Of Brushstrokes and Frost

Prologue

Pain. It was a new sensation to her. Never before in her thousand years of existence had she experienced this. She had known the content feeling that surrounded her whenever she watched her mothers’ snowflakes dance in the winter air. When she felt the breeze of a snowstorm rustle her hair. Contentment and Indifference were all she had felt.

Until her mother had granted her this new mortal body. She had wanted to know, how it was like to be human, to live and feel as they did. Her mother had warned her. But her curiosity had been too strong. How overwhelmed she had been as she got to know all those new sensations. Joy. Fear. Excitement. Tiredness. Hunger. Thirst. She even had felt the cold for the first time. She had absorbed all those things like a sponge, growing hungry for more. All these new thoughts and feelings seemed to fill the emptiness that had spread through her innermost being for centuries.

And then, there was pain. A stabbing sensation she had first experienced as she touched the flame of a candle, out of sheer curiosity. She had pulled back immediately, scared and wondrous at this unexpected feeling. It had remained within her, quite some time, until her finger had begun to heal.

But the pain from the flame back then could not even remotely compare to the pain she felt now. The dagger that seemed to twist into her human heart even deeper with every breath she took. She saw his eyes - the warmth within them, that she had come to love, gone. She heard his voice, calm yet void of any emotion, as he told her that she meant nothing to him. A fling. An adventure for a short while. Nothing more.

“Mother”, she whispered, her voice breaking as she sunk to her knees in the snow. She clutched her chest, as if this was enough to make her broken heart become whole again. Something warm dripped down her cheeks. Tears, she realized. She had never cried before. The coldness seemed to intensify, the light snowfall turning into a blizzard around her. As the snowflakes danced across her vision, she felt a sense of comfort, despite the immense pain in her heart. She knew that her mother was there, listening to her. She would help her. She would make this go away.

“Mother”, she repeated while the tears on her cheek began to turn to ice, “Please, I do not wish to feel anymore… Please… Stop this pain.” She buried her fingers in the snow, the cold feeling welcoming to her. Through the wind she thought she heard her mother’s voice. My dear child… He shall pay for what he has done to you.