The Snow Maiden

Survivors

He once heard from somewhere that if you watched the ground as you walked it meant you were dehydrated. But after a few years of testing this out, he realized that most people just look at the ground when they walk, without any explainable reason that he could think of. Perhaps it was a security habit, built so one is extra sure where all the pits and rocks were. But oftentimes he forced himself to look up at his surroundings as he walked without looking down once, and he never tripped or stumbled. His feet knew where to go.

So as he forced himself to look up this time with these thoughts in mind, it was a good thing he did, or he would've never noticed the young girl huddled into a tight ball between too large boulders. Cuts speckled her exposed skin and her long brown hair was covered in brambles. He ran as fast as he could with a huge pack on his back to her, jangling with bells and tiny drums along the way.

"Hey, hey!" he called. "What happened? Are you okay?"

She looked up with wide, dark eyes. Something in the way she looked at him, wan and pale, made him flinch.

"Woa, you look like you've seen hell, little miss."

She took a deep shuddering breath and dropped her head again, which begun the process of her body melting out of the crevice. He caught her clumsily. She couldn't have been more than thirteen, and bony as can be.

"What happened?"

She took another one of her stuttering sighs. "They ate the horses."

"What?"

"The horses," she murmured, voice dry. "They ate them. Ate them right up while they were alive. Ate them right up."

He lowered her to the ground to slip off his pack. Wouldn't be good to drop fifes onto a traumatized girl.

"Why are you here? Where's your family?"

She stiffened, then blabbered faster. "Ate them. Ate them all. Ate the horses."

"What did?"

She fell silent. When he peaked beneath her curtain of dark brown hair he found her eyes closed. It would appear that she had passed out. He felt his chest ache for this girl. She could have been only a year or two older than his own missing little girl. What if she too had a father who wondered where she was now? What would he want someone who found his little dancer to do?

Glancing back at his fat pack, he groaned inwardly. He wasn't as young as he use to be, and it was hard enough carrying around his instruments let alone a teenager. He searched for a alcove or cave of sorts. On finding one that seemed the right size, he stuff his pack in and carefully covered it with stones. Once he was satisfied, he picked up the emancipated girl and continued down the path to a village he knew lay just beyond the mountain pass. The people there had kind souls, and he knew he could find help for her there.

And maybe this time, just maybe, he may find a clue about his own daughter, lost on the first day of a June winter.