It was an hour worth of walking to get to her desired destination, it being a river that seemed to be freshly boiled: a natural downpour of the hotsprings from the mountains further in the south. She stepped onto the strip of green grass by the steaming river, trampling on the short greenery and soft, warm earth. The snow that had stuck to her clothes began to melt upon contact with the steam, which blew into her face from time to time, as the wind got distorted by the changing pressure near the unruly source of liquid. As pretty as it was, the water from this alluring stream could not be drunk, the water only feasible enough for some measly grass to grow, else perishing from the overbearing contents of minerals and salts within it. The young lady squatted down by the earthy shore of the river, taking off her right glove, reaching to touch and bask her fingertips in the high but bearable heat of this water. She stared down at the moving ripples of the fast current, following it downstream.  

"The bridge..." 

With pressed lips she thought of the bridge that was down the stream, yet, she chose not to go for it. The girl stood up, shaking the water off as thin layers of ice, sliding the glove back onto her hand. She leaned towards the river, gradually lifting her left foot, sinking it towards the surface of the water, which turned to thick and hard crust of clear ice before her foot even touched it in liquid form, just a few steps to bypass this natural border with a bridge that'll be gone in a few minutes. 

On the other side, she turned around and looked back at the left shore of the same grassy earth. "Won't these two shores never touch one another?" A glimpse of a sort of realisation washed over her usually unaffected face, her eyes going back to the bridge of ice she had created, the structure altering the flow of the water beneath, creating waves and ripples as bits of itself began to chip away and float along with the hot liquid, dissipating quickly. The girl got closer to it again, and without more movements from the lady, the entire thing turned into a cloud of ice shavings, artificial snowflakes that exploded in all directions, vanishing in the surrounding steam.

Her eyes, then body averted from the happenings, the legs resuming their movement, from the damp ground and onto the frozen mud similar to the right shore. This time she took great care to look down, stopping abruptly and using her foot to shovel the snow away from the ground that it covered, revealing barren, bare corpses of this summer's grass, whose seeds probably rested until the next, single warm month. Indeed, each and every animal here, almost every single creature in the north lived for the sole warmest month of the year, each adapting to last through the endless cold just to prosper for a brief moment, only to go into a long slumber after a bit more than thirty days. 

The lady went on, still keeping her stare glued to the places where her legs stepped. "You look no different from the rest that reside on the other shore..." She spoke down, "Yet, how many millennia have you been separated by mere meters of running water?" The ask of the ground, of course, was but a conversation with herself. Who knows what sort of parallels were drawn in that curious head of the young mistress, who lifted her eyes to notice an outline of a wooden building on the edge of the simulated fog?

The outline grew closer, tall wooden columns rising in view as the obstructing white screen faded, the defined border of a pine forest behind a building and columns gradually filled her entire view. Soon, the purpose of this building grew apparent, as owls sat on the perches sticking out around the tops of those trunks, and large, downward facing windows pasted along the sides of the wooden hut were open. It was an owlkeep. 

The young lady came close to the stairs, the hut itself raised on vertical logs, set deep into the soil. She walked up to the door and pulled out the broom that was hung on a ring by the door, swiping across the brush to get rid of... more snow that stuck to it, snow is everywhere here. Then, she positioned the now clean brush against the porch and pushed the snow off of the edge, and afterwards she used the broom to knock the inescapable white nightmare from the soles of her boots. Slinging the broom back into the ring that she had taken it from after concluding the ordeal, opening the unlocked door. 

Upon entering the tall building, a couple of large nests organized on boards on the walls met the eyes, three large owls of white feathers and slick faces with beady black eyes staring down at the guest, returning to grooming their wings a couple seconds later. There was bird residue on the floor, which didn't seem to concern the young lady, as she went to the tarped stool in the corner by the entrance and unveiled the roughly made seat without a spine. She put the tarp down gently by the stool, sitting down and taking off her hat, looking at the owls intently while they barely paid attention to her. 

It wasn't much warmer inside the owlkeep, her breath still clear in the air, but her face warmed and gave the birds a slight smile. That lady loved these birds a considerable amount, they were the locally bred Tisze owls, which are often employed as protectors against a collection of resilient rodent species down south of the capital — Tiszegaphios, where wildlife had a slightly more tolerable climate to exist in, so all the potential invaders of the attics and basements full of valuable long-lasting foods had an absolute minimal chance of a successful infiltration. But, that's not quite the reason why she rejoiced silently upon meeting them each time. This particular breed might not be the most widespread, but it is influential, as even the martial arts academy that she graduated from not too long ago used them for their emblems and insignias. It was a far more certain and calm time, maybe that predetermination is what made her comfortable in both the Academy and Dispanseria? After all, she hardly had anything to do past playing the piano and reading books nowadays.

The lady almost zoned out while staring at the birds, but a thought that crossed her mind woke her up. "Close, but separate?" The blue eyes wandered between the birds on the opposite walls of each other, "You guys are right." She continued. Talking to herself has become a habit of hers, as the routine of solitude got the worst of her after a long time. The young used that as a measured method to imagine different scenarios in her head, though often it ended up as mere daydreaming. 

"If he is going so far, then, what am I waiting for?” Her tone wasn't that confident, and she knew it wasn't confident, too, “I don't quite need the permission that he has to get every time he decides to do something..." She leaned her head against the wall behind her, looking up at the ceiling and ruminating inside her mind. Her hands were planted on her legs, rising and tapping on the knees one after the other. "Going for the new continent, that's a very bold plan..." The young lady sat in silence for a brief moment, exhaling a long, opaque cloud. She stopped her hands and looked down, the eyes posted at the dark glove on her left hand. The young lady rubbed her fingers together, the leather resisting and squeaking, the unclenched hand rotating and bending, showing off every angle of the intricate piece of clothing. "I suppose that is my future destination as well..." Her legs lazily lifted the weight off the stool, the hat in her right hand was settled back on the head.  

One of the owls silently glided down to the table in the center of the room, that pair of black beads staring expectantly at the lady. She walked up to the bird, waving her hands, both relaxed at the wrists. "Sorry, I didn't bring any food." Naturally, the bird didn't understand a word, still staring at her, scratching the back of its head with its clawed foot once. When she tried to reach out and pet the bird, it dipped its head and walked away, looking intensely at the glove and inside the sleeves... It wasn't hard to tell that upon realising that there wasn't a bone to pick, the owl rose back to the nest. With a barely frustrated sigh, the lady walked away from the table, a dissatisfied expression adorning her face.

Carefully closing the door behind her, she gently lowered the soles of her boots on the stairs, trying not to slip on the snow, which had already covered her old footsteps, leaving only barely noticeable indents in the bulges of the steps. A single glance was given to the hut, and a new trail of footsteps had begun leading away from the building, deviating to the left.

The lady was again in the midst of the white expanse, the snowfall had considerably calmed and thinned, the sky still completely filled by the grey clouds, the silhouette of the bridge over the river clearly visible even from a far distance, her legs moving in its precise direction. To the left there was snow, to the right it was the left, behind was the front and vice versa, and that made many people consider this unchanging picture taxing on both the eyes and the mind, as you can walk a thousand steps and still be in the middle of a cold desert, unless you stumble on a village or a forest front. Eventually, the girl had reached the bridge: it was made from stone, and was also reaching far beyond the green patches of grass and into the permafrost, so the bridge wouldn't sink into the soft soil of the shore.

The miss stood still in the middle of the bridge, overlooking the river from the stone railing, this one construction appearing as if the sole landmark in hundreds of meters of radius, almost the highest point, too. The hills over on the further parts of the right shore disallowed the view of the Ducal manor. The young lady leaned over the railing, resting her right elbow on the stone and supported her face with the glove, the bored gaze stuck to the water again. "You aren't that mighty, turns out." She furrowed her brows, "That I'll show you." The threat was hurdled at the river itself, those trimmed brows furrowing as the girl walked down the arch of the bridge leading to the right shore, turning her head around over the shoulder and showing off her tongue, "Idiot." 

And although her tone was pretty harsh, her eyes almost shut again, “Why am I insulting water...?” The head nodded to itself as the snow kicked up from the shuffling boots, and the hands wrapped around the back of her head, the feet moving at a slight upwards incline. The edges of the manor finally rose from the horizon line of the hill: a similar structure to the owlkeep near the forest could be seen around the back of the building, standing as a tall tower made of stone with a collection of owls overseeing the vicinity from the high perches. No roads leading from or to the manor were seen, sparse poles sticking out of the snow acting as markers, outlining the trail towards the north. "Maybe I should bring some meat next time I go to the west keep?" She thought, closing in on the entrance door.

When the young lady finally entered the small corridor between the two doors, she took off her hat the second time and hit it against the wall, the accumulated snow splashing away from the impact, a hanger on the wall was used to temporarily stash the hat, so she could pat down the overcoat, those petals layering on the floor in soft clumps. The boots were brushed all over after the overcoat had been hung, and their laces were also undone, revealing that the boots were actually worn over the indoor shoes. The entire attire was mostly used as superficial protection from the snow and possible dirt that could tarnish the clothes underneath, or just the hair. Though, in her case the long threads would get plastered regardless of what she wears. Speaking of her hair: the young lady shook her head, the powdery snow mostly parting with the smooth mane, leaving just a few specks along the whole length. She sighed, supporting herself against the wall in order to reach the hanger without stepping into the snow on the floor, and carried the outdoor clothes inside carelessly.

Once indoors, the lady went to one of the living rooms, where a fireplace was crackling, and a rack on wheels stood by the brick chimney, with a platter underneath that had raised edges. She moved the rack in front of the fireplace and spread the clothes over the metal structure, finally sitting down beside the rack to also dry her hair, a bit further and facing away from the fire. A figure of a maid passed through the door frame to the right, and silence came after the sound of those steps disappeared in the depths of the manor.