Mother Winter

A Promise

I didn't know why, but I couldn't just leave. Winter had done so much to help me when she felt such pain and such anger towards my family, my people. "Is there anything I could do to help you?" I asked her, very quietly.

She looked up at me, the depth of her pain visible in her eyes. "Unless thou canst raise the long-dead, I have no need of help from thee." She then paused, and after a long minute, said, "But if thou happens across a smith of unusual skill... I would like thee to talk to him and bring him back to me."

The breeze picked up, whipping up snow.  I shivered slightly and said, "I will do that.  I promise."

Winter regarded me for a long time as if she couldn't believe that I existed.  Then, with a long sigh, she said, "It has been so long that I have forgotten what it is like to not be angry with a descendant of Kalevar."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I decided that it was time to make my farewells.  "Well, um... I'm going to be off."

"I wish thee better luck than what I had," Winter said solemnly.

Something then occurred to me.  "You know... I don't know your name.  How am I going to tell the smith who you are?"

Winter shook her head.  "It doesn't matter.  He would be less likely to come if thou saith to him my name.  If he does ask, tell him that it is for a mother who has lost her children and everything she had."

"I will do that," I promised.

And so I turned away and started to walk back up the path that would take me to Winter's house and Pyry.  I turned to look at her just once as the trees enclosed my slender form, and I saw her staring out over the gray waters of the lake, her silver-streaked black hair flying in the breeze and her thick clothing held tight around her small body.  I swore I heard a haunting melody on the wind, but I couldn't tell for certain.  But what I definitely did see, no lying or fooling, was that snow had started to fall around her, whipped around fiercely by the wind.  It was strange because when I looked up, there was not a cloud in the sky.  I suppose it was magic, Winter's magic;  a magic of terrible power and ability, but a magic unable to help her when she needed it most.  She was no vicious witch who danced with demons and enjoyed the suffering of humankind.  She stood guard over a shattered treasure, waiting for its craftsman to come back to fix it.   She was a relic from the past, isolated and broken, waiting for those she loved to come back to her. Waiting, and knowing that they would never come back again.

I suppose I had done the same, searching for the impossible in a last-ditch attempt to save what was most precious to me.  Maybe, just maybe, there is a magic in this world strong enough to repair what has been broken, to bring back what has been lost.  And I was determined to find it.

The End