Winter's End, Part 10
This is the tenth and final part to a longer story. Catch up on the previous parts here!
Spring
Spring tries to summon the memory of warmth to keep her steady, but it is feeble and fades in and out.
Above, the heavens have loosed a heavier snowfall. It swirls around her, blinding, snowflakes blown this way and that by gusts of cold, northern wind. Seeds and flowers and grains are torn loose from her cloak. They scatter on the air. In the sudden blizzard, she can no longer see the snowdrops along her path. She presses on, ever upward. With every step she tells herself that if she can just keep climbing, she will eventually reach the glade.
In the muffled world of white, isolated even from the sky and Dream Tamber, who is little more than a smudge in the snow, doubt creeps easily into her mind. It sets down roots. It plants the seed that she will not find Winter at the top of the slope. Suppose he is far off, walking in another part of the valley entirely?
The thought tries to weaken her resolve. She holds herself together with the last scraps of her magic. Doubt cannot be allowed to defeat her. If she succumbs, she is lost.
With the doubt comes fear, stronger than its brother. Her legs tremble, and she stumbles more often than steps. Another slip and she is down. Snow embraces her, covers her. She summons the strength to roll onto her back but that is all she can do.
Cold above, cold below, cold all around. Worst of all is the cold within. She touches a shaking hand to her chest, but the action is taken without any power behind it, and she can no more warm her heart than she can turn this snowy dreamscape into her own.
Fatigue lays claim to her bones. Sleep paces behind her eyes, offering open arms. If she submits, she will not wake. For where can one go in a dream if one is already dreaming? The cold takes her.
In her frozen state she does not see the glade around her. It is hidden behind the flurried veils of snow. She does not see the smudge of blue emerging from the forest or hear the howling of a dreamt-up wolf in the glade.
Winter kneels beside her. He stills the swirling snow around them with a wave of his hand. Flakes freeze in the air. He lifts her into his arms and gently brushes the snow from her cheeks with his thumb.
Spring opens her eyes. She finds herself looking up at the blue face, the blue eyes, the frosted beard and snow-white lashes of Winter. In his dreamscape, he is not cold but warm, and that warmth spreads over her skin, seeps into her bones. Pink returns to her skin. Her cheeks flush. When she has the strength, he helps her to her feet and then pulls her into an embrace.
It is a while before they draw apart, and even then, they remain close. Spring takes Winter’s hand and leads him towards the eastern mountains. They walk in silence, the wolf Erebus padding at her side, and she stretches out a hand to run her fingers through the creature’s fur. Erebus moves closer to her.
At the steps of her castle, Winter hesitates, and for the first time she sees fear in his eyes.
I know not how to return, he says.
I know the way, Spring replies, and I invite you to walk it with me.
Spring Again
They step over the threshold together. Below, the valley of Spring’s dream is awash with colour. Strength floods through her veins. She remembers how it feels to be truly warm again. Winter shivers beside her but his fear is gone, and she lends him the strength he needs to survive in a season, a dream, that is not his own.
Back in the mortal world, Tamber jumps as his mistress, whose corporeal form had been wavering for some time, disappears from her armchair altogether and reappears lying on the thick rug by the window. She is not alone. Winter lies beside her. Tamber hops from a chair. He roots around in Spring’s hair affectionately, and then curls up to sleep against the small of her back.
Spring has long been receding from the valley, giving way to the heat of Summer, and now she will sleep until it is once more her time to shine. She lies entwined with Winter, the jackalope at her back, the wolf at their feet. One tether binds them both to the mortal world and they hold it tight between them in their sleep.
In the dreamscape, Spring takes pleasure in showing him all the beautiful things his snows have always hidden – all the things Autumn removes from the mortal world before Winter’s arrival.
She takes him to the bear caves, where the lumbering beasts are stretching their limbs and sniffing at the warmth in the air, padding out into the daylight and rooting around for food.
She shows him all the bright and colourful birds, the ones who arrive with Spring and follow Summer into her dreamscape to wait out the colder months.
She shows him the sowing of the fields – though the mortals here are illusions – the lambing, the blooming of all the flowers and seeds and bulbs she has planted for her world.
Winter takes it all in with a smile. His interest is captured by the lush green of the trees. He plucks a leaf from a tree and turns it over and over in his hands. For him the trees have always been bare or cloaked in white. When time has passed and it is time for him to go, he tucks that same, vibrant leaf behind Spring’s ear and departs her dreamscape on a lingering kiss.
In the mortal world, he wakes beside her while she sleeps on. He presses his cold lips to her brow, strokes Tamber’s fluffy head, and goes out to heal the valley.
Autumn greets him in the wood with a smile and a bow. He tosses his crown of hazel and red leaves at his feet where at once it crumbles to ash. The snows come. They cover the land, muffling sounds and plunging the world into white. Ice forms on the rivers and streams. One by one the animals of the valley take to their dens and their long-awaited rest.
The wolves return to Winter’s halls and the woods below his castle. Erebus greets them with a howl. He keeps always at his master’s side and growls a warning at the huntsmen shivering in their beds. They will not go near that castle again.
At the close of Winter and the return of Spring, the pair meet once more in their favourite glade. Though she feels the bite of the cold she finds she has missed the snow.
Winter embraces her, then draws back to remove his crown of ice. This time he does not break it but bids the ice to melt and reveal the crown of hawthorn within. Flowers bloom around the wood when he hands it to Spring. It is perfect. She waits to place it on her head until they have said their farewells and she has seen him to his castle, then she turns to greet the world renewed.
The End.