The snow had retreated, curling back like a wounded beast to the jagged teeth of the mountaintops. Severin Blackthorne stood at the edge of a newborn stream, its waters rushing through with the urgency of something freshly freed. The Kawani lands were shedding their winter skin, revealing tender greens and the blush of early blossoms. Spring had arrived. It was rebirth. It was relentless. It was inevitable.
And it unsettled him…
He had come to these lands in the heart of winter, when the world was sleeping - hushed and still - when the cold matched the ice in his veins. The blizzard had been a familiar companion—howling, untamed, beautiful in its destruction. But now, the warmth was returning, and with it, the unbearable noise of life.
This new stream cut through the earth like a silver knife, carving a path where none had been before. It whispered secrets as it flowed, laughing at the way it disrupted the land. Severin’s ears twitched, his sky blue eyes narrowing. This water had no right to be here. It had not asked permission. It had not mourned what it destroyed in its wake.
His new home, his territory—if one could call it that—had been a quiet stretch of frosted pines and a frozen pond, a place where the world left him alone. But that small peaceful pond was now a lake, swollen and restless, and this arrogant little stream threatened to flood the lowlands where he often stood beneath the stars, reciting old verses or pondering life’s mysteries, to the moon.
"The earth shifts, and so must we," he murmured, his voice low and fragile, like the last sigh of winter.
But the thought of moving again—of uprooting, even when his roots were so shallow—sent a ripple of irritation through him. He was a creature of solitude, of chosen isolation. To be forced from his hollow sanctuary by something as trivial as melted snow was an insult.
Yet, as he watched the water, he could not deny its beauty. The way it caught the sunlight, fracturing it into a thousand glittering shards. The way it danced, unburdened by memory or regret. How it flowed so freely.
A bitter chuckle escaped him. "Even the rivers are freer than I."
For a moment, he considered fighting it—staking claim to this new water, daring the land to challenge him. To assert his claim. To somehow leave his mark, to show that he existed here. He could stand in the path of the current, let it rush around his legs until it learned to bend to his will. But what was the point? The world turn, and would change regardless. It always did.
His gaze drifted to the distant peaks, still crowned in white. There, winter lingered. There, the silence remained unbroken. There perhaps was all the peace and solitude he could desire. Perhaps it was time to climb higher.
---
The scent of damp earth and pine resin hung thick in the air, a cloying perfume that made Severin’s nostrils flare. He hated it—the aliveness of it. It reminded him of her.
Liora.
Her name was a ghost on his tongue. She had been sunlight incarnate, all light and sweetness, a mare whose laughter melted the frost from his heart. Who made him feel alive. But he had failed her. On a night when the stars wept ice, he had turned away, too consumed by his own shadows to see hers. By dawn, she was gone, swallowed by a avalanche he might have prevented. Now, her memory lived in the trembling of his breath, in the way he recoiled from the warmth of spring.
A sudden trill of birdsong shattered his reverie. Above, a sparrow alighted on a birch branch, its head cocked as if studying him. Severin snorted. "What do you know of regret, little fool?" The bird flitted away, leaving a single feather spiraling to the ground. He stared at it, black as his heart, and crushed it beneath his hoof.
---
Days bled into nights as Severin paced the borders of his dissolving realm. He had longed to stay, but as spring deepened, the stream grew bolder, gnawing at the banks until whole swaths of soil collapsed into its current. Once, he found a cluster of violets uprooted and drowning in the mud. He nudged them with his muzzle, a useless gesture. "Beauty is ever the first casualty," he muttered.
It was then the fox returned.
She emerged at dusk, her coat the color of embers, eyes sharp as flint. This time, she did not drink. Instead, she dropped a sprig of sage at the water’s edge and fixed him with a gaze that pierced.
"Why do you linger here, storm-born one?" Her voice was a rasp, unexpected yet familiar—a voice that knew the taste of old wounds. A soul burdened by wisdom and experience. A soul as darkened as his own.
Severin stiffened. "You speak?"
"All things speak," she replied. "You simply stopped listening." She nudged the sage toward him. "This grows where the snow once choked the earth. It is stubborn. Like you."
He eyed the herb, its silver-green leaves trembling in the breeze. Even as it had been uprooted and away from its source, it clung to life, fighting to remain alive.Strong and resilient."I am nothing like this."
The fox laughed, a sound like dry leaves. "You cling to winter as if it can shelter you. But even ice must shatter to let life through." With that, she vanished into the twilight, leaving him alone with the sage and the stream’s ceaseless chatter, and his own thoughts.
Perhaps it was finally time for him to move on.
---
The mountain was a gauntlet. To
Rocks slid beneath Severin’s hooves as he climbed, the air thinning with every step. Twice, he nearly lost his footing, saved only by a lifetime of navigating treacherous paths. The lower slopes were a cacophony—chattering squirrels, the groan of shifting ice—but as he ascended, the world stilled.
Here, winter clung like a lover. Snowdrifts glowed blue in the moonlight, and the wind carried the faintest echo of the blizzard’s song. Severin pressed on, his breath pluming in ragged clouds.
At dawn, he reached the plateau.
A glacial pool dominated the expanse, its surface a mosaic of ice and liquid. Along its edges, frost-etched ferns curled like skeletal hands, and in the center—a rose. Perfect, crimson, trapped in a coffin of ice. It called to him, this absurdity of color in a monochrome world.
He approached, his reflection fracturing in the glassy surface. "Who bound you here?" he whispered. The rose did not answer, but its thorns gleamed like accusations.
He could definitely relate.
---
Weeks passed. Severin learned the rhythms of his new domain. He drank from the pool’s bitter waters, memorized the stars that wheeled above the peaks, and avoided the rose.
But one morning, he found the ice around it cracked, a single petal floating free. The sight struck him like a physical blow. He reared, hooves striking the ground in a thunderous protest. "No! You do not get to leave. Not yet!"
Yet even as he raged, he understood. The thaw would come here too, in time.
That night, he composed a verse, his voice raw against the silence:
"O thorned heart, in frost entwined,
Why dost thou mock my futile reign?
In thy prison, my soul I find—
A captive of eternal pain."
The rose said nothing. But the wind carried his words into the void, and for the first time in years, Severin did not feel entirely alone.
---
The fox found him again on the cusp of summer.
She stood at the edge of the plateau, watching as Severin traced the rose’s thawing edges with his muzzle. "Will you follow the water down when it calls?" she asked.
He hesitated. Below, the valleys pulsed with green, the streams singing their heedless hymns. Here, the rose’s ice wept slow tears.
"No," he said at last. "But neither will I stop the melting."
The fox nodded, as if she’d expected nothing less. "Then you have already begun."
As she left, Severin did not crush the sage she left behind. He let it lie, its scent a bridge between then and now, between ice and bloom.
And high in the mountains, where winter and spring waged their endless war, a single drop fell from the rose’s thawing heart.
He mourned, but he was healing, and he had perhaps finally found his home.
Total Word Count: 1431
And it unsettled him…
He had come to these lands in the heart of winter, when the world was sleeping - hushed and still - when the cold matched the ice in his veins. The blizzard had been a familiar companion—howling, untamed, beautiful in its destruction. But now, the warmth was returning, and with it, the unbearable noise of life.
This new stream cut through the earth like a silver knife, carving a path where none had been before. It whispered secrets as it flowed, laughing at the way it disrupted the land. Severin’s ears twitched, his sky blue eyes narrowing. This water had no right to be here. It had not asked permission. It had not mourned what it destroyed in its wake.
His new home, his territory—if one could call it that—had been a quiet stretch of frosted pines and a frozen pond, a place where the world left him alone. But that small peaceful pond was now a lake, swollen and restless, and this arrogant little stream threatened to flood the lowlands where he often stood beneath the stars, reciting old verses or pondering life’s mysteries, to the moon.
"The earth shifts, and so must we," he murmured, his voice low and fragile, like the last sigh of winter.
But the thought of moving again—of uprooting, even when his roots were so shallow—sent a ripple of irritation through him. He was a creature of solitude, of chosen isolation. To be forced from his hollow sanctuary by something as trivial as melted snow was an insult.
Yet, as he watched the water, he could not deny its beauty. The way it caught the sunlight, fracturing it into a thousand glittering shards. The way it danced, unburdened by memory or regret. How it flowed so freely.
A bitter chuckle escaped him. "Even the rivers are freer than I."
For a moment, he considered fighting it—staking claim to this new water, daring the land to challenge him. To assert his claim. To somehow leave his mark, to show that he existed here. He could stand in the path of the current, let it rush around his legs until it learned to bend to his will. But what was the point? The world turn, and would change regardless. It always did.
His gaze drifted to the distant peaks, still crowned in white. There, winter lingered. There, the silence remained unbroken. There perhaps was all the peace and solitude he could desire. Perhaps it was time to climb higher.
---
The scent of damp earth and pine resin hung thick in the air, a cloying perfume that made Severin’s nostrils flare. He hated it—the aliveness of it. It reminded him of her.
Liora.
Her name was a ghost on his tongue. She had been sunlight incarnate, all light and sweetness, a mare whose laughter melted the frost from his heart. Who made him feel alive. But he had failed her. On a night when the stars wept ice, he had turned away, too consumed by his own shadows to see hers. By dawn, she was gone, swallowed by a avalanche he might have prevented. Now, her memory lived in the trembling of his breath, in the way he recoiled from the warmth of spring.
A sudden trill of birdsong shattered his reverie. Above, a sparrow alighted on a birch branch, its head cocked as if studying him. Severin snorted. "What do you know of regret, little fool?" The bird flitted away, leaving a single feather spiraling to the ground. He stared at it, black as his heart, and crushed it beneath his hoof.
---
Days bled into nights as Severin paced the borders of his dissolving realm. He had longed to stay, but as spring deepened, the stream grew bolder, gnawing at the banks until whole swaths of soil collapsed into its current. Once, he found a cluster of violets uprooted and drowning in the mud. He nudged them with his muzzle, a useless gesture. "Beauty is ever the first casualty," he muttered.
It was then the fox returned.
She emerged at dusk, her coat the color of embers, eyes sharp as flint. This time, she did not drink. Instead, she dropped a sprig of sage at the water’s edge and fixed him with a gaze that pierced.
"Why do you linger here, storm-born one?" Her voice was a rasp, unexpected yet familiar—a voice that knew the taste of old wounds. A soul burdened by wisdom and experience. A soul as darkened as his own.
Severin stiffened. "You speak?"
"All things speak," she replied. "You simply stopped listening." She nudged the sage toward him. "This grows where the snow once choked the earth. It is stubborn. Like you."
He eyed the herb, its silver-green leaves trembling in the breeze. Even as it had been uprooted and away from its source, it clung to life, fighting to remain alive.Strong and resilient."I am nothing like this."
The fox laughed, a sound like dry leaves. "You cling to winter as if it can shelter you. But even ice must shatter to let life through." With that, she vanished into the twilight, leaving him alone with the sage and the stream’s ceaseless chatter, and his own thoughts.
Perhaps it was finally time for him to move on.
---
The mountain was a gauntlet. To
Rocks slid beneath Severin’s hooves as he climbed, the air thinning with every step. Twice, he nearly lost his footing, saved only by a lifetime of navigating treacherous paths. The lower slopes were a cacophony—chattering squirrels, the groan of shifting ice—but as he ascended, the world stilled.
Here, winter clung like a lover. Snowdrifts glowed blue in the moonlight, and the wind carried the faintest echo of the blizzard’s song. Severin pressed on, his breath pluming in ragged clouds.
At dawn, he reached the plateau.
A glacial pool dominated the expanse, its surface a mosaic of ice and liquid. Along its edges, frost-etched ferns curled like skeletal hands, and in the center—a rose. Perfect, crimson, trapped in a coffin of ice. It called to him, this absurdity of color in a monochrome world.
He approached, his reflection fracturing in the glassy surface. "Who bound you here?" he whispered. The rose did not answer, but its thorns gleamed like accusations.
He could definitely relate.
---
Weeks passed. Severin learned the rhythms of his new domain. He drank from the pool’s bitter waters, memorized the stars that wheeled above the peaks, and avoided the rose.
But one morning, he found the ice around it cracked, a single petal floating free. The sight struck him like a physical blow. He reared, hooves striking the ground in a thunderous protest. "No! You do not get to leave. Not yet!"
Yet even as he raged, he understood. The thaw would come here too, in time.
That night, he composed a verse, his voice raw against the silence:
"O thorned heart, in frost entwined,
Why dost thou mock my futile reign?
In thy prison, my soul I find—
A captive of eternal pain."
The rose said nothing. But the wind carried his words into the void, and for the first time in years, Severin did not feel entirely alone.
---
The fox found him again on the cusp of summer.
She stood at the edge of the plateau, watching as Severin traced the rose’s thawing edges with his muzzle. "Will you follow the water down when it calls?" she asked.
He hesitated. Below, the valleys pulsed with green, the streams singing their heedless hymns. Here, the rose’s ice wept slow tears.
"No," he said at last. "But neither will I stop the melting."
The fox nodded, as if she’d expected nothing less. "Then you have already begun."
As she left, Severin did not crush the sage she left behind. He let it lie, its scent a bridge between then and now, between ice and bloom.
And high in the mountains, where winter and spring waged their endless war, a single drop fell from the rose’s thawing heart.
He mourned, but he was healing, and he had perhaps finally found his home.
Total Word Count: 1431
