She’d never seen snow before she came to Earth. All of the cold on Liriope was limited exclusively to the high north and deep south oceans: none of the islands were even close enough to experience a moderate chill, let alone actual snow. Certain eccentric sailors might set off for the poles just for the experience, for the thrill, but Vasiliki had never been among them. She was too young for such dangers, even after she awakened as a senshi. She’d only ever experienced weather that was moderate to quite hot, and with that, she had grown up comfortably on her ever-green island.

Until she’d landed on Earth nearly a year ago.

It had been winter when she arrived, but everything was so immediately overwhelming that Tarragon had readily enabled Vasi’s unwillingness to leave the home until they were settled. Her friend had taken the opportunity to introduce her to food and culture and fashion in a less hands-on way, from the comfort of Eagun’s estare, with books and television and internet.

By the time Vasiliki had felt adequately prepared to venture out, the air was still dry and crisp with the retreating bite of winter, but all of the snow had gone. In its wake was unpleasant, gray death that reminded her jarringly of her Chaos-inhabited world, where bare, spiny brambles jutted from the ground and thin gnarled claws of weeping branches scraped at the ground. The green had gone. The color was sapped away. Gray-black skies. Dreary, white bark. Decaying soil.

’That’s normal! All the trees and plants and flowers will come back, and look! The pines are still green. There’s nothing to worry about.’

There’s nothing to worry about.

There’s nothing to worry about.

There’s nothing to worry about.

Visiliki repeated those assurances as a mantra to herself through the rest of winter. And then spring came, and a beautiful lushness with it. Relief had flooded in. This world would not go as hers had. Not right at this moment, anyway. The climate was still different than her world, but the green on Liriope had been so long ago that it felt almost like a dream, and what Earth provided was a welcome substitute.

She liked it here. She was happy to shed her senshi mantle and be ‘just Vasi,’ who worked as a caretaker for Eagun’s estate, who had a best friend with a large family that welcomed her warmly, who maybe wasn’t as smart or observant as some people her age, but her enthusiasm made up for it! She liked Earth. Being here felt like she could be happy, like she could breathe. ‘Her world’ hadn’t been her world for centuries, but even if this wasn’t Liriope, it was still beautiful and alive and welcoming in its own way…

And then it was winter again. The warm and green and lush that Vasi had praised was replaced once more with cold, dreary, and gray.

There’s nothing to worry about, there’s nothing to worry about, there’s nothing to worry about...

But regardless of how often she repeated it, Vasi still felt like there was much to worry about. She still felt the frost under her fingers and thought of her dead and still-decaying world, having been abandoned by its senshi for an entire Earth year now… And seeing the dreary atmosphere outside her window did not inspire confidence or compel her to want to see Liriope again. It just made her want to hide in her room and retreat from those terrors. Keep them at bay with central heating and hot chocolate and movies about singing deer and her friends’ company.

[WC: 605]