Ice, steel and shadows - ACOTAR au

Lilith

My teeth and bones were clattering like some off sync tune, the itchy, woollen blanket covering me offering barely any warmth. Winter was unforgivable: it took and took and took. It took crops, it took warmth, it took life. I glanced outside of the window to be met with the usual grayness: even nature was numb. I dragged myself from bed, wrapping my clothes tighter around myself. They were huge and I could swim in them, but it was all we could afford.

The house was mostly quiet, except from the quiet chatter drifting from the living room. I thought of my family gathered around the fire, and my mouth very nearly watered, for the warmth and the easing of the cold ache spreading in my bones.

My hopes were crushed under Nesta's perfectly polished, perfectly new boots. She was sat in a corner, her posture perfectly straight, royal as a queen who didn't fit in our little, dirty, cold hut. Elain and father were sat side by side: father was smiling one of his rare, pained smiles, while Elaine babbled on and on, and Feyre was changing in her tight browns pants that she wore to hunt. No fire burning.

"Nesta." I said, my voice colder than even the weather. "Well, look who's awake." My sister sneered, and I fought the urge to start screaming. My life wasn't like that. No, once upon a time, I was truly happy. And not because we were rich: money never made that big of a difference with me, all that mattered was that I could dress, and eat, and warm up. But Nesta and I, once, were close as one. She was always this fierce, bold girl but there wasn't so much anger, so much viciousness.

Elain was, is and I hope will always be a vibrant, sweet and kind creature. But nowadays, that sweetness...it gets too much for me sometimes. How the world is burning around her, how we're slowly dying from hunger, and cold, and she still can smile and talk of merry things, and be daddy's favourite. As for my father? I think I hate him and yet love him at the same time. I hate him for being a coward, and not doing anything to keep us- or even himself- alive, but I still make sure his plate is filled, that he has a warm enough place to sleep in night.

Feyre is the one I've grown closest to after we, the mighty, fell into the pit of poverty. She's a year older than me, meaning second to youngest, and yet, has taken this burden of being a protector, a provider because of some stupid oath our mother made her take. I'm the only one who knows about that: sometimes, when night has fallen, and we're too ravished or cold to fall asleep, we talk. And of course, despite her not liking it, we hunt together.

The very first time she went to hunt, she'd gone alone. She was fourteen. She'd caught a rabbit, and everyone was thrilled. We hadn't eaten in days. And yet, I heard her, in night, as she quietly cried in her pillow for the life she'd taken: even if it had been just a rabbit. Since then, I'd followed her, whether she liked it or not, in those cruel, cold woods. And we'd become a team.

"You didn't gather wood for a fire." My tone was cold, calm. A declaration, not a question. "You get up at dawn and do it!" Nesta sneered, fiercely, and I wondered if she, my sister, truly hated me. I sighed as I took in Elaine's and father's frightened looks: an argument between Nesta and I was never a pleasant affair.

I turned to my other sister instead, the one shrugging on her hunting gear. "Give me a second, and then we leave, Feyre." I said, walking back to the room I shared with my sisters to get dressed. "You don't have to come today." Feyre softly said, as she did each time we went to hunt. I sadly smiled, shaking my head. "Give me a second." I repeated, and my sister knew better than to argue.

I changed slowly, one item at a time, as every glimpse of exposed skin resulted in my skull rocking more and more violently from the cold. Finally, I dressed, and strapped on me my daggers, my darling friends.

I joined Feyre, and we left: that simply. No one protested to the two barely adults going out alone in the woods to hunt and kill, perhaps even get hunted and killed...so close to the Wall, I didn't even want to think about it. I shivered, half from the cold, and half from something else.