The Snow Maiden

By the Last Fire

She woke up not sure of anything. Snow surrounded her, lit with warm firelight. A silence pressed in on her senses. No snowflakes fluttered textures to her, no wind murmured to her, and for the first time she could truly feel the cold leaking in from outside. Groaning, she moved to get up and found herself able to move without pain. A rough blanket covered her form. Beneath it she saw a bandaged wrapped about her waist, dyed red, but not by blood.

The other thing that she noticed was that she was naked.

She clung to her blanket and blinked the fuzz from her eyes. The middle aged man sat crouched on the other side of the fire, polishing a beautiful brass horn in his hands. At his feet was the dark man, pale as snow itself.

"What did you do?"

"Just bandaged you up." he said softly. "Your clothes melted when you came near to the fire. I know now you are no ordinary girl, which is a pity," he turned the horn over to get to the other side, "you look so much like my lost daughter. But, even if you were normal, you couldn't be her."

"Your daughter?"

He smiled, a tender thing through his gruff beard and various scarves. "Yes. Got lost in a summer snow storm, she did. Her name was Rosy."

"Why couldn't I be her? I mean, besides the...not normal part."

The older man tapped his head with the horn. "She was a ginger."

"Ah." she said softly, curling up deeper into her blankets. She could feel her hair wilting against her cheek. Her own skin felt flushed with heat from the fire, but she liked it, even as it burned her. She wanted to crawl over to the dark boy, but was afraid of getting any closer to the instrument man. The last thing she remembered was the older man telling her he was dead, or close to it. She tried not to think about it and nuzzled her mouth and nose into her arms. The icy coldness from outside pressed in deeper. Her companion across the fire shuddered along with the flames.

"Never been in cold like this," he said, "and my wood stores are just about out. This is the last of it." he sighed and put down his horn. "I'm afraid I've done all I can for you and your friend. That red potion I put on your wound should have healed it by now, rare stuff, that is. Got it to make up for part of the price on a Kokirian fiddle."

She watched the fire play on the brass. A memory in the back of her mind flickered with music. There was something about this man she couldn't place. She feared his music, however. Too often the very thing she loved was used against her. Whatever she was looking for, she'd never know.

He blew off some ash from his horn and stuffed it back into his pack. "I better go. Unlike you, I don't stand a chance against this cold and need to make it to the village."

"Can you take him?" she asked.

He looked down at the pale boy by the fire and shook his head, meeting her gaze with sad eyes that said he understood her feelings more than she knew. It was the sadness the snowflakes sang of him. It must be this lost daughter of his that made him mourn so.

"I'm sorry." he said simply.

She watched as he slung on his pack and retied his scarves around his face. The fire flickered in another wave of cold, struggling to burn.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked. If he died in this cold, it would be her fault too.

"There's a village only about a mile away. I'll keep moving." his eyes crinkled with his hidden smile. "Thank you for your concern, miss."

She had the distinct impression then that he knew she was the cause of this cold, and yet he didn't blame her, but accepted it. The sensation was so peculiar she couldn't take her eyes off him as he crawled out of the cave and into the wasteland outside. How could he understand her so easily?