Life in the Cradle
To survive within the Cradle of Ice, organisms must be adapted to the extreme cold and sparsity of nutrition. Small hardy plants can be found growing along side trickles of meltwater, which in turn serve as a meager food source to support the initial stages of this area's food chain.
Most common to be found in the area are small invertebrates -- insects, worms, and some high altitude crustaceans. Two small mammals and one species of bird round out the rest of the food chain for the Cradle.
Life in the Ice
On the surface and within the glaciers themselves lives a particular species; the ice worms, which are miniscule worms that are exclusively found within the twelve cradle glaciers. They are a cyclic species, feeding once upon algae in the surface snow of the glacier, before digging down into the ice to lay eggs and die.
They are sometimes mistakenly thought to be the cause of the black ice streaks within the 12 glaciers, something that is instead caused by unique mineral deposits within the ice.
Nice! An expanse of ice, and of time... I like :)... looking fwd to how the other prompts interact with the cradle.
Check out Shadowfire and my Adventure April challenge
Thank you so much! It was a fun one :D I'm hoping at the very least to include some species here, and perhaps some nomadic people