Whispers in the Snow
The starlight would have been mesmerizing if Styrinia could see it. But snow swirled all around, encapsulating her in a cocoon from which she couldn’t escape. Yet she inched forward, dragging her heavy boots step by shaky step. Without stars or the landmarks of trees and far-off buildings to guide her, she swiftly lost her equilibrium. When one foot got stuck in some sort of hole - was there a chasm or fallen log beneath the blanket of piled-up snow? - she teetered and windmilled her arms.
She fell.
Something snapped.
Pain ripped through her leg.
She screamed, long and loud.
No one came to her rescue. Why hadn’t she heeded her father’s warning this afternoon? The clouds had been thick and threatening enough, but she hadn’t expected a full-blown blizzard to whip up into a froth.
She pushed through the agony and attempted to free her foot, but touching her bleeding leg created more intense pain that fissured through her chest and into her mind. She collapsed back against the bed of fluff. Hot moisture streaked down her cheeks, burning trails that froze nearly immediately, stiffening her face until she couldn’t form even the smallest wince with new twinges of pain. Darkness crept through the whiteout until she lost consciousness on the chilly snow.
***
“Ssh! You’ll wake her!” came a tiny whisper, like the tinkling of a bell.
Styrinia opened one eye and moaned. In her peripheral vision, she caught a glimpse of something shimmery darting into the white abyss. How long had she been asleep?
Why wasn’t she cold? Shouldn’t she be freezing?
She was still completely surrounded by snow, though it wasn’t falling and swirling and blinding her anymore. The moonlight was masked by slate-colored clouds, but at least it wasn’t fully pitch-dark. Suffering was always made more difficult by blackness.
Something snickered not far from her elbow.
Turning her face, she caught a glimpse of an imp with wings. He crossed his arms and stood at a saucy angle, but his feet didn’t touch the ground. His wings beat at a speed faster than a hummingbird’s, and the filtered light made them glimmer.
Styrinia propped herself up. “Who are you?”
He rose to look her directly in the eye. “Might as well say thanks already.”
“For what?” She sat up and pulled up her uninjured leg. That’s when she noticed the fingerless mitts covering her hands. “Where did these…?” Her gaze snapped back to his, and she wiggled her fingers. “Did you do this? Did you make these… for me?”
His smirk got smugger. He raked a hand through his wild hair, leaving it a red-tipped, jet-black, disheveled mess - "Wild Thing", she’d call him, since he wouldn’t give up his name. He walked forward on the air until his tiny shoes padded softly onto her knee, leaving behind miniscule footprints of blood—his or hers? "There was nothing we could do for the leg, but we could at least make you more comfortable.”
She laced her fingers on the backside of her jeans-covered thigh to take more pressure off her wound. The tears pricking the corners of her eyes annoyed her, but she couldn’t deny the fear she felt at being out in the mountains alone, away from the hamlet she called home. Would her father find her? Surely he was looking—if not for her, then for the runaway horse she'd gone after in the first place.
Unless he truly was afraid of the weather.
"What’d you come out here alone for anyway?" The pixie of an older teen sat cross-legged above her kneecap. "Don’t you know things are best accomplished with a pal?" He let out an ear-piercing whistle that hit the same frequency of a dog whistle; those always hit her inner ear the wrong way.
Wincing, she realized her cheeks weren’t still coated in crystals of ice.
Another fairy came out from behind a mound of snow. This one was a tubby kid who looked to be five or so years younger than Wild Thing. The kid slowly came forward toting a brown sack with long handles. Its belly was filled with a handful of berries that must have been the last of the ripe ones before the surprise blizzard blasted through. How had these three-inch-tall fairies unburied them from the peaks and…
