The Snow Maiden

A Want to Know

The blizzard threw blades of cold at him at first. Then the cold starting blowing through him. He wanted to cry out for her, but he didn't know her name any more than he knew his own. Snow? Maiden? That was stupider than calling himself Mud.

So he called her the only way he knew how: he sung.

He sang that strange song he somehow knew, he sang songs he heard in taverns, he sang love songs, nameless songs, wordless songs, he sang until his voice had grown hoarse and his face and lungs had grown numb. He wasn't aware of when he stopped walking, but he found himself on his knees. The storm howled about him.

At some point the wind seemed to lessen and he knew she had finally come.

"What are you doing?" she asked tonelessly. "You're not like me. You're going to freeze to death."

"I know." he rasped.

"Why are you trying so hard? I hardly even know you." even her voice had gone cold now.

"Because I didn't lie to you. I didn't know he would do that, he's a real idiot sometimes. And..." he coughed on frost. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Even through the curtains of snow he could see the scarlet dying her dress. She turned away. Her shoulders were shaking.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"What reason would I have for lying?"

She snorted. "What reason would any of you have for lying? And yet that's all you people have ever done to me-lie, lie, lie," she wagged her white head to and fro with her words. "Then you promise never to lie to me, sing me sweet things and get my hopes all up, then lie, lie, lie-and I thought you were different!"

An overwhelming exhaustion came over him there. He slumped to the side. "What gave you that idea? I told you I wasn't good."

"Exactly," she whispered. "You didn't lie. You told me exactly what you were. I thought...I thought maybe if you just told the truth to me I'd have someone for the first time who wouldn't just lie about what they're going to do to me...but I'm an idiot." she kneeled down to him. Her body trembled with pain like a reed in the blizzard winds. Her eyes were cold, but not in a cruel way. Rather, in a way some went when they had gone past all feeling. "You're going to freeze out here, and if not that you're still sick. You shouldn't have followed me."

"But you're bleeding..." he slurred.

"Then I'll bleed. I don't want to be alive anyways."

"I want you to be."

A stillness came over her. The winds wailed on. Snow was getting into his eyes. So sleepy...he wasn't sure if he felt the cold much anymore.

"You...want me to be alive?"

"Please?" it was the first time he had ever pleaded in his life. But his focus was wavering in and out. All he could concentrate on were those blue eyes in the snow that had once asked if they could be with him.

"You were right," he continued, "I am lonely. But if you die, I'll always be lonely, because you're...you're..."

She waited, but he couldn't quite think of what exactly she was. She was already so many things-so many wonderful things. He knew he was being an idiot and very unlike himself, but the world was spinning and the pain of the cold was starting to ease him into some beckoning place.

He saw her hesitate. A bit of feeling returned to her icy gaze.

"I don't want you to die either." she kneeled down before him and moved to touch him, but thought better of it and withdrew her ivory hand. "But...I don't know how...I don't know how I can do this anymore. What if you lie to me just like all the others?" Diamond like tears fell down her cheeks and froze at her chin. "You told me yourself, you're not good. If you were to lie to me again, I already hurt so much it's hard to breathe. I don't want to go through this. I want to die." she sniffed. "But that doesn't mean you have to. Stay here. I'll get some help. I think there's someone nearby who made a snow cave. I can feel it turning the winds aside."

He weakly raised his hand. "No-wait."

But she had vanished back into the snow.

For a moment he kneeled there as the wind built snow about him. He thought of the smell of horses, of warm summer days, of a middle-age woman with laugh lines in all the right places of her face. The last thing he thought of before giving in and falling on his face was of Ganon, standing before him in a crowd of stalfoes, smiling.