1. Slumber & Insanity

“After the ordeal I went through, I fell into a deep slumber,
And by the time I woke up,
The world had already labeled me insane…”

What year was it when, on that cold winter’s night, it was painful to see even the moon and stars together and when snowflakes fluttered down like small dancing fairies? The details have grown hazy over the years, but the pain that lingers is still as bright as the fires that threatened to swallow the world that night. The dark sky was lit ablaze with fires of all colors, some brighter and hotter than others, all with the same goal — to burn away the world that stood aside while life as a certain someone knew it was slaughtered away.

For someone who has come to associate the snow with all the terrible things that happened, winter is an infuriating season. On days when the world is covered in white, it’s as if all color has been erased. In its pure white state, the world is still and quiet like a blank sheet of paper upon which any small event can make a blemish. Only the biting cold carries with it the tragedy the snow tries to hide.

But on nights just like that night when even the wind doesn’t dare move, cold moisture turns into a heavy, hoary mist prowling above the snow-covered ground — what lurks in the mist, waiting for its chance to strike? On that night, an angry vengeance had stalked the snow with a deadly precision, but tonight, even the small animals that peek their heads out on even the coldest of days refuse to come out. The mist itself like a cloud of ice crystals floating in the air adds to the chill of the night, and for Lady Kazunomiya whose skin is soft like the summer drizzle, the mist needles her.

“Oneesama?”

A much smaller girl approaches slowly, hesitantly, like a baby deer caught by herself in an open meadow. Thanks to her puffy winter jacket, the cold doesn’t bite her as much as it does her older sister clad in a thin, silk dress permissible only as summer déshabillé.

Lady Kazunomiya does nothing to acknowledge the younger child’s presence — maybe she doesn’t notice the little princess or perhaps she’s too lost in her mind again.

The older sister moves, taking one elegant step, and the snow crunches underneath her bare foot. Another step, another indent in the snow, and her long, dark hair cascades behind her like an ebony waterfall. A dance begins, a series of random movements accompanied by flickers of sapphire flames and an eldritch singsong.

No words can describe how otherworldly the scene seems to the younger girl whose doe-like eyes, golden with small specks of pink, stand out in this blue-tinted, ethereal winterscape. Is she scared? It’s hard to tell when she already knows of things far more frightening than the insanity plaguing her only remaining family.

“If you truly held me dear and close to your heart,
You would not have left only this body behind,
A shell of its former radiance”

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