Winter's End, Part 5
This is the fifth part to a longer story. Catch up on the previous parts here!
Spring
Time moves on and so does Spring. She readies the land until it is bursting with rich nutrients and oversees from afar the ploughing and the sowing. In the cool nights, she wanders the fields and sows a few seeds of her own to ensure a bountiful harvest.
In the pastures, she watches shepherds bring forth the year’s first lambs. All the while she holds the tethers of their mothers’ lives in her hands to keep them from fading into oblivion. Once the lambs are born, the ewes are free to roam, full of life, having been kept from the brink of darkness.
In the forests and on the lower slopes of the mountains, she blankets the land in flowers; a flood of bluebells for the woods, turning the ground beneath those trees into a sea that quivers in the breeze; heather and bright yellow gorse for the mountainsides.
By now, the last of the snows have receded, save for the mountains’ maiden caps. All trace of ice has fled and now the rivers, brooks, and streams flow freely again. Warmth has returned to the air and grows stronger with each day.
Yet there is still an undercurrent of something cold. It has been weeks since the god of Winter trespassed in her season. With absolute certainty she knows he has now returned to his castle, powerless. Still, she cannot help looking over her shoulder in the woods and the fields. She cannot stop herself scanning the valley for a hint of blue ice.
It is not that she is afraid – merely curious. She wants to know what brought him from his castle into the woods he had so recently surrendered to her. The not-knowing grates against her mind.
Tamber, always by her side, his fur now light brown and his antlers once more in their glory, feels her disquiet. Whenever she pauses in the woods, he stands alert, long ears listening for the crunch of snow under heavy boots, though there is nought but flowers and grass and dirt underfoot and underpaw.
“I wanted to see you.”
Those were his words. So simple, so calm. She finds herself wishing to see him too. But Summer and Autumn stand between her and Winter now. The chances of their meeting again after her next long sleep are slim.
She stands in the shade of the forest beneath Winter’s castle. It is the nearest she has ever been to another god’s home. From her vantage point, she can see the great doors, half obscured by leaves, and looking up she observes the lower panes of the large window overlooking the valley. It is a twin to the one in her own library. She wonders if he sleeps there, as she does, preferring the comfort of her cosy window seat, surrounded by books and with a view of her world, to the great canopy bed on the other side of the castle.
Part of her yearns to see, but she knows she cannot enter – not the halls of another god. A god who should be her enemy. Instead, she must leave a message, a gesture of acknowledgement, of peace.
The idea comes to her easily and she smiles at the thought. She reaches with her mind into the earth, feeling how cold it is so close to Winter’s abode, and turns the rich soils over in the hands of her thoughts.
By the time she leaves the wood and returns to her work, the ground around the castle hides new bulbs – the first of their kind. Flowers she will never see.
Winter
His dreams are of Spring. They see him through her reign and beyond, through the long months of Summer and Autumn, until the chill returns to the world to rouse him. Her lovely face fades from his mind. He reaches out to her, begging her to wait, only for his frosted eyes to thaw and open to see his hand slightly raised from the arm of his chair.
Erebus stirs at his feet. The great ice wolf pulls himself to his feet and stretches first his hindlegs, then his forelegs, maw open in a wide yawn. He rests his chin in Winter’s lap, ready and eager for their rule to begin.
Winter remains seated. He has slept a long time and it never does well to rush his waking. Better to thaw in small increments. He flexes his long, pale fingers, rolls his neck from side to side, and hears the ice of his bones cracking with the return of movement. Snow drifts to the ground with every gesture and falls into his lap. He dusts flakes from Erebus’ head, pausing briefly to give the beast a scratch behind the ears.
Then he stands on brittle bones, still weak, not yet back to his full power, and goes to the window. The world outside is aflame with reds and browns, oranges and golds. Many trees are already bare. Their dead leaves are little more than mulch around their roots. Only the evergreens on the slopes of the mountain retain their full glory. He recalls the scene on her cloak – a view of the world coated in green leaves. It is hard for him to imagine. All he knows is the decay of Autumn and the cold, naked whites of his own season.
His gaze drifts to the castle on that distant, eastern slope, his thoughts to the sleeping goddess within. It warms his heart, somehow, to know that they share two whole seasons of sleep. But now it is his time to wake and prepare the world.
Winter turns away from the window.
Time passes, and gradually the final leaves are shaken from the trees. Each one marks an increase in his strength and power. During the long weeks when the seasons turn and Autumn relinquishes his grip acre by acre, Winter works in the courtyard of his castle. He has gathered the snows, thrust them high in the sky where they will wait until he bids them fall. He turns the valley from the sun until the nights begin to grow long and the days pass in a heartbeat.
At the turn of the seasons, Autumn burns his crown and returns to his castle to sleep. Winter’s crown is already in hand – intricate spires of ice taken from the eaves of the courtyard cloister. He places that cold thing on his head and now regains his realm.
The world is transformed over the space of a few days. It sheds its brown cloak of Autumn for the white silks and furs of Winter. One by one, the creatures of the land burrow into the snows or return to their dens, and one by one Winter sends them off to sleep. The skies turn a paler shade of blue and the rivers freeze over.
Crowned, garbed in his robes of deep sapphire, and with Erebus at his side, Winter steps from his castle at last and feels the thrumming rhythms of the world match the beating of his heart. The valley welcomes him with open arms. He follows the path towards the wood, only to stop in the open space between treeline and castle door.
There is something pushing through his snows.
He approaches with caution, then hurries without care when he sees what it is. He falls to his knees in the snow and reaches out to touch the white buds and green stems beneath the trees. Flowers, in winter. Flowers where there should be none. There is only one explanation for their presence in his cold world.
She has planted them. By way of warning or greeting, he does not know. He can only smile. That smile brightens further when he sees the trail of white flowers leading off into the woods.
Not knowing how long they will live or where they will lead, he follows.
Continued in Part 6