waiting, pt. i

The storms came almost immediately after we'd escaped the capital, bringing snows so bad that even the princess, equal parts furious and desperate, finally agreed to take shelter in the manor of one of her staunchest supporters. And so we found ourselves watching the world disappear under a thick white blanket of powder. So recently I had been admiring the turning leaves, smiling as they danced in the winds, pulling my coat tight against the autumn rains of the heartland. Now it was almost hard to remember what the world looked like before, or even imagine what it would look like in the spring.

If there is one thing that is true about the princess, it's that she deeply hates those rare times when she is not in perfect control. The loss of the capital was bad enough; now even the weather had turned against her. She could not raise an army to take back her throne from this sad snowbound mansion; she could not even begin contacting allies to begin formulating a plan or even to see just what resources she had available with which to plan. All she could do was wait.

How dearly she must have wished that her sole companion was anyone besides me--the oft-cursed Drysi she could have at least enjoyed bickering with; my sister, a tactician par excellence, could have devised schemes and stratagems; her beloved Morgana could have offered her some comfort, had she not been left behind in order that we could escape. I was none of these things; all I could offer was calm, and that seeming indifference was far from comforting.

"We are trapped here with no resources at our disposal when the entire commonwealth is about to descend into open war," she said at last, when pacing and muttering did not improve her mood.

"We are, indeed," I said.

"Why, then, are you sitting there with your feet up and watching the snow accumulate--the very snow, I should add, that is preventing us from taking action?"

"All of that will still be true when the snow melts. Besides," and here I offered a smirk that, if her scowl was any indication, she did not appreciate in the slightest, "it's pretty."

"Aren't you worried? The two of us can't fight a war. We barely even escaped the city."

I shrugged. "I expect we've got most of the winter to worry about it. Taking an evening off won't hurt."

And what a long winter it was. The storms never relented, and we spent months in that manor, rationing out supplies because we didn't know how long we'd be trapped there. It was almost exciting, at first--it snowed so rarely in the capital--but it became tedious before too long. We had nothing to do except wait, worsened by the fact that our reward at the end of all that waiting was only disaster.

But, even if neither of us would have chosen the other as our snowbound companion, if we had to weather this storm, and wait for whatever hell would come with the arrival of spring, at least we had someone to share those moments with. And I think there are very few souls throughout history who can claim to have convinced the Princess of Elouan to make snow angels with them.

"You were right," she said. "If we must wait for disaster to come, we might as well enjoy the time we spend waiting."