Beneath that face of icy calm lies a tiny, broken girl.
She swings where her mother used to swing, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Pale blond hair clouds her face and fills her vision, and the girl throws her head back while the chilly wind pushes her hair from her vision. It is only just getting light, birds not yet awake nor the girl's father.
The magical flowers slowly furl open with silent, smooth motions in the frosty air. The tiny oranges blossom above the girl as the swing she sits upon continues, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Her immense, rickety home seems to sway in the early morning breeze as the suns rays peak above the vast mountains surrounding her valley home.
The girl's long fingers curl around the old, woven rope that holds the swing in place beneath the apple tree.
A soft whistling sound fills her ears as the wind pushes harder, like a knife against her face.
Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, she continues to swing, until the sun is half risen, and the girl's aged father rises.
He calls for the girl to come inside for a breakfast of sweetened porridge and orange slices grown from their own trees.
She sighs. To her, there is no point in life without her mother's bright soul.
Now, to the girl, eating is a mechanical action used only to keep her heart beating. She has died inside.
Walking absently, lifelessly, within the tall home, she sees her father pooling the smooth porridge into bowls. Three bowls. The girl, the father, and the mother.
A single, crystalline tear traces the girl's cheek as she watches the familiar movements. There hasn't been a day since her mother died that the father has not spooned out three bowls, cut three oranges. Everything is done in threes.
Through the open window, the knife-like wind continues to whip at her face in icy movements, as though whispering what the girl considered the truth.
It was her fault.
No, it wasn't.
It was her fault.
No, it wasn't.
But it was still her fault.
And yet a part of her still argued back.
It was not her fault.
The girl allowed another tear to trace down her cheek as she feels her heart literally tear in two at the stress of two opinions within a single body, almost as though the girl's mental twin sister existed, which she did not.
The first tear falls from her face, landing on the empty table meant for three. All alone, just a single tear.
The father places all three bowls, each with a spoon, around the table in a practiced motion.
He tells the girl to eat, to which she responds by mechanically spooning a tiny bit of the sugar-sweetened porridge to her mouth.
It is cold.
The mother always made the porridge, and now she was gone.
The fiercely sharp and cold wind only adds to the chill of the familiar situation.
A single week before the mother had died.
A single word gone wrong.
Just one.
Another mechanical spoonful, and the girl pushes her plate away, eyes darkening with sadness, turning from pale grey to a stormy grey, flecked with blue, the colour of sadness. That is all the girl's life is, now.
Sadness, minutes dragging into hours, dragging into days, months, weeks.
That's all it would take.
Just one. It doesn't matter how small, just one, a single one…
Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, the girl's mind changes, as she swings in the same manner, sun now high in the sky as she approaches midday.
One, one, one…
The knife-like wind pushes harder at her, seeming to blow right at her house from all directions.
Yes, just one.
Standing within her house, the wind stops, and her fingers handle the icy wind directly at her own heart.