[Nivalis Silverfrost]
Amidst the snow-covered hills dotted with creaking, old pines and even older firs, beneath the heavy clouds that didn't let the setting sun on the horizon shine its last rays, stood a small village. The kind so remote and irrelevant that not even the most detailed of travelers would bother to mark it on their maps, forgotten by anyone but those who called it home.
Houses of weathered wood and stacked stone, with smoke curling from chimneys and lights flickering behind the windows, were scattered without any plan to speak of, all blanketed in a thick layer of white that made them look like big, soft cakes. Twenty-five or thirty of them at most, each one connected by narrow, winding trails of stamped-down snow, all leading to an old-looking water well in the center.
A small family of three silver-haired elves stood behind the treeline on one of the surrounding hills, overlooking a forgotten little place that looked almost like paradise in their tired eyes, their gaunt faces and messy hair making them look like ghosts that had wandered out of some ancient graveyard. With their ragged clothing fluttering in the wind and the sled at their feet, they just kept staring, listening to the distant barking of a dog and the faint calls of a child playing outside, not quite believing it was really there.
At one point, they were just following the tracks that the terrified boy had left on the road, and the next—this. A village. A real one, with real people living in it. People with warm clothes and actual beds to sleep in. They didn't even get much time to think about why the boy had run, or how to approach people after so long in the wild, or what to say to them, or about a thousand other important things; they just wanted to reach their new home after all that time, wherever that would be.
Yet the more Nivalis stared at the warm lights of the houses, the more her thoughts returned to that poor boy on the road, to the pure terror on his face when he saw them. 'Why?' she asked herself, and it didn't take long to find the answer.
Her face grimaced at the realization that their little family, half-starved and naked under their rags, looked like exactly what humans imagined elves to be—creepy, pointy-eared monsters that came out at night to steal their children. 'We can't go there looking like this,' she thought, chewing on her puffy lip, a bit chapped from the cold.
Half a heartbeat later, the thought led to another, so much worse one. Something Nivalis should've thought of before coming here. Panic, sharp and sudden, flashed in her blue eyes as she remembered how folks this far north could be—all too quick to draw steel before words, especially when it came to strangers in the night. That boy could be running back to the village right now, bringing someone with him to check on the strange, pointy-eared someone he'd stumbled upon in the dark.
Breaking the silence with a quiet, urgent, "We need to hide. Now," she turned to her kids, her hands grabbing their shoulders and pulling them back towards the familiar darkness of the forest.
"W-what? Why?" Silvia whined at being pulled away from the warm lights, her golden gaze not leaving the village until the trees completely blocked it from her view. "We're not going in there?" Her voice cracked slightly as she stumbled along beside her mother, her old boots sinking into the deep snow with each reluctant step. Aster, on the other hand, said nothing and just obeyed without hesitation, pulling the sled behind him with a thoughtful frown on his face.
Nivalis shook her head without slowing down, weaving through the trees and bushes, leading them away from the road and that village. "I-I don't... I don't know. No. Not yet. We need to think this through first," she answered over her shoulder, her eyes scanning the darkness around them, looking for a place to hide their little family and their clumsy sled. "But it's not what I'm worried about. It's the boy from the road... I think we scared him with how we look," she added, pausing to catch her breath, "what the very first thing children do when they're terrified?"
Aster's thoughtful frown deepened for a brief, silent moment before being replaced with caution and worry. "They tell their parents," he muttered between heavy pants, his golden eyes looking towards the road they'd just left behind, "and the parents either shut the door tight, or... grab the nearest axe and start searching the woods for monsters."
Giving him a gentle pat on the head, Nivalis turned her attention to her now-quiet, panicking daughter. "Sweetie, I know it takes a lot of mana and effort to do, but could you—" she tried to ask, only to be cut off with a frantic nod. Without any more words, Nivalis lifted the girl into her arms and held her close to her chest, cupping her small bum with one hand and her back with the other, to keep her from falling.
Silvia didn't protest; she just buried her face in her mother's shoulder and closed her eyes, letting her arms curl around the woman's neck to hold onto her. Nothing happened for a long, silent moment, her body jumping up and down with every step her mother took. Then—an unnatural sound. Snow crunching... backward. Up. It came from right behind them, as if something utterly wrong was following in their footsteps. Luckily, there was no monster in the dark other than them.
Glancing over her shoulder, Nivalis saw the snow, disturbed by her and Aster's footsteps, snap back into place, obeying her daughter's silent command until it was as smooth and untouched as the rest of the forest, as if they had never been there.
Controlling the snow that she didn't create herself took a tremendous amount of concentration and mana out of the girl, dwarfing even conjuring ice. Because of that, Silvia started to tremble in her arms after just ten seconds of it. "Thank you... m-my love," she murmured into her daughter's hair, giving her back a few gentle pats.
For a full three minutes, Aster and Nivalis ran with everything they had left in them, wind howling past their ears and lungs burning, constantly changing direction to make it even harder to follow them. When a pathetic whimper came from the shivering girl in her arms, it was only then that Nivalis finally slowed down, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. "Under that tree...!" she panted, pointing at a massive, snow-covered pine with a bunch of thick branches hanging low.
The boy glided the sled towards it while she carefully set her trembling daughter down in the deep snow, only to immediately begin vigorously rubbing her small body to generate some heat. "A little more, sweetie. Just a little more," she whispered, not stopping even though her own hands were just as cold and numb. Nivalis waited for a few shaky breaths for the girl to hide the last of their tracks, then quickly helped her crawl under the branches after her brother, following right behind them.
Once the three of them were under the branches of the old tree, Aster immediately went to work, clearing just enough snow for them to sit comfortably, pushing it to the sides until the dark ground was exposed. Nivalis helped a little, but she quickly stopped when her fingers became too numb even to curl; he, on the other hand, barely felt the icy, wet bite of the snow.
A moment later, Silvia took over, using what little mana she had left to form a dome of ice over their heads, freezing in place all the green branches that hung above them. When all the sounds suddenly stopped, replaced by that odd silence of being under ice, and complete darkness fell upon the three of them, they finally let out a collective sigh of relief and plopped down onto the cold ground.
Shortly after, those heavy sighs turned into satisfied moans when Aster started to fill their little den with his pale-golden mist. He didn't stop until it felt like they were being covered in the thickest of wool blankets, until their skin began to tingle pleasantly. It was then that Nivalis finally noticed just how cold the ground was, but that was a problem that could be fixed easily enough.
With much more grunting than necessary, Nivalis forced herself up onto her knees and reached for the sled tucked beside them. She took out all the pine branches—the ones Silvia used as a blanket during their trip—and arranged them into a small nest for them to lie in.
For a good while, all they did was lie there in the darkness, in silence, with their limbs entangled and heads resting against each other's, listening to the muffled howling of the wind and the creaking of their tree. The entire time Aster lay obediently between two trembling bodies, being their little furnace, gladly letting the girls steal all the body warmth they possibly could. Eventually, he broke the silence with a quiet, breathy whisper, asking, "Should we maybe make a fire?"
Nivalis shook her head, her cheek rubbing against the top of his messy head. "No," she answered just as quietly, "we can't risk the smoke." That made Aster sigh and nod in understanding, before wiggling himself into a more comfortable position. "Let's just... rest a bit like this, okay? Until we stop feeling like icicles," she added, earning herself a miserable chuckle from the girl in the boy's arms.
That took them a little over an hour, or at least it felt like it, as there was no way to know for sure in that darkness. The rumbling of their tummies eventually became too loud to ignore, reminding them that they hadn't eaten anything since the morning. With a tired groan, Nivalis untangled herself from her kids and once again reached for the sled to get the small bag they kept most of their possessions in.
Before she could even ask Aster for some light, a fragile, dim flame appeared in the middle of their little burrow, hovering above their silver heads. Made with the help of raw mana in the air, it gave almost no heat, even with pale-golden mist at its aid, yet it was at least enough to see a bit. "Thanks," Nivalis whispered, putting the bag of their belongings onto her lap and starting to rummage through it.
Bark cup. Three clumsy plates made of the same thing. A bunch of shiny random pebbles the kids had found in the tunnels, though Nivalis doubted they were of any value. A needle and a small thread that hadn't seen much use recently, as there had been no time to practice embroidery at all. A strip of cloth that had once been Aster's blindfold and, before that, was used for practicing the embroidery on and for wiping... stuff. An old coin, more rust than metal, from the forgotten family of two in the tunnels. An old ring from them as well. A necklace with a cracked gem that they barely use because they have Aster for it. A rusty knife, taken from a human from before the tunnels.
And the most important of all—a chunk of cooked rabbit meat wrapped in pine needles, leftovers from yesterday's hunt. Nivalis carefully pulled out the meat, then tucked the bag back into the sled, leaving everything else inside. She then unwrapped the little bundle, revealing the small, dark piece of meat, not much bigger than her fist. "Honey?" she whispered to her boy, who looked over his shoulder with a curious hum, "heat it a bit so we can eat?"
After gently nudging his sleepy sister awake, Aster sat up. He then took the meat from his mother and did exactly the same thing he did with the stone back in the tunnels—pushed his mana into the meat and let it do what it did best: burn. For a moment, nothing happened, except for the slight tremble in his hands from the effort. Then, a soft sizzle sound cut through the quiet burrow that instantly made Silvia sit up straight, her nose twitching at the delicious, meaty smell that started to spread all around.
What happened next wasn't beautiful in the slightest; the little piece of meat was devoured in under a minute by the three of them, their hands getting messy and greasy as they tore apart what little there was. No one spoke a single word while they ate, just focused on the food and its delicious taste after a whole day of nothing but walking. It wasn't nearly enough to fill their empty stomachs, but at least it silenced their protesting tummies for a little while.
Once they were done, Nivalis took the strip of cloth and a bit of snow and began wiping her children's hands and faces until they were squeaky clean, then did the same for herself. "There you go," she murmured, kissing each of them on the forehead before helping them out of their dirty, ragged clothes until they were as naked as the day they were born. Aster quickly got behind his sister and spooned her, their bodies fitting together as naturally as they always did, while Nivalis tucked the dirty cloth back into the bag.
After undressing herself, Nivalis didn't join their little spoon pile, but instead ended up just frowning down at the pile of their filthy rags, her bare shoulders slumping slightly. 'What am I even supposed to do with these...?' she thought, picking up Aster's half-cloak and holding it up to the dim light of their fire.
Her cheeks puffed out in a long, weary sigh, blue eyes squinting the more she wondered how in the world to turn it into something that wouldn't attract much attention. Something that would make them look less like monsters and more like everyday, harmless travelers.
Even when all the air had left her lungs, she still wanted to sigh some more. That's how hopeless the thing in her hands looked; it was simply too small to be anything but a skirt. "Alright... let's leave this for later. Maybe I'll figure it out," she murmured under her breath as she carefully folded it away. She then took Silvia's cloak, twice as long, with a nasty seam across the butt area from when it had torn during their escape from the tunnels. It had taken Nivalis quite a bit of effort to close that tear back then.
For a minute or two, she kept turning it around, examining it from every angle, chewing on her lip as she did so. 'I guess... can try making the dress out of it? Similar to the one I did once for her birthday,' she eventually decided, a small smile almost blooming on her lips at the memory of a day in the woods when they had nothing and no one to fear.
After folding the cloak and putting it with Aster's smaller one, Nivalis's gaze fell upon her own tunic and pants, and that faint smile of hers quickly faded. Hers were by far the worst of the three, with more holes than fabric, showing places no decent woman should be showing. If she were to seam all those tears, she simply wouldn't be able to fit it on herself; that's how bad it was. She shook her head with a quiet grunt and put them away as well.
Running her hands through her tangled hair, Nivalis leaned towards the sled one more time and took out the small, old needle and the thin thread. She spent another good minute just staring at them in her palm, not knowing how she was supposed to fix all that. The only thing she knew was that she absolutely had to do it, and that she had to do it by morning. With her children already snoring softly nearby, Nivalis grabbed her tunic, pulled it over her lap, and got to work.
A minute passed... five... then ten. Her tired fingers fumbled with the needle in the dim light, barely able to see what she was doing. A failed attempt. Undo and try again. Another failure. Undo and try again. She poked herself more than she pierced the fabric, leaving tiny red dots on the tips of her fingers, each one making her wince and drop the needle with a soft curse. 'Let's try Silvia's instead,' she eventually decided with a quiet huff, putting her tunic away and pulling the girl's cloak back onto her lap.
That went on for hours, or at least it felt like it. The kids kept snoring softly beside her, their chests rising and falling in perfect rhythm, while she just kept stabbing her fingers, undoing her work, and starting over. She kept switching back and forth between their clothes, making little progress with either, fatigue and frustration making her eyes sting and hands tremble.
Even the dress she thought would be the easiest of the three turned out to be anything but; no matter what she tried, it somehow looked even more nightmarish and weird than before she did anything to it. Not to mention, the fabric was so weathered that anyone would be able to see all of her daughter's curves, or rather, the lack of them.
When the flame above flickered for the last time and plunged the burrow into darkness, Nivalis dropped the needle onto her thigh and cried. She just sat still and let the tears flow down her cheeks, shoulders shaking, blue eyes staring into the darkness. She didn't make a single sound, not even the tiniest sniffle, her lips pressed tight to keep it all inside.
Yet somehow Aster still managed to notice it, because out of nowhere, yet another flame appeared, brighter and warmer than the ones before, lighting up the tear streaks running down her face. His delicate, not boyish at all, arms wrapped around her neck, a heartbeat later, a worried, "Mom?" tickling her face.
Wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, Nivalis picked up that cursed needle and pretended to be hard at work, not once looking at him as she answered, "It's nothing, sweetie. Just... tired. Go back to sleep." She swallowed another sob.
He didn't. Instead, Aster leaned over to her lap and took away everything she worked on, then the needle from her trembling fingers. "Mom..." he murmured, putting all that away, one by one, "I don't think it's possible to fix these. They are older than me." That made even more tears stream down her face, simply because he was right. When he noticed, he immediately rushed back, plopped onto her lap with his legs to the side, and kissed her salty lips.
One little smack after another, from a young boy to his sad mother, in the dimness of their little home. "Then I don't know what to do, my love... we can't go out there looking like..." she eventually choked, briefly breaking their kiss, her blue eyes shifting to where he put their clothes, "like that." His hungry lips kept finding hers with every new word she said.
For a good while, Aster kept kissing her quietly, the boyish way of his, all sloppy and clumsy, full of affection and without a single naughty thought behind them. Only when she somewhat calmed down did he finally pull away, looking up at her with those golden eyes of his. "I have an idea. A really good one," he whispered, his scarred hands wiping the remaining tears from her cheeks. "You won't like it, though."
Nivalis gave a small, tired sigh, leaning her head against the trunk of their tree. "Hmm?" was all she managed, her arms still wrapped around her small boy.
He fidgeted on her lap for a heartbeat before saying, "Did you take a good look at that village? Remember a big house on the right, with the yard?" Aster patiently waited for her slow, reluctant nod before continuing, "Well, I think someone really rich lives there. They had three whole lines of clothes hanging outside to dry. What if, instead of trying to fix these—" he pointed at the rags from earlier, "—we just borrow some? I bet they wouldn't even notice a few things missing." His shoulders rose in a small, hopeful shrug.
That made Nivalis sigh so hard that it made the small flame above sway violently. Her hands rose to her face, covering her teary eyes. "We are not thieves, Aster. I raised you better than that," she said from behind her palms. "And even if... we were to do this... how do you think they would react when we walk in wearing their own clothes? That's the worst plan possible."
Scratching the back of his messy head, Aster shifted on her lap, his bare skin pressing against hers. "Well, we wouldn't take too much, just what we really need," he muttered, his golden eyes searching hers in the dim light. "And we lost everything because of humans, so... isn't it fair? Kinda? A little bit?" When she just stared at him, her face unreadable in the flickering light, he added, "Besides, they have neighbors. People who'd help them if they needed it. We... we just have each other."
A tiny, reluctant hum of agreement came from her.
Aster smiled. "See? After that, we just... find some other village. There should be plenty of them around, right? And, besides, it won't be the honorable family of Silverfrosts who will be st... borrowing clothes." That made Nivalis drop her hands and look at him in confusion. He leaned closer until his flat, bony chest pressed into her breasts, lowering his voice. "But those monsters from the road, on the other hand?" he hushed against her lips, "Scary people, I tell you. They probably eat babies for breakfast. So a tiny little theft from someone who won't even notice it shouldn't be a problem for them, right?" he said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at her.
Nivalis couldn't help but chuckle at that, a genuine one that made her entire face light up, her bare breasts bouncing with the sound. "Oh, gods..." she mumbled, shaking her head. Then she fell silent, her blue eyes unfocused in the golden light above as she truly considered his words.
It was a terrible idea, yet there were no better ones. The rags lying nearby were a sad proof of that. She tried to make something out of them, she really did, but it was just hopeless. They could, of course, risk it and walk in as is, but... that boy's terrified face kept flashing in her mind over and over again. "Alright," she finally whispered, her eyes finding her son's again, "Let's be... monsters for one night."
...