Winter Blessing: A Short Story.

✨🤩Hello and Happy New Years ADM Fam!!

I know you haven't heard from me in a few months. It has been so hectic and, honestly, I hit a few bumps in the road...hard. But, I'm still here and I'm doing my best to get everything sorted out. Some of the events that kept me away, not to mention behind schedule, have been devastating..to say the least. Just know I am working behind the scenes and I'll tell you all about it very soon.

In the meantime, be sure to catch up on the website! There's more to come.

Today, here is another original short story by yours truly. I had hoped to post it by Christmas but it's already after New Years🥲. I hope everyone managed to enjoy their holidays. Let me know what you think!

It was said that the day she was born, she cursed the land that brought her life. And the place, once bathed in sunlight, a year-round warmth and bountiful harvests, saw endless nights and a bitter cold that chased away the sun.

"Sun-killer!"

"Demon!"

"Ice witch!"

Children taunted her with such names for as long as she could remember. Daring, like children often did, to say the whispers of the adults aloud. Because it seemed cruelty was and is most socially acceptable in adulthood. So long, of course, as most of the time, it's brewed quietly. Until just the right moment...

Meanwhile, their children, because they are young or, at least, excused from proper behavior, remain free to spew their venom in their stead. Almost as if it had originated within them. And if nothing else, they managed to hate her as if it had.

She knew that they'd learned the behavior and that the likelihood of one child, let alone so many, being born lacking empathy and morphing into something so hateful was very little. Even if she did not know why, she couldn't muster those same feelings. Even though, at some point in the past, she'd seen those very same children as suckling infants who would even look upon her for short moments with interest, excitement, or some other similar emotion easily read in their small faces and large eyes. There were others who became more aware as time went on. Children who seemed like they stood a fighting chance to be different. They didn't understand the reason they were kept far away from the pillars, cold steel, and the girl between them.

But whatever questions they had back then must have long ago been silenced. As they too, spat at her, called her names, and joined the rest of the land in punishing her very existence in time.

And in three days, she would be dragged throughout the fields and cracked streets until new scrapes formed on her soles, and her darkened, bruised wrist joints rubbed the clasps of her chains. This was inevitable.

At the end of every month, the day would come for her. They would celebrate, and she, at everyone's mercy, would suffer such great pains that she hoped it would bring an end to her days.

It did not. And it quite possibly never would.

•••

"What's your name?" A voice had asked her. Sudden, but low. From the other side of the pillar where she couldn't see. Or from a place deep inside her head.

"I don't know." She replied, hardly aware of her barely audible voice slipping out between her lips. "I never knew." They were trembling now and she couldn't control it.

"You scream, but they never stop. Your blood spills over the ice, and they don't so much as flintch."

"It hurts." She nodded, sobbing already. "They torture me." There was no use quieting herself. It was the middle of the night. The people had all gone to sleep. The day's gray clouds had disappeared several hours ago. Before they dragged her through a stream of her own blood and the frozen dirt. Back to the pillars to wait.

At times, she spoke to herself. In a way, to make her feel sane again or to ignore the anxiousness that built up the closer it got to her walk of shame. Now, sometimes, on the most painful and quietest of nights, a voice answered back. She didn't know how to tell what day it first called out to her.

"Are you a witch? Did you really take away the sun?"

"I do not know what I am. Only that I live. I breathe. I feel. I bleed. Just like they do. I don't know what happened to the sun. They say I took the light from them. Because I was the only one born the entire year. Because my parents' lives ended the same night I came. And they say my eyes lit up like blue flames as the sun set, never to shine past the clouds again."

If she was guilty of what they accused, she had no way of knowing. She did not remember much about the day she was born or the night that followed it. She only remembered the long storm that buried everything around them, the couple who took her in, and their deaths that followed years later when the people of this land finally came for her.

"I heard that you were found days after you killed your parents. And that you never eat or drink but you don't die. Would not a witch be capable of living? You're immortal."

"I don't know what ended the lives of my parents. Nor do I remember them. I know that they loved me. If I am a witch, I am a very poor one. Immortal or not. At least if I were so powerful I would not be subjected to this place. Maybe they just haven't found what kills me yet."

"How do you know that your parents loved you if you don't remember them?"

"Maybe I don't know. I hoped they would. I supposed they did. Because what I remember most of my first days is a strong feeling. Like when cupped hands melt away ice, but in my chest. Something like the perfect white of fresh snow, but it never hurts to notice it. I imagine it is the same kind of warmth these people seek from the sun. And if it is so, I miss it more than anything else."

"Is that why you don't hate them? Because you miss warmth?" The voice prompted. In a strange way. Not a question of prodding for a reaction or an assumption that her words were untrue, but something smaller. Kinder. She knew then that the voice was not, in fact, in her head. Or if it were, it was not of her own thoughts. For in her mind, no such gentleness existed towards herself. It never had.

"I don't know. Perhaps. If I were a witch, I would simply bring back the sun."

"And if you could, if you did, do you suppose they would set you free? Why should you do them any favors?"

"I don't know. I simply want to give it to them. And I want to be free. Is it not possible to do both?"

"Do you want revenge? A sea of blood for all the years they've shed yours? Wouldn't the sun reward them for it?"

Her mind was failing her now. Although she had never been bothered by the chilly conditions outside, no matter how many bundled up for the weather or became ill because of it, she still felt its effects on her open wounds. Like needles of ice peircing her organs and migrating towards the open air.

"I do not wish to be the demon they make me out to be." She recalled saying those words as the cold froze the tears on her cheeks. Any other aspect of the world she could see before disappeared behind her eyelids soon after.

•••

The day they came for her, as she dropped weakly to the ground when the leader freed the heavy chains from the pillars, she did not know why she thought back to that conversation. Perhaps she hoped it would return and help distract her from the agony sure to befall her. Or, she simply ached for any morsel of emotion resembling kindness again.

As she peeked through the strands of her hair, she did not see any such indication. The faces looked at her with mockery, anger, disgust, hatred, and some...excitement. At what they would do to her, no doubt. At her torment.

And so, it began.

Soon, she could not understand one shouted word for another. The images of the townspeople were buried by blotches of dirty snow and, later, the warm red of fresh blood. Stones and sharp blades pierced her skin and it felt as if her heart was being wounded just the same.

She heard herself painfully whimpering and gasping for breath. And she cried as she was pulled along, her wrists forced upwards, her arms on either side of her head and her body limp. She cried as she saw the faces of children watching. For what they were seeing, for any that participated, and for their futures. Already on the edge of consciousness, she wondered what this town would do to their souls. If she was the demon then what were the humans becoming?

It was this moment that she became aware of one child in particular. A boy, nearly glowing with a faint light in the middle of the crowd. He wore no gloves, no coat or hat. Not even shoes. He did not shiver when the wind blew his dark hair or change his expression as he looked down towards her. She could almost swear his eyes were flickering with a golden light.

"And now?" The voice returned. Clearer and closer than ever before. She recognized it in an instant. "Are your wishes the same? Do they deserve the sun?"

"Who...or what are you?" She mumbled, knowing the words had barely left her lips.

No one reacted to his presence or seemed to hear his words. He hadn't appeared to take a single step, yet his image followed her anyway. Always centered slightly ahead of the crowd.

"Someone with the power to grant your wishes." He replied, this time, his lips stretched into a soft smile. As if she had asked a silly question. As if he were suddenly speaking to a child himself.

She was sobbing now. Confused, scared, but somehow filled with a sense of hope and desperation all at once. It propelled her forward, towards him, towards the crowd. Something she had never done and hardly had the ability to do. As she reached forward, already pleading in her heart, sobbing uncontrollably, nearly-muted screams shot out from the swarm of people and most rushed backwards with a sense of urgency, fear, and self-preservation.

Please, she begged in her mind. It could have been the lie of an imaginitive child. It could have been a strange, cruel joke. Or a delusion altogether. Still, she could not let go of even the mere thought. "Please!"

The boy finally moved.

He took a single step towards her as she felt something crack against her skull. The boy kneeled beside her now with steady, bright golden eyes as a loud ringing burst through her ears. Red liquid bubbles blotched out her sight as she fell forward and her face crunched into the snow.

"Free Me."

•••

For the first time in a very long time, she dreamed.

She saw her mother and father's faces clearly. So clearly that she could see her mother's deep brown eyes and their warm smiles. She could feel gentleness as they spoke softly on the floor near a fire. And heard words echoed in the background.

•••

When she opened her eyes again, she quickly realized she was not in pain anymore. She was not chained to the large pillars in the lonely dark. She was not, in fact, outside at all.

She sat upright and felt the plushiness of cushions. A mattress. She hadn't fallen asleep with her shoulders burning and arms numb, splayed out on icy chains. Her head was laid against a pillow rather than hanging down towards her chest. She was covered with a blanket and, as she looked over herself, noticed a long robe folded over the ragged fabric she usually wore that long ago stopped resembling a dress.

"You're awake." The boy's voice returned as he walked into the room. "It took longer than expected." He had changed clothes since she'd last seen him. Still, there was a faint light surrounding him.

"Where...?" She began to ask. Her thoughts interrupted by the sudden notice that her usual bruises were gone.

"It takes time to heal years of bruises, broken bones... to heal the results of constant torture. What it may have done to your mind, however, I may not be able to remedy."

"You must have brought me here. Thank you for saving me. But...who are you? Where am I?" She asked.

"Can you walk?" He asked, his voice small but direct.

She tested her movement. There was nothing to hinder her. She hadn't felt so light since she was a child herself. "I don't see why not."

"Come, then." He said, turning around and going out the door and down a hall.

She followed quickly behind as they exited the building. As they went, she couldn't help but look at the large stone walkway and walls with wooden floors leading from the bedroom. Although it lacked anything besides a stuffed mattress on the floor from what she could see. Her curiosity was rising.

Stopped in the arched doorway, the two of them looked over a beautifully odd landscape. One part ice and the other dry with patches of dead grass and dampened soil. It took a moment to recognize the view.

"Is this..the town?" She asked almost reluctant.

"Certainly."

"But it's snowing here and not over there past the fences!" She gasped. "What's happened? I can hardly recognize it!"

"Haven't you realized it yet? This snow and ice belong to you." He said, gesturing ahead of them.

She did not understand, but it did nothing to stop her stomach from sinking. "Are you saying that their stories are true? I took away the sun? I...ruined their land? But how could that be?" She didn't know if she was angry or full of sorrow.

"You ruined nothing. You saved them. Even from themselves." He shook his head. "Their stories are simply stories, but that doesn't mean they were entirely false."

"I...I don't understand." She tried to keep her hands from shaking. Unsure of what to make of herself. She had thought she was undeserving of their hatred. Of the pain they inflicted upon her. Of being their prisoner. But if she really was responsible...was she wrong or were they?

"Some time ago, a husband and his wife left their home to seek a doctor whose specialty was rare diseases. And while on their travels, they found no such doctor. They did not know if he'd disappeared, died, or simply never existed at all.

"Instead of a doctor who could preform miracles, their long search left them stranded in an old, forgotten land long ago abandoned. And here, they found a small child, conscious and bloodied, but dying. Covered in open wounds knifed into their skin.

"The two of them, instead of running away or leaving that child to die, spent their last remaining weeks taking care of him. Cleaning and wrapping his wounds. Feeding him most of the scraps, wild berries and seeds growing outside, and cradled him in front of a fire with warm smiles and random nighttime stories.

"They ignored their own worsening conditions and hid their sadness to rare moments at night when they thought the child was asleep. They worried for him, for their home, and about what would become of their family."

"What story is this?" She felt uncertain as her earlier dream came back to her. She didn't see a child, but it sounded very similar to what she saw then. "Does the child survive? Were the husband and wife afflicted with disease or were they looking for a doctor to take home?" She asked, feeling pity for everyone involved.

The boy smirked and leaned against the doorframe, still never looking her way. He blinked slowly as the snow fell ahead of them. The snow...her snow. If it was hers, she didn't know how to stop it. If she had such power, why couldn't she feel it?

"The story is mine...and it is yours."

"Yours and mine? I don't know anything about this story. I've never heard it." She said quickly. "I don't understand what you're saying."

"You can't know a story that no one was around to tell you. It is ours. Or at least, where our lives intersect. You asked what happened to them. If they wanted a doctor to heal them or to take to their family. The woman was carrying the rest of their family all along." He said, turning her way and lightly pointing towards her abdomen. "She was with child. And she and her husband her awaiting the arrival of a little girl."

"A little girl..." She repeated in a low voice. Her heartbeat quickening.

"The two were sick. With an illness from the water. And they were not the only ones. The entire land was poisoned by it before they knew it. They hoped to find a doctor who could treat them and make them well. And if none else, to ensure the health and safety of their daughter."

She felt knots in her stomach as he continued on, his eyes, which she distinctly remembered lighting up with a deep gold before, were now light brown and glum.

"Despite their hard work, the child they found in the abandoned land was beyond rescuing. The rest of his wounds were hidden inside his body. Nowhere they would ever be able to see. They were not doctors, they were in search of one; they had no way to know.

"And they themselves were beyond repair. The nights they cried most were the times that they felt desperate to preserve the life growing inside the woman's belly. A fear that their illness, or death before labor, especially in the middle of nowhere, meant their daughter would never see the world outside."

"They died there? In that place?"

He nodded silently and she found herself sliding down to sit. Feeling somehow overwhelmed with what she was hearing. He was saying that she was the daughter. That her parents had attempted to nurse him back to health. But if he was beyond saving then how was he there now? What did any of it mean?

"Is there anything more? How did I end up here if they died somewhere else? Am I really alive? Are you? What does this have to do with the snow and those people?"

"There was a day that I could find my voice and was lucid. I asked them about where they came from. And I used the last of my power to send you and your parents' bodies back there. Here, I thought, you would not survive. There, even in a poisoned land, you stood a chance. People would find you."

"What kind of power is it? How can you do that? Why didn't I get sick?"

"I'm immortal. I've never suffered an illness."

"But you said that you were beyond saving. Doesn't that mean you died?" She couldn't hide her concern nor her surprise.

"My power is not what you have now. And I never said I became ill. Yours is merely a seed, a blossom. As an immortal, I do not age. I am not afflicted with illnesses like the diseases your parents or any other human and animal could carry, but that does not mean I cannot die. It seems my power passed something of that to you.

"And I did. The same evening that I sent you and your parents home, I died. I can be harmed. I can bleed and I can be killed. After, I return. Like this." He lowered his hands towards himself. "It takes some time, but I return. Not always as a child, but I am always myself. And grow into the same features I've always known."

"If your powers are not like mine then why?"

He chuckled then, for the first time. "I wondered the same at first. And then I realized, your power is the result of your previous condition. And your parents' wishes."

"Previous condition? What condition is that?"

"Being an infant. I suppose children truly do listen from the womb." He continued through a smile. "They wanted you to live and I sent you back to this place. Still rampant with the disease. Still poisoned. My power protected you, but it also changed for you. Or you changed it. It's an impressive feat."

"I changed it? Does that mean I can control it? Why didn't I know?"

"It means that your will could do so. And in time, it will again. When you've had practice and understand yourself better. It's hard to know when it's always been inside of you. You've never had the opportunity, nor the understanding to know any different. It is not your fault. It's reasonably mine for dying."

"What a thing to say."

"It's only the truth. But, the truth is a start. And now you know it."

"But I don't know why it snows." She groaned.

"You were a child. It was brilliant when you consider you hadn't taken your first breaths yet." He sounded amused as he re-crossed his arms. It was strange to watch his young body display so much personality, but it was worse to know that he would never die. At least, not permanently. "You froze everything to stop it from spreading. It forced them to obtain their food from elsewhere and the fresh snow easily became drinkable water."

She sighed as if she had been holding her breath. As his words settled on her, a succession of sobs accompanied by tears came from deep inside. Her parents loved her afterall. They had tried to save her and what they eventually did. Even better, she hadn't destroyed the land. If she was a monster she was a different breed. "Then why did you ask me those questions back then?"

Slowly, she regained her composure. He seemed to be waiting.

"Finding you was not difficult. As simple as tracing my own power. What I did not know was how much you knew. Sometimes residual memories can be left behind during power transfers. I didn't know if you remembered, or if some of my memories were left behind. And I will also admit to my curiosity. Were you upholding this state of magic simply because you'd always done so or had you retained your original will?

"Now, I can say that if you worried about being an ice-witch or a demon, or any other undeserving title they screamed at you, then rest well-assured that you are none of them. You were their savior and they were too blind to see it but you don't hate them for it." He sighed. "You'll find in time that humans have a history of this corrosive behavior."

"Humans killed you back then, too?" His wound, and the one inside, that eventually caused his death... It was the way he spoke that made her suspect it.

"Yes and given time, it could happen again. That abandoned land had once belonged to the immortals in the past, but its all but forgotten now. Humans are obsessed with longevity. And once they realize that anyone exists that has it in abundance, no matter how you warn them, they seek it to the ends of the earth. But even we don't know how our lives truly began nor why. And any of our power, like what I shared with you in my weakened state, must be shared willingly. It cannot be taken.

"They refuse to hear these truths time and time again. We immortals find each other across distance, across time. Briefly intersect our lives...but we don't live together and never will again. We've found that our secrets, and our survival are best kept safe alongside our greatest predators."

"Will you leave me then? Even though I don't have anyone else?" It suddenly felt frightening. Hearing his story-their story- and then thinking that she'd be on her own again.

"I have a responsibility to teach you. I will not abandon it." He stepped over and placed a hand on her shoulder. "And you're not immortal, so there's that as well."

She quickly looked at him, her eyes wide. "I'm not...?" She had assumed that they were the same now. "How am I not?"

"It's not something I can share. None of us can make new immortals that way. The greatest possibility would be a birth from two of our own kind and that itself is no guarantee. I don't know more than that. As I mentioned, you'll never have mortal sickness, but you will not be another me. Consider that it's own blessing."

"Then what am I?"

"Alive. Free. And likely for a longer time than any human around you, but your time will end. One day." He smiled, but his face had fallen. His eyes looked as if they were a withering plant. Its leaves steeped in shadow, fighting to reach sunlight.

"Thank you," she said, knowing it was likely she could never say those words enough "for freeing me. For granting my wish and my mother and father's."

"It was my choice. I wanted to return my debt. I don't like owing any favors."

"But you came back here for me anyway. That's more than you had to do to repay a debt, isn't it? Much less to the dead."

"It just so happens." He shrugged.

"What will happen to them? Now that the ice and snow has melted?" She asked with a small smile. A 'you're welcome' would have been fine. What an odd personality. But he was kind and she couldn't help but cling to that kindness already.

"That's up to you. For now, I've undone your little winter blessing. Since the day they dared drag you in front of me. I ensured they knew of it. Let them rot in their own consequence while you learn to control your power...and if you so choose, become their savior again. He shrugged. " Or don't. If you do decide to help them again, I'm sure they will repent and thank you for it. They might even prefer you to their sun."

"Won't they suffer? They could die, couldn't they? Even the children?" She asked, almost horrified.

He did not seem swayed by her realization. "It is a guarantee that they will. Who knows how many. Even if you hadn't wanted freedom, even if I never assisted you, it would not stay frozen forever. Especially as they continued to harm you. If you hadn't been given any time to heal inbetween, this frozen paradise would have ceased to exist a very long time ago. Even faster if they'd killed you."

She felt a lump in her throat. She hadn't wanted their fates in her hands. But she had wanted them to see the sun again. Who was she to complain after she'd gotten exactly what she asked for? Now that she knew, however, she had no idea what to do about it.

"Those people are not your responsibility and you are safe here. This view is yours now. They will not be able to enter, but they will be able to see it. This building, those columns, and the snow. I thought it fitting that your new home be constructed between the very cold, stones that once held you. Only, now they will support your new life."

"Were you able to do this with your powers, too?"

"Not entirely. I had a little assistance, but with your power you may one day build the entire thing out of ice. Only time will tell."

"Where do we start?" She asked, feeling a sense of urgency. For herself and for the sake of making a decision in the near future.

"For one, with breakfast. They've starved you so long you've probably forgotten the joy of a good meal. Your resilience has been the result of your power feeding off of your own life force to keep you alive, but you won't last another year in that state. That is the trick immortals tapped into during war and famine, not that you've had any choice. As luck should have it, you've had expendable years of your life to waste on it. Rest is good but food is even better."

She did vaguely recall meals growing up with the married couple who had taken her in. They'd eaten every day. She could already tell she had a lot to learn.

"Two, with names. Starting with yours."

"Are you going to give me one then? A name?" She asked, nearly sprinting to keep up with him as he walked the unfamiliar hallways of the building. The home he had built for her. It would take time to get used to it.

"Why would I give you something you already have? I heard your parents say it often enough, Winter."

"Winter..?" Her body julted to a stop as she recognized the voices from her dream echoing again inside her head.

"I like Winter, for her name. What do you think, dear?"

"Winter is perfect. And she must have a fun little nickname. Like Snow!"

"Your baby is nearly crawling out of your stomach and you two are only now naming her?"

"Gideon, you're awake early today."

"Even my wounds cannot rest with all your shouting and giggling. The two of you are so lively, like children playing in fresh mud."

"And you don't act like a child at all."

"Oh hush you two. What do you think Gideon? About the name Winter? I hope she'll have her father's clear blue eyes. If you think it's good enough, we'll keep it."

"Why are you asking me?"

"I want you two to spend lots of time together!"

"That's right. You're going to be a good big brother, right? You seem mature for your age. Wait. What is your age anyway?"

"It's of no importance. When did I approve being taken into your family?"

"You're so stubborn today. Are you feeling better? Consider yourself an honorary member. Don't you like her name? You have to remember it. It's very important."

"Yes, yes. Winter is just fine. You'll have my blessing. Now, if you would please let me sleep..."