Snow. A year ago, you would have rejoiced at the thought of winter and the falling flakes that pile in front of you. This year however, things have changed. You trudge through the thick sludge in a barely warm enough cloak, your sword dangling in its sheath, nearly scraping against the white mounds of salt. Your cheeks have turned red and your lips crack like shattered ice over a lake. Silence. Only the sound of your own breathing. Your breath puffs in front of you like the smoke out of a dragon's nostril. The crunch like cracking bone under your feet. Your recently wounded body slumping forth, your arm cradled close against your chest as your sturdy leg drags the second like a reanimated corpse. Snow was once your happiest thought, falling to the tune of carols and merry people's cheers in the town square. But this year is different.Your fellowship has faded like snow in spring. As the blinding white reflection of the frozen wasteland glares in your eyes, you're forced to remember years gone by. Grand parties over warm meals of meat and ale, exchanging gifts with close companions, warmed by the smooth red flames of the fire with the slight snapping of embers under the happy voices of a home. Time. Everyone says time. Time mends wounds and pains and tortures, but time is ahead. Time will never come.
One companion gathering their things for an endless voyage half way across the world under a new banner, another preparing to sail the salted seas for King and country, another, your closest, disappears into the flurries silent as the night, another, gone with her studies. All that connects you are thin strings, small lines of silver thread tying you to them through all the journeys. Some threads have been cut. Snipped. Lost in the snow. The silver shreds shift into invisibility as you walk, lost. You still feel them, you still try to tug at them to make sure they are still there, but sight is lost. You try to trudge forward through the thick freeze sticking your stiff steel to the thick, wet soil. Suddenly, you snag. You fall.
You're enveloped by ice. Snow. Steel. Silence. Yourself. The threads go still. Everything is still and even the snow itself seems to stop salting the earth as you hit the layer of powder. Your mind begins to wander. Perhaps you should just let yourself be encased, escape into the cold embrace of the endless rain. Why stand? Why trudge on to see your companions, knowing that this year will be the last? The sky grows dark and any attempt to see is useless, leading only to stumbling for sight. Your extremities begin to numb and you close your eyes. Why move on when all is lost in endless futility? Your mind wanders to the Bard. The Rouge. All pains of the past piling onto you, thought by thought, flake by flake, pushing down onto the wound on your back, your arm, your leg, your neck. All your body is broken and your will wavers. You roll over with an exasperated huff, opening your blood-shot eyes, to stare up into the dark sky, the falling flecks like stars--falling...more like flying. Your falling. Deeper into the crust as you fly to the sky. Up is down, down is up. Falling is flying.Silence.
A small tug jerks your eyes open, your eyelashes crusted with sweet dew-like frost. A tug again. They wonder where you are. They worry. They tug again more sharply. You try to rustle the energy to rise again, the pain in your wounds lost in numbness. On your feet. Onward. Forward. A step at a time, forward.
Forward
Forward
Forward
Forward
Foreward
Forward
http://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-3180529-stock-footage-falling-snow-at-night-shot-against-street-lamp.html
http://musclematters.ca/articles/beating-the-winter-blues/
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