"Wow, Dad, it's so pretty!"

The snow all around them absorbed Aira's voice as she called out to her father. Her head turned upwards, taking in the dancing hues of green and blue and violet up above—a beautiful light show to celebrate the end of the year, and the coming of the new one. She had never seen anything like it before—the sky was so dark where she came from, and the high canopies of gnarled branches and black-purple leaves usually blocked it from view, anyway, even when the moon was out.

"I told you so," Gale said, coming up behind his daughter to scoop her up in his arms. She shrieked with laughter and nuzzled into the thick blue fur at his neck, seeking out his warmth in the cold. "Does your old man deliver, or what?"

"Or what!" Aira said, giggling. She turned in her father's hold and pointed up at the sky, where the first little snowflakes of the evening were just beginning to fall. "Look, daddy, it's snow-wing again."

"So it is." Gale smiled. "We're going to have to get used to that now, won't we?"

He set Aira back down on the ground, and she toddled over to where a snowflake was about to land, sticking out her tongue to catch it just like he taught her. "Yah, but that'th okay," she said, speaking around her stuck-out tongue. The snowflake floated in the air before landing on her nose and melting away, and even though she hadn't caught it like she'd meant to, Aira giggled. "I love the snow."

Gale walked over to his daughter, and crouched down low to look her in the eye.

"Do you know who else loved the snow?" he asked, and Aira looked at him with her big, shiny yellow eyes.

"Who?"

"Grandma."

Aira gasped, her paws flying to her face. "She did?"

"Yep." Gale smiled and looked up at the sky, past the branch of a nearby tree that an icicle was hanging off of, half-chipped away. "We didn't get snow very often in the Haunted Woods, so I think she would be happy to know that we'll get it every day here in Happy Valley."

"Is that why we moved here?"

Aira moved closer, leaning against her father's leg. When he looked down, he saw her face turned down into the snowbank they stood near, her ears drooping back. She hadn't wanted to leave the Haunted Woods at first—the only place she had ever known, where all her friends were, and where so many of Gale's own friends had wandered away from once they realised the world outside their home was safe and welcoming.

He put a paw on Aira's head and ruffled her fur gently, giving her a warm smile when she looked back up at him with her big, curious eyes.

"I know it was scary to leave the Haunted Woods," Gale said, stroking back the fur on his daughter's head, "but there are so many wonderful, amazing things out in the world to discover, from the tippy-top of Terror Mountain to the deepest depths of Maraqua—and all of those things are waiting for you."

"Like snow?"

"Yes," Gale said. "Just like snow."

Aira smiled. "Do you think Grandma Evelia would have liked to live on Terror Mountain with us too, Daddy?"

Gale closed his eyes, and remembered the smile on his mother's face as she threw snowball after snowball day at him, then fell back into the snow and laughed while she waved her arms back and forth on the ground.

"Do you think it snows in other places, Mom?" Gale asked her, shaking out his soaking-wet fur and rolling to rest on her chest.

"I'm sure it does, Gale," his mother said, turning her yellow eyes to the sky. Her chipped-fang smile grew as she ruffled his fur, and Gale found himself mirroring her. "And who knows? Maybe one day we'll get to see it."

Gale opened his eyes. His mother was no longer smiling at him from down below, but that was okay—his daughter was beaming up at him, her own sparkling yellow eyes filled with excitement and joy.

"Yes, little bug," Gale said. "I'm sure she would have loved it."