The Spurning

Yuki-Onna, the Snow Queen, the Goddess of Winter raged. Oh, how she raged. Snow fell heavily, snapping the branches of trees, freezing rivers and lakes, and burying bare ground. The cold cut through to the marrow and visibility was greatly reduced to a study in monochrome. As she raged, and the snow loaded, the roar of avalanches echoed her mutterings and musings.

"How can you even consider leaving me?!?" She roared.

I stood calmly, hands clasped tightly behind my back, something, which may have resembled a smirk played across my lips. When I first came here, I was chasing unfinished tales, but I then became a student. Of landscapes of weather. Of the sky and stars and clouds. Of ice and free-flowing water. Of the harshness and softness of a place that truly show indifference to its inhabitants.

Certainly, the Snow Queen had a strong influence here, but she was not my patron. I have never been one to prey, unless in the context of the food chain. What I would sometimes whisper to her on the cold night winds would hardly be considered a prayer, but perhaps a provocation. Then again, I never made any effort to hide my sense of heresy.

Yuki-Onna, Snow Queen and Goddess of Winter, hear me, and be without distraction; I fucked your mother last night. Well and repeatedly...

"I never bent my knee in worship to you," I said plainly. "That is submission, and submission is for dogs."

"I know how much this place fascinates you, and you live to be continually fascinated," she said. "Where do think you can go?"

"I intend to go where the world is sculpted by fire and water," I replied. "Where the world is still growing, by degrees, instead of being worn down."

Her cold eyes narrowed and gale of ice-barbed air struck me. I held my ground. Never once, no matter how much her cold countenance hurt me, had I backed down. It frustrated her, but it also won her grudging respect.

"Are you insane?!?" She exclaimed. "Do you really think you can thrive there?"

"Of course,"I said. "You adapt or die, that is the imperative and gospel of biology. Besides, it snows there too, so I can antagonize one of your incarnations, or perhaps cousins."

"Just like that, you're finished.? You've grown bored of here?"

"This place sings to me in ways that can fill me with endless longing. When the time comes, I know I'll miss it here, and the only other place I miss is where I spend my childhood, but that's another story."

Yuki-Onna, the Snow Queen, the Goddess of Winter, reached out to me. Her chilled fingers brushing my cheek. For the slightest of moments, she was almost tender. Almost seductive.

"Then why not stay? Stay with me?"

My gaze hardened and a low growl rebounded in the back of my throat. That, which lurks behind my eyes like some kind of ambush predator in a nameless African river, came a little closer to the surface. Quickly, she withdrew her hand, for fear of losing fingers, if not her whole hand.

"Because it is where my fascinations lead me," I replied, it was my turn to be cold and unforgiving. "It is an opportunity and a gift  of which would be folly to turn aside. There is nothing that can convince me otherwise, not even the adversarial acquaintance of a mercurial snow deity."

 Yuki-Onna, the Snow Queen, the Goddess of Winter turned away. Ours had never been an easy relationship. I heard her sigh heavily and noticed the snow lightening ever so slightly.

"You are one of the most relentless creatures I have ever met," she whispered. "Perhaps there was something to the guru telling you the only time you don't get what you want is when you decide you no longer want it."

"If you wish to give into such superstition," I said, not hiding my heresy.

"When will you go?"

"I don't know. It could be a season, it could be in a few years. Do you ever tell me exactly when you're coming or leaving?"

"Fair enough. I think I might miss you once you're gone."

"Doubtful, given I start my conversations with you by mentioning what I do to your mother."

Yuki-Onna, the Snow Queen, the Goddess of Winter chuckled. Oh, how she chuckled. A laugh of bitter sweetness and frost-covered mornings. And just like that, she disappeared into the snow. And just like that, with a sigh, I looked up at the breaking storm clouds to behold the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon.