had paid more attention to his father’s lessons, he would be able to use the North Star to get home however he’s never truly learned to navigate by the stars. Right now, he is just moving in an attempt at staying warm and maybe, if his luck turns, he will spot something familiar along the way. Juhani’s luck, as it turns out, is neither very good nor very bad. He does not spot anything that looks familiar, which of course means that there is no quick and easy way to locate the path that will take him home. Earlier, he thought that he saw two bursts of fire in the distance and he ran towards them, certain it was another hunter. The fires had blinked out before Juhani could find them. But the weather does not go sour, the winds die down to an almost eerie stillness, and there are no wolf cries echoing about in warning. His parka is heavy and well lined, the fur lined hood pulled up to keep his face warm and a heavy scarf around his mouth, to protect his bare skin from the frost. Deer leather gloves, also fur lined, keep his fingers from going numb. The only part of Juhani that is exposed to the bitter cold and snow, are his eyes. He keeps stopping to wipe at them with his gloves, clearing the snow from his brows and his lashes. Several times, he presses his palms against the bare skin, trying to make it a little warmer. It’s so cold that it stings and he has no doubts, that the skin has turned a lurid shade of red. 

No sooner had this thought been cemented in Juhani’s mind, the sound of branches cracking under foot echoed through the night air. His turned his head sharply towards the sound. At first, he could not see anything. But then suddenly twin lights peer out of the darkness at him through the forest. They are not eyes. They are burning fires. Juhani stumbles backwards, terrified slamming his shoulders into a nearby tree. Snow tumbles from the branches, directly over him, like a cold heavy blanket. It sends a shudder through him, letting out a startled sound from his cold lips, which he cannot help. The shape baring those twin burning fires, shifts, then it moves. It’s no beast of the night, but an Arctic fox. The creature has fur so white that it blends in with the snow, apart from the very tip of its tail, which is as black as a shadow, with small, grey tufts on each ear. With those foxes eye that seem to burn. The fox seems to be just as startled by Juhani’s presence, as Juhani is by the foxes. The creature screams at him, the sound echoing in the otherwise silent night. Those who have never heard the shrill scream of a fox, will never understand the way that it curdles the blood. It is not fearsome, like the howl of a wolf. Rather, it sounds like a teenage girl, screaming in misery and pain. It makes Juhani think of his own sister back home. His heart skips and thuds about in his chest like thunder claps, like a hammer striking onto wood. The fox lets out another shrill cry, eventually turning and taking off into the night.

Above him, the branches clear and he can see the first slivers of silver starlight peek through onto the snow. The trees are now starting to spread out, making it easier to run faster, now that he doesn’t need to try and navigate the tree trunks and ducking beneath low hanging pine boughs. Then, miracle upon miracle, the trees are simply gone. Juhani finds himself running out into a clearing. There is a small frozen over lake in the centre of the clearing, with a shallow river that runs to, what Juhani thinks, must be the east. Piles of snow now lay upon the surface of the frozen lake, in soft mounds that would be hard to spot if one was moving in a hurry. 

To Juhani’s great surprise, the tracks of the Arctic fox appear to have vanished. If Juhani were thinking rationally, he would think that the fox had crossed over the frozen lake. He was curious to see if he could spot the paw prints on the other side.  Juhani shuffled forward to the icy bank of the frozen lake. He squinted into the darkness to see, but the lake is too wide and the shadows of night too deep, for him to tell if the foot prints resume on the other side. He tries to remember if there are lakes anywhere near where he lives. Has he just been going in the wrong direction this whole time? Fear starts to swell inside of his heart, a great and choking fear. Juhani grabs at the back of his head, fingers curling tightly into the thick fabric of the hood that he’s wearing and he tries to calm himself. He knows that getting upset, will only make surviving that much harder, but the panic still rises inside of him, brewing like an angry storm. A tight knot forms in his throat and he can hardly breathe. With a terrified moan, Juhani finally sinks down onto the ground, crouching there, bent over his own knees. He slams his eyes shut, desperately willing his heart to slow down and his body to cooperate once more. 

The bright silver lights dot through the darkness to either side of the colourful array. The tops of the pine trees cut black jagged shapes onto the horizon. It’s the snow! Turned into brilliant bursts of light by the fox! Never before has Juhani ever seen such a thing and yet he knows exactly what it is.! Suddenly, he knows why that Arctic fox seemed so important. More and more snow is swept into the air by the fox’s tail, as it runs across the clearing and then vanishes into the woods that are opposite the lake. This is how those brilliant green lights were formed and he knows that no one else has ever born witness to such a thing. As Juhani sits beside the frozen lake, lost and cold, hungry and alone, staring up at the lights, he knows this is something he will never forget. The lights are not still. They seem to shimmer and sway above Juhani, casting the oddest sort of glow onto the snow below and onto the surface of the frozen lake.

A word comes to his mind, unbidden: revontulet. Juhani loses track of how long he sits there, staring up at the glow of the lights above him.