My first story- so please be kind and leave me some comments! If I get some, then I will post up the second chapter- it gets a lot more interesting than this, so bear with me! I will reply to any comments I get at the top of my next chapter.

Chapter 1 – Child of the Snow

A tiny girl no older than seven sat in the snow of a Russian street corner, the same one she'd been abandoned in as a baby. She had no recollection of this, or how she'd managed to survive these bitter homeless years all by herself. Stealing was her only way of survival, but she didn't like it. She had seen children her age alongside adults and sometimes wondered why she didn't have parents- she couldn't remember anything significant about her past. The one thing she did know was her name- Albina Petrova. She had found it one day, sown inside her clothing and immediately known it was her name- For in a book she'd found, large and heavy with words and knowledge she'd learnt that 'Albino' meant white-skinned, and no-one she had ever seen had skin as white as her. Her tangled hair was also white, and glimmered in the sun with an ethereal radiance which gave her the impression of luminance. Her frosty eyes, glazed with the unnoticed tears of years gone past were not much darker than her skin, and emanated a dry, crisp coldness. However, she hadn't spent her life sitting around with self pity- instead she had spent her time listening to strangers conversations and examining dropped and lost items and often taking them apart to see how they worked. The most interesting item she'd ever found had been a small top, that span on it's own a while after she'd twisted and dropped it with a small, thin hand- she'd kept it ever since. One day, she found a small contraption that she discovered able to twist and drop the spinning top for her and she played with it relentlessly, striving to make it go faster and more accurate.

Even at her young age, her mind had an extraordinary hunger for knowledge, which made her curious and sharp. There was a large, tall building that towered over her part of the city, which she'd always been fascinated by. Though she couldn't get in, she'd adventured all around it and closely watched everyone that went in- this didn't happen very often. One fateful day, her eye was captured by a flash of startling blood-red amongst the falling white snow and she crept closer to discover it was in fact a boy's hair, only around two years older than her. He was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen- transfixed, she crunched through the glitter to get a closer look. Suddenly, a booming voice filled her ears and startled, she looked up into a blank, black hood. Toughened after several rough years, she glared back, into the middle of the blackness, until a hand slapped her hard across the face.

"That'll teach you to respect your elders, brat! Now get out of here!"

Instead of running away, she glanced sideward at the small crowd of young boys next to the hooded figure- these aren't the boys she'd seen with happy families. The redhead looked at her with his icy eyes, similar to hers, with a strange look of pity and wary respect. As soon as the hooded figure turned and began to walk through the heavy iron gates, the boy hurried over to her and asked who she was.

"Albina." She answered simply, confused. Nobody had ever asked her a question about herself before, neither had she wanted to give them an answer. She thought for a second, and then searched her mind for the right words to use for her question to him.

"What is that building?" She asked.

"The Abbey- I'm going to live there." He whispered, deftly covering her mouth with her ragged scarf, hoping she wouldn't say anymore. "Only boys are allowed in."

And in a sweep of snow he was gone, the gate closed with a crash. Albina's mind scurried with questions and ideas- people lived in that building? It didn't look like a house. Only boys allowed... All of those children were boys. A few had been her age, and some even younger. Had they no families like her? She knew she wanted to see that boy again- his cold eyes, so like hers, she felt could be capable of freezing her heart or melting it. His blazing hair, so unlike hers, so... beautiful. And he had spoken to her... she wondered why he would do that, when no other person would. She could live in the Abbey with him- she would live in a house with a family, at last!

...Only boys allowed in...

What did they have which she didn't? They had shorter hair and beautiful faces, and she'd never seen one in a skirt. Could she pretend to be a boy and sneak in, as part of a crowd?

Plans formulating in her head, she returned back to her street corner and blanket and dreamt of the red haired boy.

Hard, cold iron against colder soft skin, Albina's misty orbs gazed up at the towering building through gaps in the gate. Everyday she hoped that she would catch a flash of fire amongst the ice, her angel returning to see her again, but nobody came out. It was almost as if the building was deserted, but she knew she'd seen those boys go inside, though there were no windows she could see through. Rummaging through garbage cans just down the alley near her corner, one day she'd found a knife that she decided would do to cut her hair. Next clear, frosty morning she grasped her long hair and held it down to the pavement, before lifting the knife and bringing it down. When it didn't cut cleanly, she continued to hack at it, her anger building as the fine wisps were gently swept away in the wind. She ran her delicate fingers through it, thinking was surely still too long, and began to cut it closer-

Suddenly, fire.

Pain spread from her ear to her cheek as the hot liquid welled and ran down the side of her face in red rivers, and her stained hand dropped the knife, which settled into the snow with a crunch. Keeping amazingly calm, she gathered a thick lump of snow in her hands and crushed it into the side of her face, stemming the flow and numbing the pain. She let her body slump until she was lying on the comforting snow, absorbing the cold, feeling it's calm. A slightly shaking hand reached to feel her hair- yes, that would probably be short enough after all.

After a while, she pulled herself up weakly and felt where the pain had been. Her fragile fingers felt along the ugly ridge, and she looked into the puddle of melted ice... Somebody else gazed up at her. His hair was messily cut, sticking out at all sides, and a long, raw scar ran from his bottom left eyelid to his left ear- unplanned, but could work to her advantage.