Cold.
It spread across her cheekbones and throat, clenching in a cool vise. Even when her mother held her, the coldness didn't abate very much, if at all. Sometimes, when she opened her eyes, all there was as far as the eye could see was a blank whiteness: snow. She did not shiver despite this.
No, tremors were not something she experienced anymore.
Rather, she felt so very numb and tired, like she could sleep forever. A never ending sleep where nothing changed and where she appeared to be frozen in time. A chilled corpse. Dead. But then a finger would twitch or she'd sneeze like a baby bunny, and then it would become clear that, that was not the case.
She did not question this. There was no point and she didn't have energy nor motivation. Instead, she accepted the situation for what it was and existed as much as one could exist in her half-conscious state.
Sometimes, when the group she and her mother traveled with came to a stop to huddle together in the cold as they rested, an elder's voice cracked and warbled as he sang a ballad of sorts. Others would join in, spreading and sharingbthe story of their people, of their dubious origins that rested on a cursed beauty whose pallor reminiscent of the iciest of snow and a haphazard couple whose union ended in bloodshed. A reminder and warning of their history, of what might just be repeated once again if they didn't pass this on to every generation of their small clan, lest they be wiped from the face of the world once again.
She could remember her mother crooning under her breath, leather–gloved fingers stroking her face tenderly, murmuring about a girl who endured torture and death and rape and murder and survived despite it all. Cursed and bitter, a clan thar sprung from murky beginnings that many would spit upon and sneer in disgust. Still, they would not turn away. They would not forget, lest it happen once more.
(in the shrouded cave where a diminished clan sang about their shady and horrific past as they huddled close to survive the night, a mother confided to her baby that the time of turnover was upon them and history would indeed repeat itself and just how beautiful her little baby was, with a face as white as the cold and deadly snow around them, just like their founder...)
(for what it was worth, she had only been two years old at the time, so she had done rather well than most children in her situation. Of the forty-strong clansmen, nineteen were below the age of twelve. Of those nineteen, only three survived besides herself. Of the rest of the clan, two teenagers, one adults, and all nine of the elders also perished. The last thirteen were the only ones to survive the trip from the Land of Frost into the Land of Fire.
Another four clansmen died on the last leg of the trip from the border to Konoha. Three more contracted illnesses native to the Land of Fire and died while the de-facto leader went through the process of securing immigration papers for the nearly extinct clan.
She had been blessed. One of the few to have survived as long as she did, to last despite of all the unlucky circumstances working against herself and her rag-tag clan...
...she never felt all that lucky when she became the last one remaining not long after, the new year not even having begun yet before the Zarameyuki clan drew to an end, down to the last orphan. For just as her mother predicted, her clan's history turned over once again and a Shirayuki was left alone to fend for herself with an uncertain future full of what could only be suffering and death)
Her name was Orochimaru Zarameyuki, the last of the Shirayuki bloodline, and this was her second lifetime.
