As the Snow Falls

Prologue

Lightning blazed in the horizon, brightening up the dark cloudy sky for a moment before drowning it in darkness in the echo of it's thunder. In the palace where such thunder and lightning were so close, where it's inhabitants were unaffected by such phenomena, a woman wearing threads of shimmering gold padded along the long archway into the silver chamber of the moon.

She sighed, walking forwards with a frown as she eyed the clouds that swirled on top of the roof of the south wing.

It would be another night full of snow.

She entered the doorway and a familiar sight greeted her along with the persistent sobs of the woman lying on the bed. She was almost indiscernible from the silver silks of her bedding, but the sound enough was proof of her presence.

The blonde sat on the bed but the figure remained unmoving.

"Byul-ah," she called out gently, placing a light hand on her head to smooth her hair, "Aren't you tired of crying?"

"How could I stop when I couldn't help him?" the woman on the bed mumbled against her wet pillow, her silver hair splayed across her back as she laid on her stomach. "In the end I couldn't do anything. I shouldn't have stayed there. I should have listened to Hwasa and Wheein. If I listened then maybe—maybe Jin would still—maybe—"

"It wasn't your fault," the blonde soothed, collecting the weeping woman in her arms in a tight embrace.

The comfort her arms brought was not the one the woman sought for as the latter spilled her tears onto her robes.

Her eyes, as gold as the sun, as bright as its rays, shifted past the tall archways of the chamber to gaze into the horizon. The storm was not getting any better as long as her friend continued crying. The longer the snow stayed, the more humans were going to die. And so much had fallen already.

The blonde licked her lips.

She didn't want to have to do this but it seemed to be the only option left.

"Unnie can help you," she soothed, putting as much as warmth as she can into her voice. She cupped the woman's cheeks, wiping the tears away from her dull silver eyes. "Unnie knows a way."

The weeping woman straightened in her seat and in the distance, the woman with golden hair could hear the thunder subsiding almost immediately.

"You can?" she sniffled with a small voice. Her eyes, that seemed to have lost its luster months ago, glimmered with tears and with little hope her words had given her.

The blonde grabbed her friend's hand. She sighed, painting a soft smile for the woman in front of her despite the sadness in her own eyes.

"But it's not that easy." She tucked the stray hair back the younger's ear, her fingers trailing downwards to her chin before she continued in a small voice. "You need to understand that if we do this, you can never go back here. You would forget us—all of us—and you would lose everything."

The silver-haired woman looked down on her own palms. She had washed her hands over and over and over again but his blood seemed to seep into her very skin, burrowing in the deepest parts of her, refusing to let her forget how life had drained from his eyes slowly, slowly, slowly.

Had it really been months? It felt as if hours had only passed. The pain in her heart fresh and the memory of him still clear.

He had been warm and soft and gentle.

And then he wasn't.

The silver-haired woman fisted her hands as tears fell down her palms. Gritting her teeth in determination, she looked eye to eye with the sun.

"What do I have to do?"

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Death may have stolen you from me today, but I promise to keep loving you until the next life.