A Touch Of Darkness

12 || Favourite Colour

Not long after our midday rest, the bulging clouds finally release their torrent. But it is like nothing I expected.

It isn't rain, like Finlay initially said. Rain falls in droplets, heavy sheets that drench the earth, jewelling the leaves and making the grass slick. Hardly inviting, given my experience with the river. But this is a gentle swirl, drifting with listless intent, flakes light and pale and glittering with their chill.

Snow, Finlay calls it. And it is beautiful.

White already caps the very tips of the mountains, peeking just below the cloud, but once the snow begins it quickly cascades down the hillsides, a blanket knitted from barren patches. Soon, it is dappling the earth at our feet, then spreading as the flurry thickens. I spread my hands out, desperate to catch as many flakes as possible. They melt as they meet my skin, but leave behind a gentle, tingling layer. A more lasting dust whitens the shoulders of my tunic.

Finlay is less keen. He has pulled his cloak's hood over his face, and huddles under it, his arms wrapped tightly around his chest as he leans forward into the gusts. I don't understand why his pace slows so considerably. Mine seems to speed up, as if the snow lightens my step and propels me onward.

Snow crunches underneath my boots, a jolt of satisfaction coming with every step. Part of me wants to remove the shoes and let my toes sink into it, but I doubt Finlay would like that, and so instead I reach for the ledge sitting at my chest's height and run my hand through the snow gathering there. I'm surprised at the resistance it gives where it clumps together. It feels more like ice than it appears.

Now that I think more about it, I have heard of snow. But I certainly didn't picture it this way.

I'm so taken in admiring the white crystals, summoning cold pricks of flame to let them dance among it all, that I don't register the soft thump colliding with my back at first. But then the second whacks harder into my shoulder blades, and I whip around, snow scattering across my boots.

A few paces back, Finlay is bent over, hood skimming the ground as he scoops up snow in his palm. He clumps it into a hardened ball and I connect the dots.

"What was that for?" I ask.

Straightening, he flashes a smile my way, rolling the ball over to his other hand. "Snowball," he says with a shrug, as if that should explain everything.

Before I can respond, he sends the snowball flying my way. It shatters as it meets my chest.

I meet his gaze evenly, matching the challenge that glimmers in his eyes. "Alright." If that is the game, I'm not going to stand here and let him pummel me. Taking a few steps forward to widen our distance, I clamp both hands around a pile of snow further up the ledge and press it together. It is gentle, I'm coming to realise, and doesn't need much persuasion. I spin on my heels, clutching my freshly-made ball, and toss it at Finlay's hunched form.

At the last second, he dives aside, cloak tangling with his bag as he rolls over and comes up on his knees, a snowball in his hand. My own projectile lands uselessly in the snow where he was a moment ago.

"You'll need better aim than that, fire boy," he taunts, springing to his feet with surprising speed. I manage to duck the ball he tosses my way. It collapses onto the ledge, and I reach for its remains.

He is already preparing another. Forming snowball in hand, I dash down the path, snow spraying from my footsteps, and swing into the trees cowering behind the slope that rises to our right. My tunic catches on rough bark as I rush past the nearest tree and throw myself against its trunk, panting. The branches shake as I press my spine into the tree, releasing another shower that dapples my hair. A smile breaks out. My hand tremors as I clutch the snowball, jittery excitement fizzing in my veins.