Cold lay heavily across the land and the snow fell thick in
the darkness of winter. Closing in on
solstice the moon had shone bright in the absence of the sun for more than a
full cycle now. Even some of the cold
hardy folk who gathered to celebrate on the open tundra drew their cloaks in
tight and snuggled in close to each other.
The snow owls and ravens joined the phoenix on the Ice Dragon’s back to
his amusement as they edged in closer to her fiery warmth. The bard smiled at the woman in white who
left her head bare to the falling snow. Smiling
back she tucked her hair behind her exposed ears and watched as he picked up his
fiddle. The audience settled expectantly
and he startled them by breaking into a jig.
A snow maiden leaped up and grabbed one of the North Wind’s gentler
cousins by the hand and they started an impromptu dance circle. The bard smiled and nodded and played another
few energetic folk tunes and then he segued into a delicate piece with the
sound of spring to it and the dancers fell back down with a huff of laughter
into the audience. From there he
wandered into a melancholic piece and the white woman’s smile turned bitter and
ironic until he set his fiddle down. “The
next character I bring to you was born to mortals, a situation that brought
blessings and curses in equal measure because she became both revered and
feared as a Winter Queen.”
The Winter Queen
The vibrations of that haunted voice
And of the strong harmony that had joined it
Fled, leaving the night air still once more
Leaving the Winter Queen to crumple in its absence
To the ground of her wintery realm.
Emotions wracked her with shocking fury
That she had thought long frozen in the past
The heart she had sealed up with ice
With the elemental purity of winter
Began to crack.
Memories leaked back in, no longer held at bay
Of a time long, long ago, and a place not far enough away
When she was but a carefree mortal youth
Of the reindeer herder folk
Free to laugh, to love, to play,
If the snow fell a little thicker
When her child-self frolicked
It was brushed off and ignored
As a change in time
Even as her bright eyes adored it,
Her bright eyes of uncommon blue
The shade of a clear winter sky
As unusual as the pale blond
Of her long and silky hair
Unlike her earthy parents,
But her parents loved her and she loved them
And all was bright and light and fair
Until she came of age
When the turbulence of emotion struck
Thunder cracked, lightning split the skies,
And hail struck the reindeer herder’s camp
A freezing cold killed the flowers in their bloom
And a terrified mortal youth fled
Out across the tundra to keep her people safe
Summer died in her wake.
All that summer she struggled and strove
To pull her power under her control
To quell her wayward emotions
So that she could return home
Without bringing death,
At last as the frost nipped the air
She obtained a semblance of balance
Demonstrating to satisfaction
The ability to hold back her powers
And to direct them as she desired, mostly,
But when she returned to her people
She found them changed
No longer did they view her as some carefree youth
But with wariness and enough uncommon courtesy
To make her cry,
In desperation she orchestrated a demonstration
An arrangement of ice sculptures
That left the Autumn flowers in bloom
A fall of snow gentle and soft
That melted swiftly and surely,
But all that did was put respect in their eyes
It did not, could not, thaw their wariness
The girls no longer pulled her aside to giggle
The boys cut off their courtships
Though she was fair and kind as ever,
Only her parents still approached her with love
Only they looked past her power and wintery coloring
To see the girl within
But they could not stop the village’s change
No more than a howling blizzard,
As the years turned the girl grew in power and wisdom
She held the worst of the storms at bay
She sculpted the snowbanks into ideal insulation
She found lost reindeer and children in the snow
Displaying great power and kindness,
But she was cold, so cold
For even the children kept their distance
Held back by well-meaning hands
She wept in the darkness
And took to wandering far afield,
When her parents in their age died
She took her grief far into the North
To fling it at the vast ice sheets
There storms raged and ice mountains cracked
Their fury visible at such a distance as to become legend,
And it was many long years before she returned
To take up guardianship over her village again
They rejoiced at her return but time had worked its magic
They had built her into a myth in her absence
And now they called her their Winter Queen.
As the decades turned she remained smooth skinned and spry
The brilliance never faded from her eyes
The only change a weary wisdom
And the transformation of her pale hair
From blond to snow white,
One spring, when all her generation had gone
To the bright fields of the great beyond
She stepped off the snow onto a patch of green
Inhaling the sweet fragrance of flowers
And vanished.
Through the long summer the people worried
Though some were secretly relieved
They tended their herds
They went about their lives
But somewhere in their minds they waited,
Half expectant though they wouldn’t have said so
After all her disappearances before
After all the generations of her presence
They almost thought she would return with the snow
And she did,
She did and she wept for she knew
That there was no easy rest for her
Her people’s belief had raised her to godhood
Her mortal frailty was stripped from her
Leaving her to the embrace of winter,
She could wander the fields of snow
Could dance naked under the midday moon
On the vast sheets of cracking sea ice
And never die, consigned to eternity
Alive but always alone.
The Voice’s haunted loneliness
Filled the hollow in her heart with longing
Even as the mysterious harmony
Raised a weary curiosity
Uncrumpling she straightened, and stepped North.
