The Snow Maiden

Aren't You Cold?

It was cold. Snow pasted the ground, but not in a beautiful way. Rather, it was mostly gone, hard, and blotched with mud, adding to the overall grim gloom with the overcast sky. It was the time of winter most people hated-those few days right on the edge of spring. But he loved it. He hated sun. Hated heat. Hated that stupid romantic sparkle of snow. This was how winter should be, he figured: icy, empty, and dead. It meant that he could just be him and not be reminded of who he wasn't. He wasn't Link. Just his shadow.

His boots were already splattered with mud from walking. Where he was going he didn't know. His creator had left him without a purpose when he left out his unique identity. Sure he knew he had been created to challenge and, if possible, kill his original, but it grew old fast. After being in match after match with what seemed to be your mirror, you got bored. So here he was on the outskirts of Hyrule, just walking and listening to the lonely peace.

He let out a sigh and watched it rise.

"Take that broken thread to the street," he sung under his breath, "hold it to a lover's neck, tell me if it makes you feel complete. No, rain's not coming down."

He hated music. It was so...Link. He kept singing anyways.

"So dirty is your city holding to a lover's neck, such a pity, such a pity."

Where was he anyways? Oh, who cared. No one, that's what. Not that it bothered him any. He didn't need anyone, just as no one needed him. It was a mutual relationship.

As the hours drug past him and he tonelessly muttered song after song, a cold wind began to grow from the north. He found himself shivering madly, but paid it no heed. His chain mail had already turned to ice and was pressing in through his underclothes, yet it felt oddly fitting. Cold was like him, not Link. Maybe that's the name he'd give himself: Cold.

Who was he kidding? That was a stupid name.

He liked the sound of the wind, despite the fact that at some point he stopped feeling his ears and face. It was a mournful voice that didn't follow any specific tune. It was as though the cold field of barren trees he walked in was full of it, the wind, and the wind was a person like him: nameless and purposeless.

Wind? Nah. Stupid name too.

Winter?

Snow?

Mud?

...there we go. He was Mud. Dark, dirty, kind of just...there.

Listening to these thoughts, he soon got annoyed with how much of a whiney pansy he sounded like and he brushed them away.

He walked on, and the sky grew darker. The wind grew louder. On the break of evening (though it was hard to tell in the perpetual grey from the clouds), snowflakes began fluttering down like dandruff. He paused only to look up before walking on. It crossed his mind once or twice that a storm was coming, but he found himself apathetic. Let it snow. He'd just be more at home than ever once his arms and legs grew numb as well. It wasn't like there was anywhere to go for shelter anyways. At that thought he again wondered what he was doing out there, wherever 'there' was. He had just started walking and hadn't paid attention to where his legs were taking him for days.

"Break red thread, where day bled," he muttered, "Break it hard, such a pity, such a pity."

Where had he heard this song anyways? Whatever.

As the snowflakes grew fatter and came down in earnest, thrown about by the wind, he remembered the chill of the mirror lake where he had first laid eyes on his original-where he first came into being as a carbon copy. Link's eyes had been that grey kind of storm blue, and the storm reminded him of them. They were so unlike his own. But that was only because he, as a shadow, was colorless. Colorless and nameless. Dark Link could hardly be called a name. It was a stupider name than Cold, anyways.

The trees began to vanish behind curtains of wind and ice. His world was turning white, but dark. Colorless.

He took a deep breath of blizzard and paused.

This was nice.

The hairs on his neck bristled as it did whenever he was watched. He was surprised he felt it at all, due to every part of exposed skin had long ago grown numb. He snapped his lips closed and looked around wildly, but all he could see was white. This was ridiculous. Who would come for him all the way out here?

Then, against the blurr of white he thought he could see it: the faint outline of a person. He put a hand on his sword.

"What do you want?" he shouted above the wind. "If it's help you want, sorry, I'm clean out of that. Go build a snow cave or something, curl up in there."

The figure said nothing, but he was sure he could see it shifting. He tensed and debated drawing out his sword despite the pain it would be to slip it back in with his numb fingers. Dying by cold was nice. Dying painful death by monster wasn't.

But as though the blizzard parted between them, the figure became clearer all in an instant, and what he saw shocked him. As white as the blizzard about her stood a beautiful young woman. White, fluffy hair billowed about her, blending in with the snow to the point he couldn't tell where it ended and the snow began. The long, shimmery, but somewhat cottony dress she wore exposed much of her ivory skin to the elements.

He couldn't help but stare. She stared at him too, but with her head cocked to the side in confusion and curiosity, her large eyes somehow bright with what could've been sadness. He eyed her bare, willowy shoulders.

"Aren't...aren't you cold?"

She shook her head and cocked her head to the other side. As the seconds passed by with him under her scrutiny, her expression melted into something pleading, though her lips never opened. She looked at him pointedly but made no move to come nearer. He tucked his frozen fingers beneath his armpits. The blizzard still raged about them and he had to yell to be heard.

"Look, I meant what I said before, I can't help you." he snorted, wiping at the snot dribbling down his senseless nose. "I'm the last person you want helping you."

Her eyes grew brighter. For a moment he thought she was about to cry. But before he could decide whether he cared or not (of course he didn't care), the curtains of snow closed back between them and she simply vanished into the storm as though she had never been there. Sniffing, he continued on, his thoughts wandering back to an old children's story he had heard somewhere. A story about a maiden who only came out during the worst of winter storms.