A/N: Why? Because there's just not enough stories with Donia in it. I've only read the first book and part of Ink Exchange(which I decided to ignore the fact that it exists in this story, so…). And I tend to make the character's think a lot. You've been warned.

This was written in my Writing Process class in a fit of inspiration. Hey, it's writing, isn't it? Also, I believe that this is the first thing I've written on this site that isn't complete and total crap. :3 Yeah.

Disclaimer: I don't even own a copy of Wicked Lovely. The library's a wonderful thing.

Donia didn't understand why Keenan wouldn't just choose between her and Aislynn once and for all.

Oh, she knew why. But knowing and understanding were two very different things, and Donia just didn't understand. But she knew. Keenan was Summer King. He couldn't help but be passionate and fickle and slightly stupid (Donia was too nice to call him an outright idiot, which he was sometimes). He couldn't help chasing girls that were just out of his reach and leaving them when they were his. It was just the way of the Summer fey, of Summer itself. Winter was the one that waited, under cold, frigid blankets of frost. Winter was the one that was patient and watchful, never in the thick of things, only the bare edges. Summer was blissful and pleasant, full of energy, lacking in responsibility. Summer could do whatever it wanted, go wherever it wanted, sleep with whoever it wanted. Winter was the one that waited.

Donia was tired of being winter. She wanted to be the one who was impatient, who did whatever she wanted. She didn't want to be the one to wait beneath freezing ice, a lonely observer to the rest of the world.

One day, she'll leave this perpetual coldness. One day, she'll leave Keenan.

Winter never got angry. But Donia did.

Right now, she was hurling an unfortunate crystal bowl at the mirror that hung from the wall of her cottage (she never did get around to moving into the Winter Court. It was still all too formal, too cold for her even though she held the Winter frost now. But that didn't matter anymore).

Nothing made sense at all. The Summer King and Queen were the ones that were angry and volatile. They were the ones that were supposed to hate and scorch one moment and love the next. The Winter Queen was too cold to feel those burning embers of hate and fury course through her veins.

But Donia was past caring about that.

She was leaving. Keenan could go and woo 'his' Summer queen for all she cared (somehow she wasn't so sure that Seth would go for that). She didn't care. The Winter Court didn't depend as much on its Queen as the Summer Court did (after all, who could bear to depend on the personification of winter?) If there was a problem, one of the hags could reach her.

Donia could go traveling. She could go to France, India, Canada, anywhere. Just not here. Just not in this cottage, where all the Winter Girls had stayed, waiting their dead hearts out for the freedom that the Summer King took away from them. And not among the fey, not with their rules (there were still rules to be followed, even for the Winter Queen, as Donia realized shortly after stepping up to power). No, no more restrictions, no more restraints. She wanted what she had as a human (it felt like a millennia ago…), the freedom and carelessness she had taken for granted at the time. Of couse, she could never have exactly that, not unless she let death claim her, let mortality find its way once again into her melting, lifeless body. And she refused to die, let alone kill herself. She wouldn't give Keenan the satisfaction of knowing whose face flashed through her mind as she closed her eyes one last time.

So she left, taking what few personal belongings she owned and Sasha, her loyal wolf companion and sidekick. She never looked back, not at the broken mirror and the glass shards beneath it, not at the cold hearth, its fire snuffed out hours ago. She didn't even spare a glance at the snowglobe Keenan had given her one Christmas too long ago to date, a little welcoming gift to the world of the fey. For a Summer King, Keenan was too cold and cruel sometimes. The wooden door slammed behind her, and finally, Donia was out.

She did it. She left.

End of Chapter One.

I swear, this was much longer on Microsoft Word (c)