A/N: 1) I did this for the class of 2014 where I had to write an additional scene to one of the readings for my creative writing class. I wrote this to add to the end of Winter Rose by Patricia A. Mckillip. A friend asked me to post it after reading the book recently and I told her that I've written one.
2) I had looked through the entire book three times over and could not find the mother's name. So forgive me but I've named her, Fiona, which research shows is Irish for "vine." I chose that name because the book constantly refers to roses and ivy both of which can or do grow on vines. Rois and Laurel are also "fauna" names so I thought it best to keep with that theme.
Rois rolled her mother's wedding ring around between her fingers, watching the filtered green, noon light dance off the band as she held it above her head. She sighed as her eyes drifted past to the ring to the greenery above her. Rois eyed the cascade of roses that hid her and the spring from the outside world. A smile graced her lips at the few happy memories that the waterfall of roses brought with them.
She turned her eyes to the ring again as it lay there innocently around her finger. A frown flitted cross her brow as the little band reminded her of what she should be doing. Rois had wandered out into the wood before the sun had risen for she had no wish to be found by Laurel or Beda today. Laurel and Perrin would be married in less than two days time and yet the preparations never seemed to end. Rois rolled to her side with another deep sigh. She let her hand fall across her eyes, blocking out the green light that trickled down through the rose vines' leafy fingers.
She would not use the well, she would not tempt the Winter Queen. That fae woman had lit a spark within Rois' heart, though Rois would never openly admit that this was so. No doubt the Winter Queen already knew what Rois sought. She had asked the very question that buzzed through Rois' mind as if Rois' head was filled with an angry hive.
"Who gave you your eyes?" Rois murmured, a frown gracing her fair face as she heard the faint, distant laughter of silver bells. The frown deepened as a rumble of earth and stone covered the bells. Rois sat up, coming face to face with man both familiar and unknown. They stared at one another, a smile budding at the corners of his mouth. Rois fought not to answer with a smile of her own. A frown winning out as she caught the look in his eyes.
"They said I had my mother's eyes. I only have the color. The life behind them, the ability to see truly, to see into her world, that came from you..."
"Yes," his mouth bloomed into a bright smile with his reply.
A smile that Rois realized she'd seen all her life. "Mother said you never asked for me–"
"With all the dreams and visions that she gave you, that was the one you chose to believe above all others?" his smile for her didn't falter though it dimmed from its brilliant noonday glow. Rois did not have to ask who he spoke of when he mentioned the dreams. Yet even the visions did not change the fact that her mother had died because of him.
"My mother wasted away for–"
"The Winter Widow twists and destroys everything that she cannot have. Your mother chose to believe what the Winter showed her. Fiona chose not to wait."
"But the Winter–"
"Is not here."
Rois paused, turning wide eyes to the rose vines and the glimmers of the forest that she could see through the gaps. The lullaby birdsong, the snuffling of animals digging through the centuries of leafmold, all the quiet sounds of a forest a peace. Not a single sound of the Winter Queen's presence.
"This is her wood... She's always here." Rois turned her attention back to him, confused.
"The Winter Woods is hers, the Summer Glens will forever be mine."
Rois stared at him as his eyes filled with a malicious fire, 'the Winter Queen's heart holds only jagged knives of ice... What does the heart of the Summer King hold?"
The fire in his eyes turned warm. She smiled in return this time, unable to hold it back. Rois was beginning to recognize the small ways that he'd shown he had always been there, that he always would be. The bud of her memory began to unfold the petals that winter's many icy seasons had closed. The memories of sunlight's warm kisses on her brow or the warm breeze that rocked her to sleep in the cool of the evening as a child.
Rois turned sad eyes to his, wondering at what could have made her mother falter and forget him. Why would her mother believe the lies of the Winter Queen and that the gentle love of Summer would never return again. Her eyes became deep wells of sadness as she fought against the tears that threatened to spill like summer rains.
"It is not impossible for us to hide things from each other. I hid you from her just as Winter has hid all that she had done to Fiona after she discovered her. My power waned as my season passed. Her season came filled with all her hate and I could only protect one of you."
Rois' tears now fell free. She could guess at what the Winter Queen would have shown her mother though Rois did not like what that meant for her.
"No. You are wrong, my child. Your mother and I would have never given your life to save the other. That was not an option to even consider."
"Then why?" Rois sobbed as she stared into his warm eyes, eyes that shared her pain.
"That I do not know, I only know that she loved you and your sister dearly. Fiona would not have left you had she any other choice."
"She didn't leave, she died!"
"Is death not the means of entering into another realm?"
"Why her?" Rois smiled sadly at him, trying to turn the conversation to another question that she wished the answer to.
He laughed as his eyes turned inward, reflecting on summers passed. "I didn't pay Fiona any heed when she was small... The young woman she became was harder to ignore. The people had lost faith in us but Fiona's belief in us was profound. I did not dare remove that faith from this world where it was needed... Fiona tried to forget, to live a human life. She married a human male, yet he had a child with another, shattering any hope she had for her own world–"
Rois stopped him there, her fingers frozen above his lips as she stared at him in horror. His eyes bore into hers as she tried to gain control. She took in one last deep, calming breath. "They are my family regardless of what's happened in the past. I love them, that will not change. Mathu Melior is the man that raised me, the father I have known though I see now that you were there too. Laurel is the sister that has loved me through all my wildness and wanderings–"
"Rois?" She turned to the sound of Corbet's voice as he neared her hiding place beneath the roses vines. She look back to where the Summer King had been to see she was alone beside the spring. Corbet moved the briers aside to find a very out-of-sorts Rois. He kneeled down beside her and she moved into the embrace of his awaiting arms. Corbet calmed and soothed her before murmuring that it was time to return to the house. Her eyes widened slightly as another realization blossomed within her mind. A smile budded at the corners of her mouth as she stood. "Corbet, what do you think the future holds for a child of Winter that's married the daughter of Summer?"