This is the rewrite of „Long winter nights".

I decided that the old version hat not enough infos in it and was indeed to short. So I tried to pack a lot more of info and character into this story. I changed a few things as well, like names and similar.

Sorry to everyone who saw my story simply vanish, but it was eating at me and I'm a perfectionist.

The poem in the beginning is out of Dante Aligheries „Divina Comedia".

If you want to read it, go buy the book and read the „Inferno, First Song 1-9"

Have fun.

Long winter nights

1. The purple Lady

Halfway through the journey we are living

I found myself deep in a darkened forest,

For I had lost all trace of the straight path.

Ah how hard it is to tell what it was like,

How wild the forest was, how dense and rugged!

To think of it still fills my mind with panic.

So bitter it is that death is hardly worse!

But to describe the good discovered there

I here will tell the other things I saw.

The wind chased the snow around the tiny house at the foot of the hill with the ruins of an ancient castle smothered in snow. Thick layers of the white substance were piling around the door and crows cawed in the distance. The forest was looking through the lit windows with a thousand eyes and somehow it seemed to smile.

The kids were restless. Their mother had rushed them in just minutes ago to prepare for bed, however none of them were tired. The day had been quite busy, throwing snowballs while the elders had been out cutting wood. The first snow in winter was always a feast for the children but it also meant hard times ahead. The parents let them play well into the darkness though this didn't hinder the little rascal from complaining. So, for little humans, clad in sleeping wear in various states, were gathered around a big fluffy chair in front of the fire place.

The old man in the chair raised an eyebrow at the display in front of him. A grizzled white beard which almost did cover his entire face and twinkling eyes full of wisdom and wonder. He took a big puff from his long pipe which rested on one of the arms of the chair and his expression turned into a smile when one of them, the youngest of the bunch, raised her arms and latched onto him like a desperate monkey while pleading , „Tell us a story, Gran...please."

He grinned. The wrinkles in his face deepening as he was contemplating about an appropriate bedtime story. One of the older girls, raised her green eyes at him and demanded „We want a story we didn't hear already, Gramps. So think a bit longer this time ..." His grin broadened. Seemed like the little lass had caught him.

Well Elena..." he raised a white eyebrow at his green eyed granddaughter. „You have heard about the castle up on the hill, behind the village, right?" His shining brown eyes regarded the kids carefully. „You all know it's forbidden to enter it...many have tried and vanished behind the rocks and stones and the big gates..."

The little girl scowled. "You already told us about the secret passage, Gramps." The old man laughed gently. "Then I have to tell a new one I guess..." he trailed off.

He gathered them around them some more and began.

"Listen carefully, because this story is as true as my hair is white..."

Kurga, the small kingdom in the north of Fuuka is dominated by a dense and dangerous forest, called the forest of Daran.

Apart from small parts of land lying in valleys in the Rusbeki mountains over the half of the kingdom is covered in woodland.

The wood is home to many small villages. The capital city Kardash almost at the center of the forest is renowned for it's sights and beautiful houses carved out of wood. It's only natural that the main export is wood or small plants and animals.

The settlements in the forest, much like those in the mountains are fortified with a wooden stockade and a fence. Breeding animals is more common than growing crops, the beasts of the forest, especially the wolves can get quite aggressive in winter. So the animals can be brought into the stockade during any attack.

The forest is famous for it's beasts. There are legends of giant wolves, talking bears and rampaging boars.

Particular famous are, or more were the giant wolves. A special breed only found in the northern parts of the kingdom. Especially the Kruger family up in the north was famous for riding in battle on wolves the size of an ox. Now they were almost extinct.

The people are hardworking and solitary. It's hard for an outsider to fit into a community. In the forest villages there are special people and sometimes merchants who hold up trade and communications with the rest of the kingdom. Depending of the fief or the dukedom the roads are paved, simply trampled earth or barely visible.

The nobles know their position in the higher order of things and sometimes come over as a bit crazed or extremely cold and aloof. The outer kingdoms got the saying „...as cold as a noble winter" which means that the nobles of Kurga have a very close relationship to their land and it's seasons. Normally it isn't uttered when some of them is around. Legends tell that those connections go as far as changing appearance in correspondence to the season, however most deny those stories to be true.

The kingdom is separated into 5 big dukedoms. They are Artai, Rasnyce, Kistraya, Bhodka and Kruger. From the last one came the long line of kings the land had from its founding to the modern times now.

Each of this families are nearly as old as the kingdom. Some of them, the Artai and Kruger family are even older. The kingdom was a dukedom of the Daronian empire some hundred years ago. The Krugers ascended over the rank of Dukes and defended the land against an attack from their neighbours. Shortly after the victory they were declared the royal family and the kingdom of Kurga was founded.

They had held the kingship ever since. They married into the other families to prevent the dukes and their monetary funds from running out or turning on them, however at least it was always a true Kruger sitting on the throne.

The line was somewhat broken a few years ago. 4 years ago the land suffered under the pest. It had been brought in through merchant vessels over the various small rivers. The rats carrying the disease had run into the few big city and not soon after, the first people died.

The epidemic proved to be fatal for the small country. Within less than a year almost over a third of the population had died in its fatal grip. For a land relying so heavily on their peasants and the products they brought to market it was a heavy blow. Economy came to an halt. Crops simply went to rot on the fields, cos there was no one being able to harvest them. Soon starvation swept the land...and with it came the riots.

Most of the nobles failed to adapt to the situation, either because they couldn't comprehend it or simply they thought themselves above the illness. Soon they were proved false.

In the end even Kardash wasn't spared the problems. In the end the black death held the capital in an even more heavy grip than the country itself. Due to the packed living arrangements in the city the desase spread like a wild fire, leaping from one house to the next sparing no one the heartache of losing someone dear.

When the royal court conducted that there had to be a regulation concerning the food for the survivors the city went into an uproar. Some say it was the work of strategically placed agitators, though the results were the same. The citizens stormed the royal castle in the city only to find that their king too had succumbed to the illness and had died the day before. The castle was raided but they found no trace of his wife and two daughters. The culprits responsible for the uprising were swiftly dealt with and in absence of the royal family line the dukes voted for a new king. A distant relative of the old King Rodrich II. He was crowned as Stanislaw I and his first action, though rumor was going around that he did it on the pressure of the dukes, was to remove the remains of his relative from the family crypt in Kardash with the explanation that the could still could possibly carry the dreaded disease. The fear of the black death was still great then, so nobody complained though suspicion rose that the new king was just going to be a pawn of the dukes surrounding him at court.

The land was still in a repairing state. Whole villages had vanished during the plague and the merchants had to find new routes through the forest, which had become even more dangerous than before. Brigands were the least to worry about.

The winter had started very hard this year around and the wild animals were fewer in numbers, due to poachers and typical deseases. So the wolves and other beasts had come down to the cities and small villages, feasting on the dead lying around. They had acquired a taste for this easy food, specially in dark times like this and it could happen to a merchant group that they lied down at the fire place, only to find in the morning that one of their companions had been eaten alive while sleeping.

As an response to that they began to travel with escorts. First it had been dogs, but soon they proved to be even more easy prey for the various packs in the woods. Then they started to hire professional hunters...that was also when the tales of the „Queen of Snow" started.

She had heard first of it at the docks of one of the little ports at the river Donya. The tales had been spread by merchants who always claimed that they had heard the stories from one who actually had seen the woman.

It always the same: the merchants had been stuck in the woods with wild beasts sorounding them, the guards had fled long ago and a heavy snow storm was coming over them. The wolves attacked in the night and the stories always ended with a woman standing in the snow and rescuing the desperate merchants. In a few stories she was a beautiful young woman, wielding the power of ice and snow and turning the wolves into glittering sculptures, in others she either was a hideous mix between beast and human, Strigoya a human wolf controlling the packs, or an old hag which was actually the forest itself.

Shizuru Viola came from a country where everyone believed in such tales. She for her part had seen enough to not believe in creepy bedtime stories anymore, but she was superstitious enough to see a part of truth in them. Someone had rescued these merchants after all.

Curiosity had been nagging at her. That had been part of the reason she had let herself being hired as an armed escort for a route into the forest. Maybe she could see with her own eyes if this new legend was indeed true.

At least she knew that there probably about her too were stories circulating around through the various merchant and bank houses. People used to turn around when she walked and sometimes she couldn't ignore the whispers that seemed to follow her everywhere.

Purple and blue were both very expensive and also royal colors. So far she had been the only one around, beside a few nobles with a blue or purple sashes but nothing more, who was wandering around dressed in a deep purple coat.

Her origins were clearly visible. The garments worn in Daranje were almost similar to those in Kurga but different enough that a inhabitant of both countries could tell the difference immediately.

Her coat, a kaftan it was called at home, was dyed purple and had trimmings at the borders of golden rabbits fur. Underneath she wore a shirt which ended at her knees, in other countries people would have called this one a tunic but at home they called it a rhubak. It was heavily embroidered with red around the hem, collar and sleeves and a maroon belt with a shiny, complex knotted buckle held it together at her hips. The pants were lighter and made of deer. Gamashes made from some long white fur covered her thighs and if that whole get-up didn't brand her a foreigner so would the weapon she was always carrying with her.

It was fashioned like a lance with a shaft of about 6 feet and a blade attached to the side. A bardiche wasn't used anymore in Kurgan. So far only the palace guard had issued them, though they long had exchanged it for weapons more suitable in close quarter.

This didn't mean that the young woman didn't know how to use this particular polearm. In fact she was quite adapt with it and n their journey through the forest did she have many a opportunity to show her skills, even in close quarters.

So it had been 3 days since she had left the merchants behind to travel alone and in peace, with at least 12 guards they would be fine without her. The feeling of people who were afraid of her was sitting heavily in her mind and she almost could have tasted the relief in the air when she had told the leader of her desire to leave. She had welcomed the silence and the snow. It felt like being at home again. Though it also brought back unpleasant memories.

Due to the severeness of your task we have no other choice, Shizuru. You have to go... The words still stung at the back of her throat despite it having happened a long time ago. She had been hurt and angry with her family back then...now she could understand that it had been a form of protecting her too. She had become stronger over the years, she wasn't the little girl anymore. One day she would return and set things right again.

Her home country was just a a few hundred miles behind the borders of the kingdom and the brunette could feel a wave of nostalgia washing over her. It had been so long since she had been there. Though there was no option of returning...at least not for her. Guilt began to gnaw at her bones again and with an agitated frown she plowed even further ahead in the snow.

The snow had been falling heavily for days now. It piled so high on the trampled earth that the wagons barely got through. The close proximity of her home and the constant bickering and frightened whispering of the merchant soon had grated on her nerves. Also that the more bolder and older ones tried to make advances didn't raise her esteem for them. She left the group in the second small village they had reached three days ago.

Ever since she had enjoyed the silence of the winter. It soothed her already frayed nerves. News from home had been bad and she cursed her fate for the bad things that had happened back then. Maybe this was the reason why she always hovered around in the north. Her mother had been right. She couldn't leave her home simply behind. Blood is thicker than water after all...

Determination fueled her movements and she plowed further through the snow and into the darkness.

There were eyes watching every move of the intruder on their turf. This human female though was not like the others they had encountered before. First she didn't smell of fear, in fact she smelled dangerous.

It made his skin crawl and his lips tightened into a snarl. A growl behind him.

They would watch her more, follow her every move and then, when she wasn't expecting it they would strike out from the shadows of the forest. Though they would have to be mindful of the long stick she was carrying. He still could remember the sting on his hide from one of them not so long ago. He had twisted and throttled it till it had broken much like the human who had tried to hurt him.

He would do that again soon.

The others behind him sniffed the air repeatedly. Yes, he could smell the blood on her too, saw the rabbit skins hanging from her poach which was belted around her side and it made his mouth water.

He gave a silent signal to his companions. Soon, very soon indeed.

The dark was closing in now and to her dismay Shizuru found out that she had lost the road. Snowfall was getting heavier by the minute and the brunette was glad when she arrived at a very thick patch of firs. The trees were heavily laden with snow, however under them at their trunks a bed of dry needles had been prepared.

Shizuru rejoiced. She had been tired from a day of wandering and it would be unlikely the she would encounter a hut or a small village here. The trees were offering necessary fortification against the snow and soon the young woman had a small fire burning.

She needed the rest. Though she couldn't allow herself the luxury of sleep. Not when she was alone in the woods.

So it would be another night with open eyes. The wolves and other great beasts were only waiting for an opportunity...she had to take care and guard herself.

Within minutes she had dug a circle around her sleeping gear and the fireplace, placed dry sticks of wood into it and a firecircle was surrounding her place guarding her from anything that feared the fire made by humans.

After a meal of dried meat and bread, she didn't want to attract more attention with the smell of roasting beef, especially in the night. Shizuru spend the rest of the night cleaning her gear and weapons and drying her purple coat at the fire.

Without her noticing she fell asleep while cleaning her shoes.

The female certainly was a clever one, he had to give her that. They had followed her all day, twice they had been forced to go in circles around her to avoid detection. Definitely some sharp eyes and ears on that someone.

Some of the younger generations wanted to attack as long as she was unaware, but he held them back.

He feared the fire with a passion. Bad memories resurfaced whenever he smelled coal and burnt wood and he licked the fur on his left side which was almost hairless and had the pink hue of an angry burn not so long ago.

They waited.

The human seemed to get sleepy and as soon as she wasn't moving about and slumping over he gave the signal to attack.

One of the eager whelps, ready to prove his mettle on the hunt and in battle, attempted a jump over the wall of fire but something repelled him in midair and he flew back to earth with a yelp.

A new smell assaulted the chiefs nostrils. His yellow eyes widened in panic. SHE was here...

He gave the sign for retreat. His comrades followed eagerly tails between their legs.

Shizuru woke up in the cold. The fire circle had burnt down in the night and the glow of the climbing sun was creeping over the trees.

Someone was watching her. The person sat right next to the still glimmering fire not a 6 feet away. In an blink of an eye it was gone.

Must have been a trick of light...and the lack of sufficient sleep.

Shizuru could feel the tightening of the muscles around her eyes which usually indicated that she was in for a headache.

She went to pack her things and extinguish the fire and stopped dead in her tracks.

There right next to her weapons and the fireplace were the deep imprints of two booted feet. There also lay the remains of a half eaten roasted rabbit. Someone had been here!

When she finally began to walk again she noticed the numerous tracks of wolves around her sleeping place. The human tracks simply vanished among them as if they never had existed.

Shizuru shoot a nervous and disturbed glance towards the treeline and advanced further.

It was strange indeed.