Seasons changed slowly that year, time seemed to amble lazily. Shortened days spoke of wintertime, but orange leaves still clung to tree branches, refusing to let go. When they fell, they painted the ground in golden, honeyed hues and the skies shone blue and cloudless. Farmers often remarked at how bountiful their harvest had been this year and hoped that Winter's cruelness had left them for good.
But Winter had not been thinking about farmers when she forgot to freeze over the crop fields and kill herds of cattle. In fact, she had been busy hiding her newfound son.
Her sisters and brother had always been the jealous type, she knew that if they heard of Ivan, they would stop at nothing to take him. It was this paranoia - although it could be argued that it was well placed - that forced her to isolate Winter from the other three seasons.
She did not doubt that Autumn would be upset - her brother had always been quick to anger, and very lazy. He hardly did any work, after all, because sitting back and letting Spring and Summer's creations die and litter the floor did not count as work. If anything, it was observation.
So Winter created a new domain alongside her own, a corner of Winter where Ivan could reside. No one would find him there, besides her. He would be safe - free from the burdens of his previous life. All he had to do was stay put.
"Please stop screaming, Ivan. It is very frustrating." Winter said, awkwardly hushing the boy as he bit his knuckles and seethed with rage. Uncharacteristically - she had gone red in the face. Though she knew that they were alone, she couldn't help but glance over her shoulder just to check. If any of her siblings saw how much of a failure she was as a mother, she would not hear the end of it.
"Mama! Where is my mama?!" The boy screamed, throwing everything he could grasp onto the floor. His soft, snowy pillows, hand-crafted ice sculpture toys, a bear fashioned from rabbit pelts - they all hit the frosted planks before sparkling like Winter's snowflakes and floating back up to their rightful places as if nothing had happened.
"I am your mama," Winter knew it was ridiculous to even suggest such a thing. Everyone knew that children of the Seasons were born with horns and pointy ears - an affliction brought about by a curse from the Spirit of Fertility. Of course, Spring was the one who had angered the short-tempered spirit with her sharp tongue many moons past. Now the siblings were far too ashamed to bring any such unfortunate creature into this world.
Horns and pointed ears. Winter cringed in distaste at the thought of such an unsightly creature.
"No!" The boy cried, going red in the face with anger. "My mama was beautiful and nice - you are a wicked demon!" His temper was getting out of hand, Winter decided. She had accommodated his childish ways for far too long - as one of the greater spirits it would be embarrassing to submit to a mere human child.
"I am the wicked demon?" Winter was calm now, quirking a brow and sitting down in a chair fashioned from ice and snowdrift. It felt cosy but seemed anything but. Ivan rose to her taunting almost immediately, stopping his tantrum for a moment to stare at her. "Your mother was beautiful, Ivan, but she was far from kind."
"What are you saying?" Ivan knew that he didn't want to hear anything else, but he couldn't stop himself. It was in a child's nature to be curious, after all.
"You don't remember?" Winter asked him, genuinely confused. Usually, human memories would remain intact until they were grey in the hair and face. Ivan bit his lip contemplatively but shook his head. "Your mother, she was young and naive. A demon tricked her - it tempted her. They tend to do that."
"I don't understand," Ivan stated, then picked up a toy sword from the floor. It was made of ice and should have been freezing to the touch - yet it felt temperate in his hands. "She took me out to see the colourful lights, she said the sky was clear enough for us to watch them."
Winter nodded along to what he said, but a knowing smile played at her lips. Ivan scowled and lifted the sword, he raised it to Winter's throat, pressing it to her frosted flesh. Winter's smile dropped.
"Tell me what you know, demon!" Winter's grin grew wider than even she expected. She let out a belly laugh, startling the thrushes snoozing in the trees above. They fell from their twig perches, before flying off noisily.
"Do you fancy yourself to be a knight? Will you slay me?" She kept her voice quiet, but amusement still danced around the light in her eyes. In response, Ivan pressed the sword harder onto Winter's throat, expecting it to graze her strange flesh.
Instead, the sword burst into a flurry of snowflakes and fell to the ground, leaving Winter's skin unmarred. Ivan sputtered, lost for words now that his only plan had fallen apart. Of course, he wouldn't be able to kill an evil demon in her own lair - it was full of dark magic. There was no God here.
"You think there is God out there, then?" She gestured towards the snow-painted forest around her, seemingly marking the end of her realm. Ivan shrugged, no one had asked him anything of the sort before. There was God always, and sometimes there were demons. But most of the time there was just cold and hunger - his aunt made sure of that by eating all the food in the pantry.
"Well, you're only young. You'll learn eventually - God is not what you think he is, nor what you want him to be. There are demons though," Winter waved her hand and the forest clearing they were in seemed like a cosy cottage. Ivan blinked.
Winter's realm was strange. One moment it seemed like a house, then a forest. Sometimes it seemed like a mix of both.
"Give your mind time to adjust - humans tend to struggle against illusion. Eventually, you'll see what you want to see - that is the magic that lives inside of my realm." Ivan huffed, tracing his eyes around the room they were in. He was only pretending to be brave, though.
"Your mother, you really want to know what happened to her? Even if it makes you leak?" Ivan's nose turned up.
"Leak?" Ivan had not planned to leak anything, but now he was worried that this demon had rather nasty plans for him. "Leak what?" He dreaded the answer.
"You know, when you leak," Winter tried to explain, but got stuck in the middle. "When you get sad and leak water." She shrugged, not wanting to admit that human emotions were not her forte. After all, she hardly saw any humans enter her season. Most preferred to stay at home to avoid the gripping cold. Her sisters and brother were lucky in that respect - they always spoke of the peculiar humans they had met. Winter only ever came across the dead or dying ones.
"Cry?" Ivan almost laughed, if not for the terrible situation he had found himself in.
"Yes, you may cry if you hear about your mother. Are you sure you want to hear about her - I have no rags for you to mop up your crying with." Winter explained. The more she thought about it the less she wanted to tell the boy what had really happened. What if he expected her to console him? It all sounded like a lot of effort.
"I won't cry - I'm not a child," Ivan said with confidence, slamming a hand on his chest like one of the strong lumberjacks from the village. Winter looked him up and down, unimpressed. "I'm eleven, that means I'm an adult."
"Oh thank goodness, you are a child. I thought this was your full size." Winter gestured to him, holding in laughter. If he had been an adult, then humans were making imps look like giants. "Well, I'm afraid that the truth about your mother will have to wait until you have grown." Even Winter, with her limited understanding of human emotion, knew that the truth's weight would be too much to bear for a young boy. Now she did not have to worry about comforting him, for now.
"But you said you would, demon!" Ivan seemed ready to burst, his frosty skin glinting in the firelight as his features filled with rage. Unfairness would need to be something he grows accustomed to, though. There is hardly any fairness in a world full of magic.
"Ah, you said it yourself. I am a demon." Winter pointed a finger at him, her eyes fixated on his. "Tell me, my sweet boy, are there any demons you know of who keep their promises?" Ivan shook his head, suddenly hit with a sense of dread. Winter stood from her seat and sauntered closer, her raven hair fell like a silk curtain around her nakedness - it did not shine in the firelight, nor did her black eyes.
She knelt in front of the boy, her face at the same height as his own - for if her frozen skin and nymph-like features did not give her away as an otherworldly being, her unnatural height did. Her slender fingers reached up, tucked a lock of Ivan's dark hair behind his ear. They felt warm to him, perhaps comforting, but he was still paralysed with fear.
"Then let me be the first demon to keep a promise to a human child - I will tell you everything you need to know when you are as tall and strong as a mighty oak. That will be the day you can hold a real blade to my throat. I swear on the realm of Winter." Ivan wouldn't have believed her, but as she spoke a mighty roar of wind flew past them, bringing snow up in a flurry from the ground. Magic permeated the air, holding everything still for just a moment. Then Winter blinked slowly, and it was done.
Ivan was very quiet, filled with sudden shyness. He believed in her words, without a shadow of a doubt. He brought his frosty hands up in front of himself and stared at them, watching the way they shone in the light. Deep down, he knew that he was neither human nor demon, dead nor alive. He had signed his life away to this strange creature - who acted as his mother but knew nothing of motherly affection.
"When I grow big and strong," Ivan mumbled, still staring at his small, bluish hands. If he waited a few years, perhaps they would be large enough to carry an axe or even a sword. "I dislike you. I think you're wicked and odd." Winter smiled widely, getting up from the ground. The room they were in felt homely again, its fire grew stronger.
"I think you are noisy, and you wiggle far too much. Hopefully, we can both fix our nasty habits during your time here." Winter did very little to suppress her glee at the idea of keeping a human child, regardless of how warped he had become - but that was nothing a few enchantments couldn't fix. "Now hop into bed, you must be exhausted from shouting all that nonsense earlier."
The light streaming through the windows flickered to darkness in an instant, and the curtains drew themselves shut. The fire died down into glowing embers, and Ivan found himself reluctantly climbing into bed, overcome by his own weariness.
"I will see you in the morning, child." Winter lied, knowing full well that morning and night did not exist in her realm. But she thought it would comfort him to think that the sun and moon still watched over him here, in this place so far away from his home. Without another word, she closed the door to the cabin and left the boy to dream of monsters and witches and demons with long black hair.
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