Snow Maiden

I really loved this pic by photographer Trevor Cole (found on Unsplash.com) and, even though it isn't snowy or wintery, I thought it was perfect for November. Her are a couple of excerpts from the winter fairytale romance I am currently working on. Tell me what you think in comments, I would love to hear from you. Have a great weekend!

Excerpts from Snow Maiden
 
“You think to sneak by me little snow hare?” He said and his dark eyes danced. “You led the chase well yesterday, myshka, but I found you. It would not be so easy to slip by me again. You will ride with us now, that is my decision. Don’t to think to second guess me; you will only try my patience.”
Those last words may have been mild but Nika could hear the bite behind them, the warning.
She’d landed herself in the lair of a dangerous man, she could tell.
But he soon changed the subject back to her clothes. He came back to her and tugged at her sleeve, testing the weight of it and saying that it was purely unsatisfactory for travel. Nika said nothing, not wishing to reveal that she’d run from her home in the dead of night with no time to plan for the weather. When he finished picking at her, he dragged a long coat out of a trunk and dropped it around her shoulders. She sagged under the weight of the thing. It was a man’s garment, presumably his, made of leather, lined and trimmed for a king with white hare’s fur. It was the finest thing to ever touch her person and felt incredibly warm. It covered her neck and chest and swam all the way down to her ankles. Her hands completely disappeared beneath the long sleeves.
Vasilli smiled at her not unkindly then he brushed his hand over her hair, stroking from the top of her head down the length where a curl rested at the tip of her breast. Nika trembled and inhaled through her nose.
His hand dropped down to his side but his eyes lingered on her hair. Nika shifted, nervous to be under his stare and startled at her own body’s response. Hidden under the heavy coat, her nipples tightened and scratched against the rough wool of her dress. Finally, he blinked and looked away.
“You have only moments before we leave. Meet me outside,” he’d said, then strode from the tent.
 
…and a scene from the Frozen Forest
 
 “What do we do with her? If we keep her here, she’ll be found.”
“Keep her hidden, don’t let the Queen know about her.”
Nika woke to a chorus of hushed voices. Eyelashes heavy with cold crystals, she fluttered them open and a small hand brushed away the tiny fragments that broke and fell on her cheeks. Beautiful feminine faces met her eyes when she opened them and she gazed up, bewildered by the crowd that looked down on her.
“So blue,” a small voice gasped, “her eyes!”
Whispering further back could be heard.
Nika pushed herself up and realized that the ground where she lay was covered in snow. She shivered and wondered how long she’d been sleeping.
“Where am I,” she asked. “and who are all of you?”
They brought forth a thick pelt of white fur and wrapped it around her, instantly warming her.
All of the women around her were young, maybe her own age and they were white as the snow on the ground. They wore frosted head wreaths, some of fir pins and others of branches with holly berries, some even looked to be made entirely of silvery icicles that shined and glinted like diamonds. To a one, their skin was milky white and shimmered as though they’d been sifted with fairy dust.
Their dresses were beautiful, some long some short but all were white and decorated with furs and gemstones of silver, gray and blue. Nika looked around wide eyed at the place she had come to; she remembered scrambling into the cave to escape the hunters’ but, after that only falling and then nothing else. It was full on winter here. A pristine layer of snow covered everything and glinted with thousands of tiny diamonds the way it will do in the sun. All of the fairy women stood around her in a small clearing of what was otherwise a dense forest of fir trees that were covered in a dense silver frost.
It was incredibly beautiful. What was more incredible Nika thought was how she didn’t feel nearly so cold anymore. She sank her fingers into the soft fur on her shoulders. One of the girls turned her head and a faint pattern shown like the markings one might have seen on a native of the warm South Lands up high on her cheek and forehead. It looked like a snowflake or the spars of a cracked sheet of ice. When she looked at the rest, she could see that they all had similar markings on their skin in various patterns.
“Don’t be afraid, fair one,” one of them came forward, “we found you here sleeping and sheltered you.”
“H-how did I get here?” Nika asked, not at all sure that this wasn’t a dream.
“You must have fallen,” someone answered.
Nika pressed a hand to the side of her head and felt at a tender spot there. The snow ladies forms started to fog in her eyes and a memory came to her unbidden.
“I remember it now, the legend of this place, she said, her voice sounding far away to her own ears, “a witch from the Northwinds cursed a kingdom I think.” She tried to recall the story that grandmother had told her. She’d heard so many. That was one of her joys, sitting and listening to the old woman recite tale after tale from memory. ‘Another, grandmother, another story’ little girl Nika would say, hungry for every drop of love she could squeeze from the magic of those moments.
“She stole all of the young girls, the fair haired ones, from the land but I can’t recall why and there was a wizard too or was it a bear…I can’t remember…”
She was suddenly very drowsy again even though she’d only just awakened.
“Yes,” the leader said, her voice getting distant, “the fair haired ones.”
“Rest now dear one,” one of the other girls whispered and Nika eye’s were heavier than she ever thought could be.
She stretched out on the ground and the fairies covered her in more furs and she drifted off to sleep again.

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