Disclaimer: I don't own the character's names and appearances

A Tale of Ice and Fire and Snow

"Snow falls; calm, soft and pure… like you, Kai… like you."

"The snow is only frozen and merciless crystals, biting skin and flesh, Tala…"

"They're crystals of pure beauty."

"It's a white pall…"

"You are beautiful, Kai."

"I'm dead, Tala. Cold and dead. Like the snow."

"Don't you love the snow anymore, Kai? I know you always sneaked out of the Abbey, by day, in the middle of the night, uncaring of the danger, only to be in the snow. Don't think I didn't notice you then. You may have tricked Boris and his minions, but I did see you. You loved the snow, and you were so beautiful in it…"

"I was never beautiful and neither is the snow. I am as dead as the snow is lifeless."

"The snow lives, Kai, and so do you. Sometimes I would look at you from some secret hiding place, having sneaked away from Boris just to look at you, you in the snow, and I honestly thought the snow only fell for you. It seemed to me that there was a kind of snow for every mood you were in… Did you ever notice how many different kinds of snow there are?"

"I did."

"How could you not? You were always in the snow…you were the snow. So fair, so free, so many different shapes and forms, soft and hard, small and big. I loved you for the snow, Kai, and I hated you for it. Love and hate, so intertwined, envy linking them together. I loved you, captivated by your beauty, and I hated you, jealous of what you had and I never would have. Passion, beauty, devotion."

"You see how cold I am and only thereby you are right. I am like the snow… Cold. Like the snowflake, swirling in the wind… Lost. Like a piece of an avalanche… Destroying what I hold dear. Distant… like the snowflake on the windowsill when the people sit around you, the fire, joyously playing in the fireplace."

"You think I am the fire?"

"You are the fire. Red flaming, whereas I am blue cold."

"That's only outer appearance. My hair is red, Kai, because I want to seem what you are, yet seem not to be."

"You what?"

"I want to seem what you are, yet seem not to be."

"Ah. But, Tala, you are the fire. People gather around you, they enjoy your warmth, your light, your cheerfulness. They share it, and they share many a laughter with you, or they share their sorrows. People revolve around you, the fire, life-giver, while they fear the snow-pall."

"What about all the people that turn away from the fire to the window to watch the snow falling, enjoying its quietude more than the unsteady flare of the flames?"

"They still sit in front of the fire, share the warmth and the comforting flicker. The snowflake on the window they only ever look at from afar. A snowflake is nothing someone would take comfort in."

"But people enjoy watching snowflakes. The fire burns too hot too soon. They leave it to go out in the snow, to play, to wander, and to relish its beauty."

"The snow is not beautiful, Tala. The snow is dead."

"You still don't believe me, Kai, do you? How can you not say that snow is beautiful? Even a single grain of snow contains the rainbow in its small sphere. When light, be it sun or fire, falls on snow, you see thousands of rainbows glittering and flashing, prisms catching the lively perfection."

"The snow is deadly white and whoever dwells in its beauty is amerced by blindness. The snow is dead, but still it kills. I don't want to hurt people anymore."

"Kai… you only hurt people because they love you."

"Nobody could possibly love me. No one likes the cold."

"I love you, Kai."

"I know."

"And there are many others who too love you."

"But you hate me, as well."

"I can't deny it."

"Because you envy the snow."

"Yes. Because I can never be like you."

"Why would you want to be like me, Tala? Only the people that are lost in the darkness are frozen. Like me."

"Kai… why do you refuse to see what is so clear to everyone else ?"

"I am drawn to your fire, like everybody else. Only stronger."

"Because you are the snow and I am the fire? It's that what you think, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"You are wrong."

"What?"

"We are drawn to each other, because we are complete opposites: Fire and Ice."

"I said that."

"Because, when I gently run my fingers over your cheek I meet repellent blue triangles on a frosty cheek, you think you are the Ice. But you can hide only in the distance, Kai. Because, when I lean close to you, your warm and tender lips give you away; the way they heatedly move with mine betrays you and the passion that burns inside you. Do you really think you can hide from me? I, who claim to love you more than anyone. I, who will follow you until our destruction

"…"

"I am the one drawn to your fire, Kai. I am the ice block, and you are the fire. I live off you, life-bringer fire, phoenix from the ashes. I need your life, your animation, your love, because it is I who is only the ice sculpture, beautiful, but frozen. My feelings are the ones you give me. You are the fire that melts the wintry emptiness inside me…"

"But…"

"You know that I speak true. As much as your warm and passionate lips give you away, more so does the blazing fire in your eyes. It burns deep and dark and stronger than anything I've ever seen. And when your burning eyes fix mine I find true the saying that our eyes are the portals to our souls. And I know once more that you are the Fire and I am the Ice."

"Tala… "

"…"

"I … I don't…"

"…"

"I think, I've always known, somewhere deep inside…"

"Of course you have."

"It should have been clear to me… Your eyes are like ponds in winter and your lips are as smooth as an ice-skating rink. But why? Why are we so different? Why I am the Fire and you the Ice?"

"Don't you understand, Kai? For the same reason that we need each other so indispensably. It's the force of the conflict between the united opposites that drives the universe onward. We share the strongest bond of all, so strong that it leads to our destruction."

"Why do we have to destroy each other? I like it the way it is, loving and complementing. I don't want to be destroyed by you, nor do I want to destroy you."

"I don't either. But this is not our choice to make; it was never our choice. Ice and Fire exist together and they perish together… Ice is best when the light of fire illuminates its crystal fragility and fire is most beautiful when reflected in the surface of ice. But think of what happens when they are thrown together? The flames melt the ice to water and the water drowns the flames. Out of our mutual beauty will grow our mutual destruction – unintentional, unplanned, and inevitable."

Disclaimer II: The last sentence in italics was pretty much taken out of a book I read at the time I wrote this. (Enclycopedia of Snow, by S. Miano) And the last paragraph more or less a paraphrased version of the paragraph in the book.

A/N: The whole text was inspired by aforementioned book, but else than in the disclaimer, everything were my ideas and my own love for snow...