snow

The road took me, eventually, to a little village in the foothills, where they maintained a pass through the mountains. They didn't ask where I'd come from, only that I help where I could, and I was happy for the chance to put my hands to use doing something constructive for once. Mostly I ended up helping them maintain the trails: I'd spent so much time wandering anyway, surviving on whatever the wild provided, and it was a long and lonely project much of the time.

Every winter the snows would come and render the mountains impassable; every autumn they--we--turned all our efforts towards building up our stockpiles and surviving the winter. They were hard winters, and despite our best preparations, we couldn't always make sure everyone survived. Sometimes the snows came sooner than we were prepared for; sometimes they lasted too far into the spring.

But it was so beautiful. The world covered in snow, silent and pristine; the light of the hearthfires casting a warm glow on the snowflakes as they danced in the wind; even after seeing people I'd come to care for lost to the winter, I never tired of the perfect serenity of a snowbound world. And more than that: until the thaw, there was nothing to do but wait. We were trapped, yes, but we were also free: the rest of the world couldn't hurt us here.

I will always be an outsider here, no matter how welcoming they are, but that would be true anywhere. At least here I can help. At least here I can keep them safe from the rest of this dying world when the snows can't.