This is my first piece of writing! I'd love to get some feedback so I can improve :D
It's about 900 words.

A lone bear is traveling through an arctic wasteland in search of a legend, and purpose. But, it seems they weren't prepared for the journey at hand.
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Wanderer

The dreadful cold bites at my face, with my worn layers of winter apparel barely keeping the cold from the rest of my body. It’s been snowing for a few hours now, and it’s only increasing in ferocity, which has been suffocating my view. Not that there’s much to see anyway, it’s all a flat snowy desert with the occasional ice spike. The snowshoes on my feet are the only reason I haven’t sunken into the likely 3 meters of snow. I can feel icicles forming on the fur that covers my face, a sign of it only getting worse.

This trip of mine is starting to feel more and more pointless the more I go on uselessly. My truck broke down before I even got far enough with it to be worth bringing. ‘Built for the cold’, it was. Buried in snow it now is, if I had to guess.

Is it really worth it? Is this beast even worth finding? According to the legends, it’ll answer any question I have. I just hope that’s true. I feel like I’ve been wandering aimlessly through life without purpose. I just need something, anything to do; maybe this creature can tell me what to do with myself. It sounds stupid, I know, but it’s all I got. And now I’ve been so blindsided by this goal of mine; my dear friend who wouldn’t let me go alone, won’t be seeing his family ever again. If it weren’t for him though, I’d probably have died in his place. I feel obligated to complete this goal now; to not let his life go to waste for an admittedly selfish desire of my own creation.

I’ve got to be close to the north pole at this point, my compass is starting to go crazy, but nothing’s here. There’s no giant serpent, no ice cave for me to wander into, and certainly no old man meditating. Although I always felt that part of the legend was less accurate. The blizzard still continues, raging through the area with its own goal in mind. This journey was entirely pointless afterall. I went all this way; got a friend killed by a polar wretch; forced my body to its limits; for nothing. My pistol has long been out of ammo, the rounds sent targetless in a desperate attempt to save my best friend, now corpse. My sword left broken in half, the poor metal unable to withstand the unrelenting frigid cold.

I continue to wander the area, for any sign of anything, and that’s when I see something of note. A body of a past canine explorer, frozen in the snow, too far gone to make out anything specific. I want to stay a moment out of respect, but just beyond this tragedy, is a flag. A flag with the inscription of the damned Ostarath nation. Looking around more, it’s become clear they had set up camp here, with a few tent poles barely sticking out of the thick snow.

I realize now that I have to really focus to see anything past my face in this blizzard, holding my hand out in front of me, I can barely see my gloved hand. The wind picks up sharply and slowly but surely I am surrounded in nothing but white and frigid temperatures; when suddenly, it’s clearing. In front of me, is a massive white serpent, floating as if gravity was a mere suggestion. The serpent’s body was long, its spine lined with blue tendrils that seemed to be freezing the air around them, its snake eyes locked on me as if expecting something.

I scramble to get my backpack off my back, planting it firmly into the snow as I open it for the offering. As I do this though, I hear it speak in some…unfathomable language, and looking up, the serpent is shaking its head. Not in a disapproving way, but more so like I’ve misunderstood something.

My inability to understand it’s speaking makes me realize something else, making me raise a hand to my neck as I look down. The translator. It’s completely gone. I don’t know where or when I lost it, but my only way to communicate with this beautiful beast is probably long gone now. The serpent seems to understand I have no way to understand it, and seems conflicted as to what to do, looking around for a moment. The serpent then bites the flag pole and rips it out of the ground. With a careful movement, it scratches a simple symbol into the snow. A question mark.

Taking this as an invitation to say why I’m here, I speak up shakily. “I was told you could answer any question…” I pause, unsure of whether to continue or not, but the serpent remains silent, and expectant, so I continue. “I just- What’s my purpose?”

The serpent tilts its head for a moment, then starts circling around me with a focused gaze, it says something again, more so talking to itself than me it appears, and then with its body still surrounding me on all sides, its head returns to face me properly. From the serpent’s expression, I am clueless as to what it could be thinking. Its gaze is still and calm, but there’s some unsettling nature of how it completely surrounded me, leaving me trapped.

It seemingly scoffs; I hear a shuffling behind me, and then a sharp coldness stabs into my back, and the world slowly fades away from my view while it speaks, although I can understand its words this time. “I’m sorry, wanderer.”