The Snowspirit

It glides in on silent fur-lined wings. You don't hear hear it coming, don't know that like a reaper it is descending, toothy-jaws agape, to end your everything until it is all too late. From the snowy night the snowspirit materializes from the dark and drops upon its hapless prey. A cry in the darkness is quickly silenced, with the stealthy hunter killing it in a single bite and swallowing it whole, barely chewing. As swiftly as it arrived, the ghost has gone, rising from the white powder and taking flight into the flurries, its white and grey speckled coat letting it vanish into the falling snow. Only a small depression in the snow where its wings laid down over its victim give indication it was ever there at all, and shortly after the blowing snow covers even this last trace, and the soul-taking ghost may as well have never been at all.

If you are larger than a rat of course, this particular predator is quite harmless to you. The ice-age descendant of the early-Ultimocene moonbeast, the snowspirit is no larger than a horned owl and is even more reclusive. One of a handful of the dividopteran tribbats to have survived the loss of forests, it now stalks the cactaiga and steppe-lands of the refugial peninsula, preying on small molodonts and unwary roosting birds.

Functionally like a cross between a cat and an owl (but evolved from a bat-like descendant of a ray-finned fish of course), on quiet wings the snowspirit flies in the cold, dark night. Hunting with both its large eyes, which are more of use now in the open than they were in dark woodland, but especially with its acute hearing formed by its rounded facial disc and moveable ears, it pounces upon unsuspecting small animals scurrying along the ground, even underneath several feet of snow. Though it still has a somewhat fierce appearance, longer hair all over its body softens hard edges and renders this species almost cute from certain angles, an impression helped by its large, expressive eyes that can rotate in their sockets to look in multiple directions like a human being, but very unlike an owl. Snowspirits catch small prey they can swallow whole and are otherwise very shy and reclusive, avoiding other animals and being difficult to locate. Like ghosts, they may appear and vanish in the snowy night in just a moment, leaving a viewer uncertain if they were ever truly there at all, or were merely a mirage. It is more likely to be heard than seen, occasionally communicating with low, melodic whistles, but the spirit is a master at throwing its voice, and its calls quickly lose all direction in the stormy nights. Finding a snowspirit by its wavering, eerie night songs is all but impossible, and yet they are often a nightly chorus, at times blending together as individuals proclaim their territories for miles around.

Without trees to nest in, this moonbeast raises its twin young on the ground, usually in a cactaiga thicket. Like many animals the harsher environment has encouraged a lower reproductive rate offset by longer and better parental care. Male snowspirits are active parents unlike their ancestor species, as females alone cannot simultaneously provide for their young and protect them in these most exposed den sites.