"This is a terrible idea."

"Shhh! They'll hear you!"

"That's exactly why this is such a terrible idea."

Gliss was slim, with a face like a rounded triangle and eyes as soft as any snow bunny, and she had hero hair. There was no way of getting around it; her hair made her look like she should have been a hero. And maybe she still would, since she was endlessly enthusiastic and cheerful to a fault—even early in the morning when no decent soul should have been awake—but she was too impulsive to live a life of adventure. It wasn't that she had a short attention span; she just had far too many of them. Once you got Gliss hooked on an idea, there was no shaking her from it, no matter how many other ideas she was still working on, and her latest idea seemed to involve rather a good deal of spying.

"But look how cute they are! She's even wearing pink, the color of true love!"

"Gliss, she's a garden fairy. They all wear pink."

"I know, I know, it's so perfect!"

Also she was a fairy. She was winged and graceful and small enough to fit into your hand, except that part didn't make any sense, because surely you were a fairy too. Everyone Gliss knew was a fairy. In particular she was a frost fairy, inarguably one of the best in the Winter Woods, but just recently her nice predictable life had been invaded by a gang of warm fairies from the other side of the crossing. Their friend Periwinkle had found a sister, and their friend Sled had found, well…

"Look look look look! Sled's giving her a flower! Oh, I bet she'll like it too."

"Of course she will. She's a garden fairy. Flowers are what they do."

"Oh gosh, you're right! I hadn't thought of that. Do you think other fairies would like flowers too?"

"I don't know. Would you like it if someone gave you a flower?"

"Totally!"

"Of course you would."

Gliss was reluctantly accompanied by her friend Spike. Spike shared Gliss's build and basic facial structure, but everything else about them was as different as if someone had designed them that way on purpose. And someone had. Years ago someone had managed to confuse the two of them, and Spike had been so offended that she'd taken it on herself to differentiate herself from Gliss as far as any fairy possibly could. She dyed her hair black and wore it straight and flat around the sides of her head. She pieced together a ladylike light blue dress that hugged her hips and decorated it with a dark feather—not because she considered herself particularly ladylike, but because Gliss liked to wear a sort of crossed halter top and smooth middle-length pants, both dark blue and undeniably aerodynamic, and Spike had shied away from that style as much as she could. She even tried to spread her wings out more and spend more time walking instead of flying.

None of this had hurt Gliss's feelings in the least, fortunately; Spike had never once seen anyone actually hurt her feelings, and she was reluctant to try, unsure whether Gliss would remain cheerful and exuberant in the face of all trials or else collapse instantly into a puddle of uncontrollable misery. So for years she held back her cruelest remarks and sharpest jibes and allowed Gliss to lead her through life on one fool's errand after another, questing for objects that didn't exist or testing new sports too dangerous for common practice, up to and including dragging herself out of bed to spy on Sled while he courted a garden fairy with customary slow-speaking charm. It was a ridiculous way to live.

That said, she'd never had quite so much fun before and wouldn't have traded their friendship for all the berries in Frost Forest.

"They're holding hands, Spike! Holding. Hands. Oh I do think they like each other, I really do. Oh wow, he just caught a snowflake that was going to land on her and now they're looking at it together! Are you seeing all this?!"

"Um, no? They're obviously trying to have a private moment, and you're not helping."

"Spike, I am so totally helping! If I wasn't so helpful I'd be barging over there and fussing over them, and then they wouldn't have any privacy at all."

"But…"

"Oh gosh! Spike, they're looking into each other's eyes now! I don't think I'll be able to take it if they kiss. I shall faint and fall right out of this tree. Spike, you have to promise me that you'll catch me if they kiss."

Spike looked, making sure she was wearing her very most reluctant expression. Sled and the garden fairy—Rosetta, that was her name—were indeed staring at each other, the snowflake still held in their hands but clearly forgotten. Sled, from what she could tell from their vantage point in the tree, looked as confident as ever, and the garden fairy's knees were wobbling, but they were definitely getting closer to each other, and Spike smiled despite herself. They did make a cute couple, even if the garden fairy could stand to learn a thing or two about girl power and all that. Why, if she were in a relationship she would need to see her partner as her equal, none of that weak-kneed `oh ma gosh y'all ah might just faint' nonsense.

Not, thought Spike smugly, that she was planning on getting involved in a relationship to begin with. In the first place, she definitely didn't have the time. Maybe winter was only three months out of the year, but practicing took up a big chunk of the rest of her time! Taking things that didn't have any frost and putting frost on them was complicated, and she was an artist! And kind of lazy. But mostly an artist!

Besides, where would she even find someone? She'd missed the boat on Sled, by the looks of it, and none of the other sparrow men in the Winter Woods much interested her. A lot of them were too brooding, and brooding she already had down to an art form. And smirking, she was good at smirking. But that just left the boys from the warm side of Pixie Hollow, and not many of them had suited up in coats and leggings and made their way across yet, even though that was exactly the sort of proof of love and dedication she'd need to see. If some poor fellow was so besotted with her that he wrapped up his wings and braved a trip into unfamiliar territory just to come see her, like that garden fairy was doing for Sled, then Spike would definitely consider giving him a chance. Maybe. If she wasn't too busy and all.

A small, nasty voice in the back of her head took this moment to chime in. Why would such a sparrow man ever appear? In the first place, it reminded her, she had hardly made herself known to enough fairies that anyone would even know she was there to be looked for. In the second place, she was lazy, smug, sarcastic, disagreeable, and all-around unpleasant company. She'd heard how people faltered when introducing her, 'oh, and this is Spike… she's a bit, um…' and so on. Nobody loved her. Nobody would ever love her.

Shut up, Spike thought to herself, shut up shut up! She was excellent company! She smiled a lot, for one thing, even if that was because she was smiling at her friends' misfortunes. And she was always hanging out with her friends, even if sometimes she had to chase after them so they wouldn't leave her behind, and, uh… she did have that pretty feather in her bodice! She got definite points for style. She was, after all, an artist, even if there was no use for her medium nine months out of the year, and almost everything she made would just melt the very next day…

"Gliss?" Her voice was smaller than she was used to hearing it. "Um, do you think I'm—"

"Aaaaaaahhh!"

Spike's head shot up to take in the scene around her. Sled and Rosetta's lips had met over the snowflake, and there was a Gliss-shaped bit of air next to her that was decidedly not occupied by Gliss anymore. Instead her friend was falling to the earth below them, eyes closed and mouth wide in purest happiness, and there was a rock far beneath her that looked extremely painful. "Jingles," muttered Spike, and leapt into a high-speed dive.

She caught up to Gliss with half a second to spare and swept her out of the way of the rock, stumbling in midair from the added weight. Gliss burned through body fat faster than any fairy Spike knew, but she was still carrying someone her own size with little warning, and a moment later they were both sprawled unceremoniously into the snow with thankfully zero injuries. Spike glared at Gliss only to discover she was somehow still unconscious. At least she'd announced her plans to faint in advance—Spike wasn't at all sure she'd have been quick enough to catch her otherwise, and she shivered at the thought.

"Spike? Gliss?" Spike groaned and looked up to find Sled and the garden fairy hovering above her. Their faces were tinted red, but they looked worried, and Spike inwardly chastised herself for disturbing them right after accusing Gliss for much the same thing. If a fairy or sparrow man wanted a private moment to themselves, they really should be able to get it without worrying about random friends fainting out of trees all around them…!

"Hi guys," she said, and grabbed Gliss around her upper arms. Gliss still refused to wake. "Don't mind us! Uh, just passing through, no need to stop whatever you were doing…"

Sled floated forwards and helped her to get a better hold on Gliss, carrying her in her arms like an oversized baby, which come to think of it was a pretty good description of her. "Is Gliss all right?" he asked.

"Oh, she's fine. Just, uh, had a little too much to drink, that's all!"

"Like a clumsy?" The garden fairy had her hands on her hips and was giving Spike the kind of skeptical look she felt completely unprepared to satisfy. "Honey, we're fairies. We don't drink!"

"Well, there you go!" Spike grinned hopefully, reasoning that the more attention they paid to how unconscious Gliss was, the less they'd think to wonder why she and Spike were even there in the first place. "No wonder she fell asleep then. No tolerance! I'll just see you guys later…" And she was off, wings beating frantically to get her away from Sled as fast as she could go with Gliss sagging in her arms, and didn't dare look behind her until she'd gotten all the way to Gliss's house.