Shadow in the Snow

Amidst The Ruins

    Late morning faded into the afternoon; the clouds dismal and grey as if to match the mood of the people in the circus below them.  The screams, too, had faded and were replaced by an eerie silence, broken only by the occasional cry of the wounded and dying and the sounds of the wind howling miserably through the broken tents.  The fires had been mostly put out now and the little ones that remained were flickering out on their own.  

    Walking through the ruins, her face devoid of all emotion, was a girl.  She was bareheaded and barefoot and would have looked quite at home in such surroundings, judging by the state of the rags she wore, if it were not for the blood that covered them.  Her hands she had scrubbed clean but the rest of the signs of what had happened wouldn't be so easily washed away.  She tried to tell herself to take comfort in the lives she had managed to save and the people she had helped escape, but too many still died in front of her and she had been powerless to do anything to help them.  

    It had all happened so fast -- and yet it seemed to drag on for years.  

    "I wonder if the circus will ever recover from this," she heard a worker murmur to another as she passed them by, and if she had had any room left to feel any sort of emotion at all other than grief, she would have been angry at them.  Did it matter?  Besides, if anyone could recover from something like this it would be the Master.

    The Master.

    There, that was a name that could draw a different emotion from her: hatred.  She curled her lip at the very thought of him and continued on her way, weaving through the wreckage towards the main tent -- or what was left of it.  Right now she just wanted to find her friends.

    She saw Crow first.  He was sitting on the ground, entirely heedless of the people walking around him, and he was bent over something.  Rocking.  It was only then that she saw the body he held limp in his arms -- blackened with ash as he was, she hadn't recognized Snow right away.

    "Crow."  It was the only word she said as she stepped forward, stopping a few paces in front of them.  She didn't kneel down.  She didn't want to see, nor accept the truth of what lay before her eyes.  

    He lifted his face to her, still rocking back and forth.  Tears streamed down his face unchecked, yet he smiled.  "It's all right, La," he said.  His voice was calm -- too calm.  "He's only sleeping.  He'll wake up, soon."

    "Crow..."

    "No, La.  No."  Now his tone was more insistent, almost angry.  "Don't say my name that way.  I don't need your pity; not anyone's!  Don't you see?  He'll wake up.  He will.  He has to."

    Every bit of her was screaming to run away from this nightmare, to wake up and realize none of it had ever really happened, but instead, she forced herself forward.  As she knelt down at last, Crow slowly moved his arms away from shielding his brother's face so she could see.

    "I couldn't let the sun hurt his skin," he said, quietly now.  "I have to protect him."

    "I know," she said softly.  But her eyes were on Snow.  He looked almost as if he could have been sleeping but for the blood that covered his face and when she touched his cheek, ever so gently, he was quite cold.  

    "La?"

    "Yes?"

    "Tell me it's going to be okay."

    She couldn't resist the desperation in his voice.  "It's going to be okay." 

    No, it isn't.