Winter was always the worst for me growing up. It felt like the cold would cut right through me and no matter how hard I tried I would never be warm. I would curl up by the fire side every night with the blanket that my father had wrapped me in the first day I had come home. But, that is a story for another day. It was during these days that I couldn't travel as much. So my family would come to visit me. Kieran had all sorts of duties of his own trying to run the clan and my father's health was off and on during those days. My younger brother and my middle brother seemed to come the most during this time. But, it seemed that when the weather was coldest it was Keir I saw the most.
It was this fault that crossed my mind as I moved across the snow covered ground my footprints leaving a trail behind me. The tiny crystal glowing in my hand as I stopped moving looking across the icy tundra. It just had to be ice didn't it? I suppose it could have been worst it could have been the moss covered, Loras I had to cut the arm out of again. The damn thing had smelled worst than a room full of corpses and had bleed foul smelling water with each cut. It had taken more cuts than I bothered to count to get to it because you know it of course had to swallow the damn thing lucky for me it hadn't been disgusted.
It was sort of for Keir that I was hunting body parts and for Istvan whom I had made a promise. A promise that was made for my brother to someone who long ago was sort of like a grandson to me in another life. A life that keep creeping up on her causing more feelings that I didn't wish to deal with. Keir who on those cold winter nights would sit and draw at my home.
I often would wonder why he would come to my estate why not just draw at his own. I was never sure if it was because my estate was quieter or because he didn't want people to see him draw, or because he just wanted to come and spend time with me during those cold nights and it was something that he could do. I would spend hours watching him, sneaking up behind him when I thought he wasn'tlooking though I am pretty sure he knew, peering over his shoulder.
I could still see the scene coming out on the page. The frozen wonderland not so unlike the one I was at right at this moment as my axe came down into the ice as I tried to break enough away to get my treasure frozen underneath the surface. They had said it was impossible to get the body parts even if I could find them by some twist of fate. Funny fate had always favored me and hated me. It had made me strong enough to endure so much yet it had taken everything that mattered to me in one single swipe.
I had traveled deep within the fire pits to retrieve the other arm as I remember the heat radiating off of It had been a long way down dangling on the rope but luck would have it I was able to grab it just in time to avoid the bubble that rose out of the depth and had singed the bottom of my boots on the way up. What a contrast from the icy remains that I was now hacking away at trying to pulled the last parts of his body from the frozen ground.
With each strike of the pick axe, I could see my brother's hand gliding across the paper all those years ago. I remember marveling as the picture began to take shape on the paper. I think he liked to paint winter scenes the best but it might just be because that was what I remember the most. Who was to say what the mind remembers. I just remember asking him once why paint something so cold and bleak and he answered after much thought. "Because it is beautiful.
I couldn't began to understand back then why something that caused me such misery could be beautiful. It only made me feel bad and it was what I considered an obstacle to being able to play at least fo me who couldn't take the cold. "You're crazy."
He laughed and smiled picking me up. "It is like you. It is a little rough around the edges sometimes but it has great beauty. It may be harsh but that is only because sometimes it is worth it when you see the world covered in a blanket of ice and snow that spreads across the land. When the snowflakes fall with their tiny patterns and melt in your mouth. For that moment you find something wonderful."
I frowned at his words. "i am not beautiful. I am sick and ugly." I folded my arms across my chest.
He shook his head as he spun me around towards the painting."Perhaps you are unpolished but like this picture you have yet to be painted and some day you will become something marvelous."
I glanced at the picture in front of me of the house and the little girl sleeping by the fireplace, if you looked up from where she was sleeping you could see the snow falling on the scene outside. It was me with my blanket sleeping away the storm outside. I looked so fragile in the picture and so lovely despite the scars that my brother had pained in. I knew he normally didn't paint people. Sure, he would but he preferred scenery but this was both. I glanced up and shook my head.
He nodded as he ruffled my head. "A frozen scene that you can forever be apart of and never feel the cold." He offered me the picture as I held it close to me. I keep that picture on my wall in my bedroom until recently when I had packed it up and put it with all the pieces of Istvan's body. As the axe hit home and I clawed through the ice and snow to pull out the last piece. I had searched everywhere for each and every piece.
Some had been easy to find. I had found them just lying around. Others I had to fight for like the one I ripped from the belly of the monster. Still others I had found it far away remote places, but this was the last one the piece that completed my collection and now that I had kept that promise I could complete my goodbye.
I knew my brother was out when I appeared at his home that he shared with his wife. I carefully arranged the pieces of Istvan's body on the table for him to find. I needed no words I knew that he would know what it was for so that he could be free of the spirit. What they did with the body was out of my hands and up to the two of them now. I was sure that he would get father to help him to bring it back so he could complete his work.
I placed the painting of the little girl on the easel that was set up sure that he would find it. Sometimes, the winter is just too cold and no matter what you do nothing will warm it. It was these words that came to mind as I vanished leaving my painting behind.