Chapter Text
December 2 - 1955
Icy cold air bites Hellboy’s skin even after he enters the right hand passenger seat of a powder blue Moskvitch 400-420. His thick tail reflexively curls around his waist, the tip twitching each time his skin hits the frigid leather seats. He shudders, cursing under his breath and rubbing his gloved left hand against the wool-lined pants his dad had insisted he wear despite his protests. Thanks dad.
The car’s driver is nowhere to be found for the time being, leaving Hellboy to sit shivering and contemplating if this is even the right car. Or the right town. Or the right city. He’d at least seen a sign for “Inari” on the walk here. Hopefully that was the right “I” place. After the third or fourth unbelievably long string of place names with too many Ts and Äs he’d given up on trying to understand the specifics of where he was headed. This was probably right, though. How many powder blue Moskvitch 400-420’s with a dinged up hood and a “LI-990” license plate could be driving around Lapland?
A gust of wind hits Hellboy, stinging his face past the fur lined hood of his winter coat and causing him to wince. His right hand shoots up to shield him, the red stone grinding against itself as it opens up to block the assault of snowflakes and miniature ice knives.
“Huohh.. Kylmä ulkona häh?” The car door slams shut and keys jingle loudly as they’re fumbled into the ignition, engine roaring to life after a few turns. The heating, unfortunately, does not. Hellboy lowers his stone hand back into his lap, looking his driver up and down.
The man to his left looks back at him with cold grey eyes set above bags so dark they could blot out the sun. His hollow cheeks puff out as he chews the end of an extinguished cigar, yellowed teeth occasionally visible between thin lips. His straggly, ash blond hair tumbles out of a seal-grey ushanka and down over the hood of his dusty blue winter coat. He’s practically swimming in his winter wear, black pants bunched up and the knees and ankles, sleeves scrunched around his elbow and shoulder. Even his boots, brown and scuffed, look a few sizes too big. If it weren’t for the tinge of red across his sharp nose and prominent cheekbones, Hellboy could’ve sworn the man was devoid of most, if not all, color.
Tobacco falls from the man’s lips as he continues to chew away at the un-lit cigar, staring straight at Hellboy as if expecting something from him. Hellboy blinks.
“Kylmä ulkona… häh?” He repeats, sweeping the fallen tobacco from his lap.
“Oh- uhh. Sorry guy. I don’t speak Finnish.” Damn. Hellboy really should’ve paid more attention during his briefing.
“Yhhh,” The man rolls his eyes, “The Bureau really just sends anyone now don’t they?”
“Look buddy you asked for help. You want me to help you or not?”
The man’s feverish chewing of his cigar slows as he lets out a deep sigh, slumping back in the driver’s seat and letting his coat crumple around him as he stares out through the windshield. He stays like this for a moment, unmoving, before pushing himself back up straight and turning to face Hellboy again.
“I did. Veli-Matti Hakanpää. I don’t know if your little case file thing told you what you were here for but I can explain on the way.”
“Probably did. I lost track after the fourth town.”
Veli-Matti lets out another sigh, this time quick and sharp, and starts to drive. More wind batters the roof and sides of the little car and the ice rakes its claws across the windshield, just barely driven back by the rhythmic beating of the wiper blades. Hellboy shivers again, breath coming out in a dense white cloud.
“Jeez. Would it kill you to turn up the heat?”
“Yes.”
Veli-Matti reaches under the dashboard and turns a knob. A few seconds pass before warm air hisses from the thin, horizontal, rectangular vents. Hellboy sighs, stretching his gloved left hand out towards the metal vents and letting the warmth envelop it as he flexes his fingers. He hadn’t realized they were so numb until now, the dull pain throbbing in his joints drawing his attention to just how cold he’d been. Veli-Matti doesn’t seem to notice. Even if he’s noticed, he doesn’t seem to care.
“Right, what’s the situation again?” Hellboy’s breath leaves his mouth again, cloudless and clear.
“There’s a monster in the woods. It Keeps killing off anyone who goes out for firewood or hunting. Started back in august and we all thought it was a bear, but it’s still killing and all the bears are asleep. Killing more now too. And we can’t kill it.” Veli-Matti resumes his frantic cigar chewing, bits of tobacco and brown wrapper falling from the corners of his mouth. “So we were hoping you could.”
“Hold it. We?” Hellboy frowns, tail flicking in his lap. “Who’s ‘we’? I thought I was only meeting one guy.”
“My cousin Jyri. He saw it last. He tried to kill it last. We’re meeting him.”
“Great…”
Hellboy turns to the car window, watching mountain after mountain of snow whip past and turn the world into a white blur. The landscape, previously dotted with precious few houses, transitions into an icy desert, then quickly into dense forest as a line of trees approaches the car in frontal assault. Veli-Matti turns sharply and skids through the snow until the car is parallel to the treeline, causing Hellboy’s stomach to lurch.
The car’s tires settle back on to the ground, driving forward again on a long path in the snow, clearly hand-cleared by someone. Veli-Matti flicks on the headlights, illuminating everything ahead in warm yellow. It’d be beautiful if it wasn’t all just snow, snow, and more snow.
Hellboy sighs, returning his gaze to the windshield. The sky had gone from grey but bright to black in the time they’d been driving, snow still falling and wind still driving against the icy ground and car windows just as hard as before. It was a wonder the little car had even made it this far, what with the weather and Veli-Matti’s less-than-careful driving.
The greyish white snow-covered roof of a log cabin peeks up from over the slow incline they’d been on for the past few minutes, warm light spilling out onto the snow, illuminating the front and side yards in a glow not dissimilar to the car’s headlights. As they approach the cabin, Veli-Matti pulls his foot off of the gas and lets the car drift slowly to a stop a few meters from the front porch. A mid-sized dog with ginger fur and a curled tail lifts its head, letting out a few loud barks until Veli-Matti turns off and exits his car, holding his arms out.
“Nuusku! Tule tänne! Joo!” He exclaims, voice pitching higher as the ginger dog comes running over to greet him. “Hyvä tyttö! Hyvä tyttö Nuusku! Missä Jyri on?”
The ginger dog, Nuusku as Hellboy understands it, batters her front paws against Veli-Matti’s waist a few times before pushing off of him, running in three or four circles, and bounding up the steps to the porch to bark loudly at the front door. Veli-Matti turns back and waves to him, motioning for him to leave the car.
Hellboy groans, bracing himself for the bitter cold as he steps out of the Moskvitch, pushing the door shut with the index of his right hand and trudging through the snow to meet Veli-Matti and Nuusku on the porch. Even though he’s wrapped them, his hooved feet sting from the cold by the time he’s crossed the two meter stretch of snow and clambered onto the wooden porch deck. Nuusku barks a few more times, wagging her curled tail and staring intently at the door. Veli-Matti continues to chew his cigar, now down to the last quarter of it.
“You got any more of those?”
“Häh?”
“Cigars.”
“Aa. I do.” Veli-Matti pulls another, blessedly unchewed, cigar from one of the internal pockets of his dusty blue winter coat and hands it over to Hellboy. “I don’t have a lighter though. You’ll have to light it yourself. Or just chew it.”
“That’s fine.” Hellboy reaches into the left outer pocket of his trench coat, thrown over his winter coat as a last minute addition, and pulls out a lighter. He brings his right hand up to shield it from the wind, pressing the flat stone fingers together to create an impenetrable barrier and clicking the lever a few times with his left until the lighter sparks into a small orange-blue flame. He lights the tip of the cigar, clicking the metal lighter cap closed, and puts his hand down only to be met by the sharp blue-eyed glare of another, somehow more disheveled looking man.
The second man is a bit taller and thicker than Veli-Matti, shoulders and chest bearing the evidence of years of manual labor. His hair, the same ash blond as Veli-Matti, is buzzed short to his head and connects to a beard of similar length. He frowns, scratching the back of his neck from underneath his knit red sweater.
“You light it wrong.” He says, sucking air through his teeth and turning to Veli-Matti as Nuusku trots inside. “Toit minulle hiisin joka ei osaa edes tupakoida?”
“Jaa en myöskään osaa tupakoida, Jyri.” Veli-Matti rolls his eyes, patting Nuusku a few times on the back before inviting himself inside. Nuusku trots in happily and promptly sits by the roaring fireplace that Hellboy can see past Jyri’s shoulder.
Jyri doesn’t move from the doorway, chewing on his lower lip as he squints at Hellboy. His nose, less sharp than his cousin’s, wrinkles in what could either be disgust, anger, or vague displeasure. One side of his mouth twists and wrinkles with scarring that carries up his right cheek, ending right underneath his eye. The other side is perfectly normal and set in an unreadable scowl. The way his pale blue eyes roam Hellboy so smoothly, like a cat considering a particularly plump mouse, sends a shiver down his spine. Or maybe that was just the cold.
“I’m usually a cigarette guy.” Hellboy breaks the silence around his cigar, pulling the thick smoke into his mouth and pushing it out with his next breath. “I know you’re supposed to use matches or something fancy like that for cigars, but I've gotta stick with what I have on hand.”
“Höh…” Jyri sighs, shaking his head slowly. “The devil is at my home and he is making a joke.”
“Can I come in or not?”
“Kyllä.” Jyri relinquishes his sentry station at the front door and motions Hellboy inside, shutting and locking it behind him. His scuffed leather hunting boots clop across the wooden floorboards louder than Hellboy’s hooves as he stomps his way to the kitchen.
Hellboy stands in the living room for a moment, taking careful drags of his cigar and letting the smoke circle his head as he tries to gauge where to sit. Veli-Matti has taken up roost in a worn out canvas chair, there’s another empty chair, wooden this time, sitting on the adjacent corner of the woven yarn rug featuring red and blue plant motifs that covers the center of the floor. Then there’s the decidedly more modern brown couch with a pair of snowshoes leaned against one of the arms and some scratches indicating the presence of a cat. There’s one throw pillow on the couch with what looks like a fox embroidered badly on the surface, and a thick elk-hide sewn to plush fabric that seems to be serving as a blanket.
Hellboy shuffles the elk-hide blanket aside and takes a seat on the couch end closest to the fire. Nuusku, previously content with her place by the fire, gets up and trots over to the couch. She hops onto the thick fabric, shakes a few times, and then settles down right in the crook between Hellboy’s thigh and the back of the couch, placing her muzzle directly on his lap and looking up at him with big, brown, expectant eyes.
“Cute dog.” Hellboy lifts his right arm and rests it gingerly on Nuusku’s back, scratching behind her ears with the rectangular tip of one of his stone fingers.
“Yes. She is a Finnish spitz. They are for very good hunting, you know. Have a long tradition for it.” Jyri replies tersely, walking quickly back into the living room and setting down three ceramic mugs and a pot of black coffee. He pours it evenly into all three cups in one fluid motion and continues to talk as he keeps house. Putting the pot back in the kitchen, kicking off his shoes, and returning with a tray of pastries and cured meat.
“Hunting living things anyway. Nuusku is very good with duck and elk but when she is sent to hunt a thing who does not die, then she is not good.”
“Which is why we called you up here.” Veli-Matti butts in, having finished chewing his cigar just in time to chase it down with plain black coffee. “I don’t have all the worries my cousin has about it being you specifically. And I came off harsh in the car, I know. But we’ve been trying to kill this thing for months now and it just keeps coming back.”
“It is drive away the game and make my food rot.” Jyri scowls, seating himself in the wooden chair and grabbing a pastry. “Not any good.”
“That too. Hunting and harvesting was terrible this year. I’m lucky to live closer to a major city, but people like Jyri can’t afford to not have a good hunting season.”
“Sounds like a tough case.” Hellboy pats Nuusku a few times, grabbing one of the pastries and taking out his cigar to crunch down on the thin rye crust and cheesy, potato filled center. Hot damn.. It’s delicious. “You guys got a name for this thing?”
“Hiiden Hirvi. Hiisi’s Moose.” Jyri punctuates his answer with a loud sip from his coffee.
“And you know anything about it aside from the whole immortal schtick?”
“Jaa-a… it’s not alive. Kind of.” Veli-Matti huffs, swiping the last pastry. “If the verses of the Kalevala are accurate, it’s a construct made by Hiisi from a ton of wood and plants, mostly punkwood. And if the not so Kalevala bits are accurate, it drives hunters insane and has them die from exhaustion or kill themselves. It’s just there to chase. Weird that it’s killing non-hunters though.”
“And it is evil.” Jyri adds.
“We don’t know that.”
“It is from Hiisi, it is evil.”
“Yhhh fine.” Veli-Matti sighs, placing his empty mug on the center table, a little thing carved from spruce wood. He turns to Hellboy, picking little pieces off of his pastry to eat between words. “We won’t send you out there unprepared and tired tonight. You’ll stay here with us until tomorrow so you can hunt in daylight, right Jyri?”
Jyri shrugs, drumming his fingers on the arm of the wooden chair. “Kunhan hän ei houkuttele lisää hiidet.”
“He’s not going to.”
“Not gonna what?” Hellboy sets down his half-finished mug of black coffee and sticks his cigar between his lips again.
“Bring more hiidet. Multiple of hiisi.” Jyri purses his lips. “I do not want your brothers here.”
“Whoa bud, I'm not one of your weird evil spirits.” Hellboy raises his hands. “I’m just a guy.”
Jyri rises from his seat, approaching Hellboy slowly as his voice gets louder and louder. His blue eyes burn a hole through Hellboy’s skull, scouring his mind and soul. Nuusku whimpers and hops off the couch, rushing to a different room
.
“You have horns that you file close and hooves on your feet. Your eyes glow with fire. You are red. You have a tail that curl behind you and fangs in your mouth. I do not know who you think you fool but not me .” He hisses. “The only reason I trust you is because you agree to kill the monster in our woods. And I home you because my cousin insists I do. If it was my choice you would be captured and banished back to your maker.”
“I told you. I’m not your evil spirit. You’ve got the wrong guy.” Hellboy stands up, huffing cigar smoke. Jyri flinches but doesn’t back down, now staring up at the towering half-demon.
“You are the vessel of Liekki! You hold what burns our woods!” Jyri shouts, growing frantic. “I will not let you bring your brothers here!”
“That thing you’re talking about isn’t my brother!”
“JYRI.” Veli-Matti shouts. Dead silence follows. Jyri turns and stares at Veli-Matti who points to the dirty dishes left on the table. “Stop harassing him and take these to the kitchen. He’s here to help.”
Jyri huffs, but moves away from Hellboy, gathering the empty tray and mugs and moving swiftly to the kitchen. Veli-Matti sighs deeply, unzipping his winter coat and tossing it over his chair as he stands. He tugs at his white and orange sweater a few times to free it from clinging to his rail thin torso, and turns to Hellboy.
“Sorry about Jyri. I’ll show you to your room.” He ushers Hellboy along.
Hellboy follows Veli-Matti to the back of the house, taking in the decorations. A taxidermy deer here, A pile of bones there. Wood carvings of forest animals, piles of books, and hung tapestries. A 5 looped symbol is carved into the top of each doorway, sharp and angular and clearly done with a knife not meant to cut wood. The doorway to the room Hellboy’s staying in is no exception.
“Hey,” Hellboy says, taking the still burning nub of his cigar out of his mouth and putting it out on his hand before tucking it into his tan trench coat pocket. “What’s the deal with the symbols?”
“Protection.” Veli-Matti answers, leaning into the closet and returning with arms full of blankets. Some factory made, some animal hide stitched to fleece. He throws them on the bed, not big enough for Hellboy but it’ll have to do, haphazardly followed by a few pillows. There’s another one of the symbols, this time a tapestry, hung up on the wall next to a few other paintings mostly depicting scenery. A lake with ducks. A forest at misty sunrise. A swamp with a few fallow deer grazing peacefully at the water’s edge. All done in watercolor and tacked to the wall with nails.
“Jyri’s paranoid. He’s always been a little off. A little bit skittish. He always believed in this sort of supernatural stuff way more than me.” Veli-Matti laughs, hollow and weak. “Halvattu… I didn’t even believe him when he told me the thing in the woods was Hiiden Hirvi until I saw it myself.”
“Right…” Hellboy ducks through the doorway and into his temporary quarters, sloughing off his trenchcoat and hanging it over a bedpost. He unzips his thick, black winter jacket, throwing that over a chair with his tank top and glove soon following. His hoof wraps, bands of pliable leather, join his jacket and tank top. His belt of supplies, bullets, rosaries, a small knife, a few coins, a horseshoe, and various other banishing components, goes over the foot of the bed next to his trench coat.
Veli-Matti sticks his hands in the pockets of his winter pants, only drawing one out to flick his ash blond hair out of his eyes. When Hellboy is done taking his gear off, Veli-Matti turns to leave the room but lingers in the doorway, scuffing one boot back and forth across the floor.
“I’ll have a talk with him.” He says, staring out into the hallway. “He’s freaked out because the damned thing almost got him, so he’s yelling at you about it. He knows you’re here to help.”
“I don’t appreciate all the hiisi demon whatever talk. I know how I look but jeez. You’d think he’d be able to tell me apart from some rotting wood moose.” Hellboy laughs in an attempt to lighten the mood. Veli-Matti chuckles softly in response.
“You would think so…” He shakes his head. “Just be nice to him, okei?. He hasn’t been right in the head for a while and this whole situation is making him worse.”
‘I’ll try buddy.” Hellboy leans backwards until his spine pops a few times, groaning with relief. “Ugh- wow. I’m going to bed.”
“Hyvin.” Veli-Matti sighs. “Hyvää yötä, Hellboy.”
“Same.. whatever you said.”
Veli-Matti shakes his head and flicks off the light, the dull buzz of electricity fading and leaving Hellboy with only the muffled howling of the wind outside to lull him to sleep.
And while he does sleep, it isn’t very well. The bed is too small and the wind only grows harsher, wailing and screaming at him as he tries to drift off. When he’s finally able to fall asleep, his mind stops at nothing to plague him with eerie dreams and nightmares.
Red eyes, blazing like a furnace, peer at him from between brittle, decaying branches. He’s so cold he can barely move and yet he keeps running. His hooves crash wildly through the snow, numb and aching. He can’t feel his tail or face or any of his fingers. His are so dry the shards of ice that hit them feel like mercy. Something is chasing him. Its raking, wheezing, rattling breath echoes in his ears and shakes him to his bones. Its hooves pound the permafrost caked ground behind him like a wardrum. Hoof for Hoof, breath for breath, it’s gaining on him. His throat freezes when he tries to scream, held tight by the crushing force of his own stone hand.
Hellboy wakes up coughing, taking a deep, gasping breath which is immediately paused by a little white paw against his mouth. Loud purring quiets any concerns about not actually being able to breathe. There’s a cat on his neck.
“Jeez..” Hellboy mumbles, reaching up to push the furry little engine off of his neck and back onto his chest. The cat, a brown tabby with white socks on its front two paws, doesn’t resist in the slightest. It stretches, yawning wide, and settles itself back down square in the center of Hellboy’s chest, purring louder. Hellboy chuckles, scratching underneath the cat's chin and catching a tag dangling from a collar on his index finger.
“Murkku huh?”
Murkku closes his eyes, rumbling happily.
“G’night Murkku.”
—
The next morning is headed by Black Coffee, rye bread and cold cuts, and Cigarettes at the breakfast table, which Jyri makes no comment on Hellboy lighting with his silver lighter. Neither cousin is particularly talkative, Veli-Matti stuffs his face with buttered rye topped with bilberry jam and Turunmaa, and Jyri stares into his mug of black coffee like it owes him money. Hellboy chances the cold cuts on the table, taking a few slices of what looks like poultry and layering them on the untoasted, buttered rye between thin slices of cheese.
The meat is deep and nutty in flavor with a gamey aftertaste. The cheese is tangy and easy to bite into, reminding Hellboy of a Havarti bathed in vinegar. The rye bread isn’t bakery quality, a bit dense and crumbly, but the sharp flavor of it is enough to tie together the meal and mark Hellboy’s first breakfast in Finland as a pleasant one.
An hour later, Hellboy finishes zipping up his winter jacket and throws on his trench coat, carefully buttoning the sleeve that he’s had to fit around his right hand shut to ensure it doesn’t fall off. It was a little irritating, sure, having to alter his clothes to fit around the huge chunk of red stone serving as his right hand, but it was worth it in the long run. The difficult part is slipping the wool lined leather glove onto his left hand without breaking the seams. Thumb, then pinky, then every finger in-between as he carefully slips the only thing standing between him and frostbite over and solidly onto his hand. He huffs lightly, grabbing his belt from the foot of the bed and tightening it around his waist.
When he turns around, Jyri has suddenly appeared in the doorway, loosely clutching a crossbow in his right hand. Hellboy flinches, breath catching for a moment.
“Jeez Jyri, warn me next time you decide to sneak up behind me.”
“I was not trying to.” Jyri answers flatly, gesturing to Hellboy’s belt. “Do you have gun?”
“Yeah.” Hellboy pats the holster on his left hand side. “The Good Samaritan.”
“Are you a good shot?”
“Nah.”
“Saakeli.” Jyri huffs, holding up the crossbow. “I was going to give you this. But if you can not shoot-”
Hellboy chuckles and shakes his head. “Look bud, I appreciate it, but I'll be alright. What happened to me being a horrible evil creature?”
“Veli-Matti explained.” Jyri lets his crossbow arm swing down by his side and digs into the pocket of his worn out jeans with the other, pulling out a wood and rope necklace and pressing it into the palm of Hellboy’s right hand. “Take.”
Hellboy examines the little amulet that’s been handed to him, tilting it back and forth in the light. It’s hand carved from pale brown wood, whittled into the now familiar looped cross shape that decorates every door frame in the house and sealed with lacquer. Jyri runs a hand over his buzzed short hair while chewing his lower lip fervently.
“It is for safety. Hannunvaakuna.” He says, eyes flickering between Hellboy’s face and his Palm.
“Yeah, your cousin said something about that.” Hellboy turns the Hannunvaakuna over in his hands a few times, admiring the woodwork. It’s a simple carving but quite well done. He takes the rope cord that holds the amulet in place and carefully ties it to his belt next to his rosary, pinning the top of the cord in place with a finger from his right hand and doing most of the actual knot work with his hand.
“Thanks.”
“Aha.” Jyri nods. “I meet you outside soon before you go to hunt down our Hiiden Hirvi.”
Hellboy nods and sits down on the bed to wrap his hooves, careful to cover more of the fleshy, padded part this time to prevent it from getting so numb it stings to defrost. It’s a tedious process, but necessary, and one that his dad had made him do many times before while visiting colder climates. With each wrap of leather, Hellboy can feel Professor Bruttenholm’s hands guiding him, and hear his instructions again.
“Don’t wrap them too tightly now, Hellboy. You’ll cut off circulation and could lose a hoof.” Professor Bruttenholm smiles, sticking a few fingers in the gap between the linen and Hellboy’s ankle and loosening its hold on him. “And we wouldn’t want that.”
“Then why do I have to wear these stupid things at all??” Hellboy protests. “I don’t wanna!”
“Do you want to play in the snow?”
“Yeah…” Hellboy sighs, kicking the ground. His right hand, the size of his entire torso and head combined, splays out to the side, too heavy for him to lift properly.
“Then you must wrap your hooves. You can’t wear shoes but I won’t let you get frostbite either.” Professor Bruttenholm says, reaching down to guide Hellboy’s hand again. “Now let’s do your other one.”
Hellboy steps into the snow, wrapped hooves free of chill but not free of the moisture that clings to them. Beads of water stick to and roll off of the black keratin as he walks, leaving small puddles in the snow behind him. The rest of him is cold but less so than yesterday. The wind hasn’t had its chance to pick up yet, and there’s no new snow falling today. He’d be alright, for now.
Jyri stands out by the treeline, Murkku perched on his shoulders and Nuusku standing obediently at his side. Veli-Matti leans against a hunting rifle, looking worse for wear. He’s somehow gotten paler and the bags under his eyes have gained a new shade of purple. Despite this, he waves once he spots Hellboy walking towards them, yellow teeth flashing through chapped lips and behind another half-chewed cigar as he opens his mouth to speak. Jyri doesn’t smile or wave, looking grimly at Hellboy and clutching his crossbow.
“Ready for your hunt?” Veli-Matti asks, swaying gently side to side in the snow. “I know we’re asking a lot but I also know you agreed to do this, so I think that evens it out.”
“You’re asking me to kill the unkillable. Course i’m not ready.” Hellboy laughs, shaking his head. “Bring it on.”
Jyri shoves a lantern into Hellboy’s left hand, bumping his shoulder against him to let Murkku scramble his way up onto Hellboy.
“You’re giving me a cat?”
“Kyllä.” Jyri nods. “He can see ghosts.”
“Veli-Matti, what’s your cousin on about this time?”
Veli-Matti shrugs. “Murkku can see ghosts.”
Murkku butts his head against Hellboy’s ear and licks his bristly black hair before settling down on his shoulders for the ride. Hellboy shrugs and lifts the lantern up to check for its fuel source. Oil powered. He’d have to be careful with it but it could burn a while.
“Right.” He sighs, watching his breath come out as thick, white steam in the frigid air. “See you two when I'm done.”
Hellboy trudges off into the treeline, Murkku getting up and re-settling into his fur-lined jacket hood for a nap. He’s not a very heavy cat, and he’s warm, so Hellboy decides he doesn’t mind the furry companion for the time being. Veli-Matti and Jyri grow smaller and smaller until they disappear, the forest swallowing the path behind Hellboy, leaving only his water-filled hoof tracks to lead him back to where he entered.