It was the end of fall when lust for power and tillable land set them wandering again. Autumn leaves frosted over in the night and thawed in the day. It was the season of snowfalls when finally they found a strip of inhabitable land, with a river, and flat steppes to raise cattle on.
Women disappeared in the dark nights that lasted forever.
This was normal; women always disappeared in the month of snow. Their frozen bodies often showed up as the ice thawed, preserved perfectly by the cold like morning glories budding in the snow.
Then one day the chief's daughter went missing, eight days before the longest night of the year.
Her belly had been swelling over the migration, and he had hidden her, ashamed of the fact that his unwed daughter had been sullied. Many times he asked her the name of the man who had defiled her, that he could kill him and bring back a semblance of honor to the family.
Every time she cried, and insisted that there had been no man.
She had been due to give birth two days before she disappeared.
The snow fell too swiftly and got in the eyes of the men who searched for her. The landscape had changed to an ever-expanding sea of white.
Eight days passed. On the shortest day of the year, the snow suddenly stopped.
A cry of a child pierced trough the silence, breaking the calm.
The chief ran out into the snow. Hours passed.
When finally one of the farmers found him he had already passed. In his arms, a tiny infant turning blue with cold. By his side, a beautiful woman buried in the snow.
It has always been tradition to take in these changeling children around the world.
The child slowly grew older, with fair hair like those from the northern tribes.
The village prospered over the years, and grew into a permanent settlement. All those who were alive at the time of his birth withered and died of old age.
The child, with sandy hair and eyes colder than the winter when he was born, stayed frozen in time.
a/n: just some shitty drabble about my headcanon of how nations come to be
words: 360 (of story)