Baby Penguin was still chasing the fish when the ice ran out. One moment there was a silvery, half-see-through shape flickering under the frost. The next moment the frost was gone, and Baby Penguin's short flippers were brushing wet grass. The fish was gone too. Baby Penguin stopped and looked back for the colony. It saw only a big painted sign at the edge of a path, and past the sign, trees it had never seen before. Its parents were somewhere behind the last blizzard, on the tundra. This was not the tundra. Baby Penguin picked a direction and waddled. The ground felt wrong, so it switched. It switched again. Every direction smelled like mud and warm leaves. A red and white flag hung from a steel pole above the path, still in the flat air. Baby Penguin did not know the flag. Baby Penguin did not know anything here. A green shape stepped out from the reeds. He was tall and wore blue overalls. A coil of rope hung from his left pocket. He looked down at Baby Penguin the way a person looks at a small problem he does not have time for. "You're lost," said Alligator Sam. Baby Penguin nodded. Sam crouched. "I pull people from the mud. Storm knocked three into the swamp this morning. One is chest-deep." He pointed with his snout down the path, toward a low building with flower boxes and a paw print on the sign. "Clinic's that way. Vet is inside. Brown hair. Blue scrubs. Tell her Sam sent you. Wait there." Baby Penguin looked at the path, then at the reeds, then back at Sam. Sam was already standing. "I can't carry you. I need both hands for the rope." He waited. "Can you walk?" Baby Penguin nodded again. "Then walk. Straight line. Don't switch." Baby Penguin waddled down the path without turning. It reached the door with the paw print. A woman in blue scrubs opened it before Baby Penguin could figure out the handle. She looked at Baby Penguin, then past Baby Penguin at the empty path. "Where did you come from?" Baby Penguin opened its beak and closed it. "Sam," it said. Valerie the Veterinarian crouched, the way Sam had crouched, but softer. "You're a long way from cold," she said. She lifted Baby Penguin under the short flippers and carried it inside. The door closed. Baby Penguin was warm and dry and somewhere it had never meant to be. Its parents were still on the tundra, and the tundra was not out this door.

Inside the clinic, the air was warm and smelled like soap. Valerie set Baby Penguin on a soft towel on the counter and looked at it for a long moment. "You need cold," she said. "Cold is south." She said it like she was working it out for herself. Baby Penguin did not know south. Baby Penguin knew the tundra, and the tundra was where its parents were, and the tundra was not through the door it had come in. Valerie went to a drawer and came back with a folded paper. She spread it flat on the counter. It was a map, drawn by hand in dark ink, with a swamp and a road and a wobbly line of coast. She tapped a corner. "Clinic." She dragged her finger down the paper, past the swamp, past the coast, all the way to the bottom edge. "South Pole. Where you live. Where the others are." Baby Penguin looked at her finger, then at the door, then back at her finger. Its short flippers pressed the towel. "You can't walk it," Valerie said. "Not today. Not alone." She paused. She looked at the door too. Then she picked Baby Penguin up under the flippers and carried it to the window at the back of the clinic. She pointed past the flower boxes, past the path, at the low sun. "That is west. Turn your back to it. That way is south. When you leave, you go that way. Only that way. Don't switch." Baby Penguin stared at the sun until its eyes watered. It turned its back. The direction behind it felt like nothing yet. But now it had a name. Valerie set Baby Penguin down and crouched to its level. "You stay tonight," she said. "I feed you. In the morning I find someone going your way." She stood and went to write something on a clipboard, then stopped with the pen above the paper. She did not write. She put the clipboard face down on the counter. Baby Penguin watched her, and understood only that she had chosen not to do a thing she had meant to do. It was warm. It was fed soon after, small pink fish from a tin. Baby Penguin ate them and wanted another. Outside, the sun dropped behind the trees, and the way home was a straight line at Baby Penguin's back, held there by a word it had just learned. Tomorrow, it would walk.

Morning came gray and cold at the window. Valerie lifted Baby Penguin from the towel and set it on the floor. She moved fast, pulling a canvas knapsack from a hook and dropping cans into it one by one. Small fish cans, the kind Baby Penguin had eaten the night before. She added a metal can opener and a bottle of water. She knelt and looped the straps over Baby Penguin's short flippers, then adjusted them so the pack sat high on its back. "Food for the walk," she said. "Water when the snow is far." Baby Penguin felt the weight settle. It was heavier than a fish, lighter than a fear. Valerie carried Baby Penguin to the back door of the clinic and opened it. The low sun was in front of them now, climbing. She turned Baby Penguin around so the sun sat behind its head. "South," she said. "Straight. Don't switch." She crouched. She smoothed the feathers on the top of its head with two fingers, then pressed her lips there for a second. Her mouth stayed tight when she pulled back. "I can't walk you there," she said. "The permit. The papers. If they come and I'm gone, the clinic closes." She looked at the knapsack, then at the horizon, then at the knapsack again. "This is what I have." She stood and stepped back into the doorway of the Pawcare Clinic so her shadow would not fall across the path. Baby Penguin looked at her once. Then it turned its back to her and faced the direction she had named. It took a step. The cans clinked. It took another. The grass was wet and cold on its feet, better than the warm floor had been. Behind it, the clinic door clicked shut. Baby Penguin did not look back. It walked. The sun climbed at its back and pushed a small shadow out in front of it, and Baby Penguin followed the shadow the way it had once followed a fish. By the time the clinic was out of sight, the path had ended and the ground had gone soft, and Baby Penguin was alone with a bag of food, a bottle of water, and a straight line it had promised to keep.

Baby Penguin stood between its parents on the flat grass behind the clinic. The tall one pressed a wing against its back. The other bent low and touched its beak to the top of Baby Penguin's head. Valerie watched from the step of the Pawcare Clinic with her hands pushed into her pockets. She had signed a paper. She had said the word discharged. Now she said, "South is that way. The sun sets there." She pointed with one finger. "Walk together. Don't stop until dark." Baby Penguin's parents thanked her in low sounds. Valerie nodded once. She crouched and looked at Baby Penguin. "You did the walk," she said. "You can do the rest." She stood and stepped back. She did not wave. The three penguins turned toward the low sun and started to move. Baby Penguin kept close to its mother's leg. When a gust pulled at the grass, it pressed closer. It did not pick a new direction. It followed the two big shadows in front of it, and its own small shadow ran along beside theirs. They walked all afternoon. The grass thinned. The ground turned to sand, then to hard stones. The sun dropped and the wind sharpened. Baby Penguin's feet slowed. Its father saw and stopped. Ahead, on a low bluff over cold water, stood an old fishing hut. The planks were gray. Ropes hung from the rail. A paddle leaned by the door. Baby Penguin's mother tested the step. It held. She pushed the door with her beak and it swung. Inside, the floor was dry. A stove sat cold in the corner. "Here," she said. "One night." They ate a can of fish from the knapsack. Baby Penguin's father worked the opener with his beak. Baby Penguin sat between them on the dry planks and chewed slow. Outside, the water slapped the posts under the hut. Baby Penguin thought of the fish under the ice, and of the clinic door clicking shut, and of the long walk still ahead. It leaned against its mother. She folded a wing over it. "South tomorrow," she said. "All the way to the ice." Baby Penguin closed its eyes. The tundra was still far. But tonight the wing was warm, and no one was walking away.

Morning came gray and cold. Baby Penguin woke between its parents on the dry planks. Its father stood at the door and looked out at the long land. Its mother folded the empty can into the knapsack. "We don't know this country," the father said. "South is a direction. It is not a path." The mother nodded. "We could walk a week the wrong way." Baby Penguin listened. It had learned that picking a direction was not enough. The big ones needed more than a pointing finger. Boots scraped on the porch outside. Baby Penguin froze. The door pushed open and an old man stepped in, ducking under the frame. He wore a wide brown hat with a feather stuck in the band. A red scarf hung at his throat. He held a coil of rope in one hand and a paddle in the other, like he had come to fetch them from the wall. He looked at the three penguins and did not seem surprised. "My hut," he said. He set the paddle by the stove. "Didn't figure on guests." Baby Penguin's father lowered his head. "We took shelter. We will go." The old man waved a hand. "Sit. You ate my fish?" "Our own," the mother said, and showed the empty can. He grunted, pleased. "Good. Where you headed?" "South," the father said. "To the ice. We came up from the pole in the last blizzard and lost the trail." The old man scratched his beard. "South is easy to say. Hard to walk. Between here and the ice is bog, then stone flats, then a river you can't cross where it's wide." He looked down at Baby Penguin. "Short legs. Long trip." Baby Penguin's mother stepped closer. "Do you know the way?" The old man laughed once, dry. "I've walked it forty years. I'm Trailbreaker. I guide who needs guiding." He tapped the paddle. "I'll take you as far as the ice edge. Not for coin. For the company." The father's shoulders dropped. The mother pressed her wing against Baby Penguin's back. Baby Penguin felt the shake in her feathers go still. Trailbreaker knelt to Baby Penguin's height. His eyes were pale and steady. "You walk when I walk, little one. You stop when I stop. Deal?" Baby Penguin bobbed its head. "Deal." He tied the rope to his belt and looped the loose end once around the father's wing, then the mother's, then, gentle, around Baby Penguin. "So we don't lose each other in the wind," he said. He opened the door. The cold pushed in. Trailbreaker pointed with the paddle, not at the sun, but at a low notch between two far hills. "That's the gate. We go through there by dark." He stepped down off the porch. The three penguins followed, roped together, and the hut fell behind them.

The rope tugged at Baby Penguin's middle. It walked behind its mother, behind its father, behind the old man in the brown hat who set the pace. The ground was hard and uneven. The wind pushed sideways. Trailbreaker's paddle tapped the dirt each step, marking time. Baby Penguin tried to match the tap. The trouble started on a slope of loose stones. Baby Penguin's flippers were too short to hold the slack. The rope drooped between its body and its father's tail. It sagged low, brushed the ground, then caught under Baby Penguin's foot. Baby Penguin stumbled. The line snapped tight against its father's wing and yanked him a half step back. "Little one," Trailbreaker called over his shoulder. "Keep up close." Baby Penguin hurried. Two steps later the rope tangled again. This time it wound around its right foot. Baby Penguin tipped forward. Its beak hit dirt. The tug ran up the line and jerked its mother sideways. She caught herself, but her feet slid on the stones. "Stop," the father said. They all stopped. Baby Penguin lay on its belly with the rope wound twice around its ankle. Its mother bent and worked the loop free with her beak. Her breath came fast. "If it falls on the flats, we all fall," she said. "It could pull us down a bank." Trailbreaker walked back along the line. He crouched. He looked at Baby Penguin's short flippers, at the long slack, at the way the rope hung wrong from such a small body. He rubbed his beard. "My fault," he said. "Tied you like grown ones. You're not a grown one." He untied the loop from around Baby Penguin's middle. The rope fell away. Baby Penguin stood free and cold. Its mother made a low sound in her throat. "Don't fret," Trailbreaker said. He unwound the red scarf from his neck. He shook it out and folded it into a wide sling. He slipped the sling under Baby Penguin's belly and knotted the ends over his own shoulder. Then he stood. Baby Penguin lifted off the ground and swung against his chest. "You ride," Trailbreaker said. "Legs rest. Eyes work. You watch the notch for me while I watch my feet." Baby Penguin's father tested the rope. It ran clean now, only two penguins on the line, tight and even. He nodded once. The mother pressed her beak to Baby Penguin's head through the scarf. They started again. The paddle tapped. The stones passed under Trailbreaker's boots, not Baby Penguin's. From the sling, Baby Penguin could see far ahead. The notch sat between the hills, closer than before. Its short flippers no longer had to keep up. But the warmth of the scarf was not its mother's warmth. And Baby Penguin was no longer walking home. It was being carried.

The scarf held for the first hill. It slipped on the second. Baby Penguin felt the knot at Trailbreaker's shoulder loosen one notch, then another. The sling sagged. Baby Penguin's belly dropped closer to the swinging paddle. The ground below was loose rock, sharp and gray. Trailbreaker felt it too. He stopped and hitched the knot up with one hand. "Hold still, little one." He pulled the ends tight. The red wool was thin. It had stretched from the weight. He tapped the paddle once and started again. Ten steps later the sling slid again. Baby Penguin's foot brushed a stone. The mother made a sharp sound behind them. "It's falling." "I know," Trailbreaker said. He crouched slow and set Baby Penguin down on a flat rock. The scarf hung limp from his hand, one end frayed where the knot had worked it thin. He stared at it. He rubbed his beard. "Scarf's done," he said. "Won't last the next slope." Baby Penguin's father stepped close, still tied to the mother by the short rope. "Can you fix it?" "No." Trailbreaker set the scarf down. He unshouldered his pack and dug through it. He pulled out a thick wrap of layered fur, brown and cream, stitched in patches. It was heavy. He shook it open. "Kept this for cold nights. It'll hold better than wool." He knelt on the rock. He folded the fur in half, then in half again, until it made a deep pouch. He cut two strips from the frayed scarf with his knife and used them to bind the corners. He worked slow. The father watched. The mother pressed her beak to Baby Penguin's head. "In you go," Trailbreaker said. He lifted Baby Penguin into the fur pouch and settled it against his chest. The hide was stiff and warm. It did not sag. He tied the corner strips behind his neck and tested the weight with a small bounce. The pouch held. "Better," he said. Baby Penguin sat deep in the fur. Only its head showed above the collar. It could still see forward, still watch the notch between the hills. The wind did not reach its belly now. But the fur smelled of old smoke and a stranger's sweat. Nothing about it was penguin. Trailbreaker picked up the ruined scarf and tucked it into his belt. He looked at the sky. The sun had moved. "We lost time," he said. "Have to push hard to reach the flats before dark." The father nodded. The rope pulled tight. They started again, faster now. The paddle tapped quicker. Baby Penguin bounced against Trailbreaker's chest, safe in the heavy wrap, watching the notch draw closer while the light began to fail.

They cleared the hills at dusk and stepped onto the open flats. The ground went smooth and white in every direction. Nothing stood tall enough to break the wind. Trailbreaker had carried Baby Penguin down from the last slope in the fur pouch against his chest, and now he stopped to breathe. The rope behind him pulled taut as the parents caught up. The wind rose. It came from the side, low and hard. It found the gap above the pouch collar and pushed straight against Baby Penguin's face. Baby Penguin turned its head. The wind followed. Ice bits stung its eyes. The father hunched. The mother's feathers flattened. "Squall coming," Trailbreaker said. He squinted at a dark line building on the horizon. "We can't cross this in the open. Not with the little one taking it head-on." The father looked back at the hills. Too far. The mother pressed close to Trailbreaker's leg, shielding herself in his shadow. Baby Penguin ducked lower into the fur. The wind still found it. The pouch held its body but not its face. If they stopped here, they lost the night. If they walked, Baby Penguin would freeze from the neck up. Trailbreaker scanned the flats. Fifty steps off, something dark stuck up from the ice. He walked to it, the penguins following on the rope. It was a length of driftwood, half-buried, longer than his arm. He kicked the ice around the base and worked it free. The board came up heavy, twisted at one end, gray and scarred where salt had eaten it. A stub branch stuck out near the bottom like a handle. "Sea must've thrown it up here a long time back," he said. He turned it in his hands. He set the flat side against the wind. The board caught the gust and pushed back at him. He grinned into his beard. He knelt in front of Baby Penguin. "You hold this. Right up in front of your face. Two flippers on the branch here." He guided Baby Penguin's short flippers to the stub. The board was almost as tall as Baby Penguin was long, propped against the pouch and Trailbreaker's chest. It covered everything above the fur collar. The wind hit the board and split around it. Baby Penguin felt the air go quiet against its beak. It blinked. Its eyes stopped watering. The stinging stopped. "Good?" Trailbreaker asked. Baby Penguin gripped the branch tighter. It nodded once against the wood. Trailbreaker stood. He tested the weight, the pouch and the board together, and adjusted the strap behind his neck. "Then we walk through it," he said. "Straight across. No stopping." The father tugged the rope tight. The mother fell in behind. They started onto the flats with the wind screaming past the board, and the flats stayed crossable, and the notch was already behind them.

Halfway across the flats, Baby Penguin's flippers began to shake. The board had grown heavy. The stub branch pressed into the soft skin between its flippers, and each gust punched the wood back into its chest. The wind had not slowed. Trailbreaker walked steady beneath the pouch, chin down, one boot after the other. Behind him the rope creaked as the parents kept pace. Baby Penguin squeezed the branch harder. Its flippers were already going numb. A gust hit the board sideways. The wood twisted in Baby Penguin's grip. It caught the edge just before it slipped. Trailbreaker felt the shift and glanced down. "Still got it?" he asked. Baby Penguin nodded against the wood. It did not trust its voice. A second gust came harder. The board wrenched loose from one flipper. Baby Penguin lunged and pinned it back with its beak. Ice bits sprayed over the top edge and stung its eyes. If the board went now, the wind would tear it out of the pouch too. Trailbreaker stopped walking. He had felt the scramble against his chest. He turned his head into the wind and searched the flats. "There," he said. Ahead, a low hump broke the white. A drift had piled against something solid, a small shape roofed with snow, a dark door set into its front. An old shelter, half-buried, forgotten out here for other travelers. Trailbreaker leaned into the wind and walked. The father grunted and pulled the rope tight behind. Baby Penguin held the board with both flippers and its beak, eyes shut. Twenty steps. Ten. The wind screamed across the top edge. Trailbreaker reached the door and shouldered it open. He ducked inside. The parents crowded in after him. The father kicked the door shut with his heel. The wind cut off. The silence was so sudden Baby Penguin's ears rang. Trailbreaker knelt on the packed snow floor. He lifted the board carefully out of Baby Penguin's flippers and set it against the wall. Baby Penguin's flippers stayed curled in the shape of the branch. They would not open. "Easy," Trailbreaker said. He took one flipper between his rough palms and rubbed. "You held it the whole way. That's the whole flats behind us." The mother pressed close and tucked her head against Baby Penguin's. The father sat down heavily and let out a long breath. Baby Penguin's flippers began to sting as the feeling came back. It did not mind the sting. The sting meant the board was down and the wind was outside. Trailbreaker looked at the door. Snow was already piling against the base. He looked back at the three penguins. "We're not walking out of this tonight," he said. "But we don't have to. We're inside." Baby Penguin let its flippers fall open in its mother's feathers. The board leaned quiet against the wall. Outside, the squall went on without them.

The wind outside the shelter changed pitch. Baby Penguin lifted its head from its mother's feathers. A low scrape ran along the outside wall, slow and heavy, from one corner toward the door. Something big was dragging a claw across the wood. Trailbreaker sat up. He put one finger to his lips. The father froze. The mother pulled Baby Penguin tighter against her chest. The scrape came again, higher this time, above the door hinge. Whatever it was stood taller than a penguin. A huff of breath pushed under the door. It smelled like wet fur and old meat. Snow puffed in through the gap and settled on Baby Penguin's foot. The door shook in its frame. A claw hooked the bottom edge and pulled. The wood groaned. "It smells us," Trailbreaker whispered. "Storm drove it in." He looked at Baby Penguin, then at the door. The gap at the bottom was wide enough for a paw. Baby Penguin was the smallest thing in the room. Baby Penguin was also the slowest. The father stood and put himself between Baby Penguin and the door. The mother pressed Baby Penguin into the back corner. Trailbreaker reached for the driftwood board leaning against the wall. His hand was not steady. Then a sharp bark cut through the wind outside. Not a growl. A bark, clean and hard, the kind that meant business. A second bark answered it, closer to the door. The scraping stopped. The thing on the other side of the wall grunted. Something small and fast moved past the door, snapping and snarling. A voice followed the barks. "Off. Off, you great lump. Go on." The words were clipped and old and unafraid. The heavy thing outside shifted its weight. Baby Penguin heard it back away from the door, then heard it break into a lumbering run across the snow. The barking chased it a short distance and then stopped. A knock came at the door. Three taps. "Travelers inside," the voice called. "I'm coming in before I freeze." Trailbreaker set the board down and opened the door. A small white fox stepped in, shaking snow from a tan coat and a checked scarf. His ears were up. His eyes were pale blue and calm. He shut the door behind him with his hip and stamped his boots on the packed floor. "Frost Whitepaw," he said, nodding to Trailbreaker. He looked past him at Baby Penguin in the corner. "Bear was tracking your smell. Won't come back tonight. Not with me here." Baby Penguin's mother let out a long shaking breath. The father sat down on the floor. Baby Penguin looked at the door, then at the old fox, then at the board Trailbreaker had almost lifted. Its flippers were still curled tight. Outside, the wind kept blowing. Inside, there were four of them now, and the door was shut.