In the beginning, there was only the Mother. Yet, with time the Mother grew lonely, so she  spun the people out of her own essence. To the wolves, she gave her thick fur, to keep them warm. To the avians her colorful feathers, so that they could fly as they pleased. To the faeries her beautiful hair, fairest of all creation. To the dragons her iron scales, so they would be safe.

The snow crunched under the soles of Lux’s boots with each step. Quite a lot of it had fallen the night before, and now a white film blanketed the fields around the village. The glare of the sun was harsh despite the pale gray clouds in the sky, making Lux squint at the ground with a grimace on their face. 

“You look like you just stepped into cow pat,” said Marion. She was walking by their side, looking far less bothered by the recent bout of fresh snow. Her lovely bronze cape glistened with every shift of her shoulders, like the sail of a boat on an auspicious day, and her dark, lucid curls swayed in time with her steps. A faint blush dusted the brown of her cheeks, but that seemed to be the only mark the cold could leave on her. 

Dragons sure have it easy, Lux thought, a touch morosely. Rather than voicing their complaints out loud, they said, “I would love nothing more than to step into cow pat. Having cows would be pretty neat, actually! Too bad about the freezing cold that keeps killing our cattle.”

Marion huffed in distaste. Her warm breath kept condensing into fluffy, white-ish puffs of air in front of her flushed face. “The sheep are fine,” she said. “Stop trying to jinx us all with your brooding. Oh, we’re here.”

“That’s because those sheep are demons,” Lux muttered, but they came to a stop next to Marion without protest, gripping the hem of their cape in silence as they surveyed the scene. Rows of spindly trees extended in front of them, forming the small grove the village relied on for their supply of oranges. The trees were bending under the weight of the snow that clung to the branches, but they seemed to have survived the night just fine otherwise. No dead buds on the ground, no splintered trunks like that time a few years ago. Back then a violent, howling storm had ravaged the area for two days straight, tearing straw from their rooftops and orange trees from their grove. 

Lux’s shoulders sagged with relief. From the corner of their eye, they saw Marion’s posture relax as well. Growing new trees was a difficult process, even with the magic from the ley line nurturing the soil. It was much easier to take care of the ones they already had, provided they managed to keep them in one piece, and today upkeep duty had fallen onto Lux and Marion. No slacking off, no fooling around; Granny would have their heads otherwise.

“You take the left, I take the right,” Marion said, before walking up to the nearest row of trees. She started dusting the snow off of them with careful sweeps of her hands, humming under her breath as she did, and Lux followed suit. Had they not been freezing, they might have argued about how bossy and heartless she was, which she wouldn’t have believed a word of. Their blood felt like icy sludge in their veins though, so they got to work without a word. Hopefully, moving around would chase the chill away from where it seemed to have dug its claws into their body. 

The two of them worked in silence for a while, like they’d done countless times before, but Lux could see Marion glancing at them from time to time. It took a few more trees worth of sweeping until she finally said, “Did Auntie go out with the hunters in the end?”

Lux gritted their teeth. They’d tried to dissuade Daphne up until the last moment, but she could be as stubborn as a mule when she wanted to be. Marion and Granny said that Lux got their own thick skull from her, that her obstinate attitude had seeped into their own bones like a stain of wine left to dry on a wooden table. Touching words, in a way. 

“She said they wouldn’t stray that far into the woods,” they said, trying to keep the lid shut on their own concerns. “And they’re all avians, so they can just shift and fly away… If push comes to shove.”

“If push comes to shove,” Marion echoed, flat. 

“You know what I mean.”

Lux punctuated each word with a sweep of their gloved hands, sending snow flying all around them when the branches ricocheted. They’d kind of foregone caution after an especially sprightly offshoot had sent a clump of sludge right in their eyes. Their black hair was likely dotted with a smattering of white spots clinging to their bangs now. 

As they moved closer to the opposite side of the grove, they could see Marion leveling an unimpressed stare their way. It was the one she reserved for the times Lux was being, according to her, a brat.

“You mean that they might get lucky and get away unscathed if they meet any wild animals starved enough to attack a group of people,” she said with a remarkable lack of tact, or maybe a lack of fear. It was during moments like these that a part of Lux envied her. Marion seemed to be able to dust the winter off her shoulders with nothing more than a flick of her fingers if she cared to. Meanwhile, the frost had been clinging to Lux like rust eating away at a clump of metal since the night they’d been told their parents weren’t coming back from their trip.

“There have been sightings,” they said with a helpless shrug. “That’s why they’re sending the hunters out to begin with. I’m just saying—”

The shock of a snowball hitting them in the face was enough to cut them off. They spluttered, scrubbing at their skin with the sleeves of their mackinaw. When they raised their head toward Marion, she had the gall to offer a grin in response to their withering glare. 

“Stop worrying, you’ll fry your brain,” she said, squawking with laughter as she dodged the snowball Lux threw her way in retaliation. “Should we—stop that! Should we bring back some oranges for the others?”

The change of subject felt abrupt and kind of awkward, bending Marion’s voice in a shape that sounded almost shy. Maybe that was what made Lux decide to play along for once. They tried to recall the last time someone had gone out to pick fruit for the village, checking how many oranges were left on the trees in the meantime. It wasn’t much, but there were some new buds they could use to fix that. 

“Do you have anything to carry them with?” they asked. “I’m not lugging a bunch of oranges in my arms all the way back.”

Marion gave them a look that suggested her annoyance at their lack of faith in her foresight, then she produced a seemingly empty knapsack from underneath her cape. “I’ll pick some,” she said. “Can you handle the replenishment?”

She’d kept her tone carefully neutral, but she and Lux had spent years together, attached at the hip. They knew all her tells well enough to hear the unspoken worry in her question. Still, Marion worried far too much sometimes. She’d made it her lifeline, as if the world would collapse around her the moment she dared ask too much of it.

Lux shrugged, throwing a reassuring smile her way before crouching down among the trees. The ley line thrummed underneath their palms with the familiar feeling of dormant magic, warm through the layers of soil and muddied snow. Lux took a deep breath, bracing themself. Then they reached out toward the source of the magic; familiar images started flashing in front of their eyes as the ley line demanded they pay the price for its power. 

An avian girl hurtling lightning toward a wolf, both of them in their transformed forms. The searing pain of the girl’s broken wing. The pungent, metallic smell of ozone lingering in the aftermath, like a burst of thunder. It’s so thick she’s choking on it, clutching at her raw throat while tears well up in her eyes with every cough. 

Reality rushed back into Lux with its usual sharpness, dispelling the vision as if it were nothing but flimsy fog on an early morning. Above their head, the buds were now small, unripe oranges. Just a little longer and they’d be able to harvest them, all thanks to the influence of the ley line.

“No matter how many times you relive the same exact moment, that stuff still manages to be a doozy,” Marion said. “The ozone smells so nasty you’d think it’s happening right now.” 

Lux took the hand she was offering them, letting her help them up. They dusted some snow from their gloves, then from the feather-like fringe of their cape. Their legs shook a little, but this time it wasn’t because of the cold. “A small price to pay for food,” they said. “And for magic.” 

Marion hummed in agreement. She dangled the now-full knapsack in front of them, before slinging it over her right shoulder with a huff. “Good to go?”

Lux eyed her quietly. On any other day they would have jumped at the chance to shift. They would have raced her to the village, light-headed with laughter and adrenaline as the wind blew past them. For a moment, they let themself picture their cape unfurling into a pair of black wings, much like the avian girl from the vision. They imagined soft feathers covering their body, grazing their jawline each time they turned their head or tickling the rough skin of their palms. 

With Daphne out in the woods, though, one too many phantoms were weighing them down. “Sure,” they said. “Let’s go.”