The Snow Maiden

Victims of the Frozen World

Link woke abruptly to banging and raised voices below him. Out of habit he thought the worse and jumped out of bed, unsheathed his sword, and hooked on his shield in one movement. He fell down the ladder and landed with a thud. He could see the whole family running about ahead. Kane was the first one to see him standing in the hallway armed for battle. He snickered.

"Nice trousers."

Carrol spotted the blade. "Good gracious! Put that thing away and get dressed, we need every man we can get!"

Link lowered his sword and shield. "What's going on?"

"A house on the edge of the village caved in on the west side last night, too much snow. The family says there's still someone buried in there."

The next thing he knew he was wrapped up to his nose again and going at a wreckage of old wood and snow with a shovel among a fleet of other men. There was a panic fervor to their digging. He had never before thought a blizzard could be dangerous in this way. Even as he dug, he heard several other men talking breathlessly about the other houses that had caved in like this in the past few years of this never-ending winter. Others had died then.

This village deserves to freeze!

He thrust his shovel beneath a beam. What had Tom done to her to make her say such a thing? Why was she here at all?

He turned to make sure his pile of snow wouldn't fall into the hole he was creating and saw a familiar, pale face surrounded in black cloth. Watery, tired eyes watched him.

"Don't just stand there, Shadow," he turned back to his hole, "grab a shovel."

"No can do, Hero. And Shadow?"

Link huffed. "So sorry, I forgot, you're a jerk."

"How quaint. Jerk. You're such a princess, and also there are no more shovels. If you haven't noticed, some noble folk are using their hands."

Link looked to the side. Sure enough, a few villagers were going at the snow with their hands and prying beams out.

"Besides," Shadow sneezed and sniffed, "you wouldn't want me to die of this deadly illness, would you?"

Link fumed and found himself beating at the snow and planks as though they were Ganon's stalfoes. Why did he even bother to help that...that...moron! He had thought just maybe there was more to his shadow than he knew, but so far he was proving himself an idiot.

He furiously lifted a beam and stalled. Plaid cloth showed through the snow.

"Over here!" he hollered. Men swarmed over to him. In minutes a man was pried out of the snow, his flesh grey-blue. From beneath his frozen arms was a little girl, who was shivering wildly. She could only have been a little over three. The moment a man picked her out of the snow she began to cry. A tearful woman rushed over and wrapped the girl up in quilts.

"My husband," she said breathlessly, "my husband-"

"He's dead."

The village fell still. The only sound was the crying toddler. Even Shadow didn't say one of his snide remarks.

The woman just stared. Somehow, her silence was louder than if she had screamed out her very soul. Link stumbled towards them, needing to be with her and cringing against sympathy like pain twisting his guts, but once he reached her he didn't know what to say. He could only look down with her at the blue corpse dressed in that plaid overshirt. The woman knelt down, still clutching tightly to her daughter. Link was one of the few close enough to hear her beneath the wailing child.

"Love," she shook him, "love, it's all right. She's safe. You can wake up now."

Shadow coughed, wiped his nose, and turned around. Link watched him go out of the corner of his eye.

"Love, it's all right. It's all right," the woman said. She left her hand against the cold cheek of the dead man in the snow.