Love
There was someone she loved once. A darkhaired boy, not much older than her, that made her heart beat with silly notions of forbidden love.
Her father had never wanted her to interact with him, but than he disappears, and Maege grows up.
The boy, a man now, is everything she wanted him to be. He is kind, loyal, charming, and he loves her above everything else she is sure. They are soon to be married.
She wonders if his charm made her blind to his cheating habits from the very start.
When she has just changed she goes back to him. It is night, a full moon, and the first snowflakes have just started to fall.
What she finds makes her see red from rage.
Her love, her soon to be husband, is lying in bed with someone else, her neighbour nonetheless. They both scream at her, this strange whitehaired woman, and than he stills.
'Maege? What happened to you?'
She looks up, and her eyes seem to burn, and before she knows it, her love is gasping for air, his skin seeming to turn to ice. The frost seems to cover his skin, and the more rage that Maege feels, the paler he gets.
'Maege.' he begs, voice grating from the strain. Her female neighbour is screaming at her to stop, until her skin also starts to freeze.
As her love's eyes seem to frost over, Maege seems to awaken. She gasps and lets him go, her former lover coughing his lungs up.
'I loved you.' she whispers. 'My love for you is the only thing keeping you alive. If you ever come near me again, I will kill you.' she says, looking one last time at the man she had hoped to spend her life with.
She never sees him again after that. She does hear he eventually married her neighbour and they were happy together, and she tells her torn heart it is enough.
She has been sullen for months, her mood not improving as she seems to have difficulty moving on. She barely speaks, and turns away from her father.
Her father, who still maintains some of his humanity, decides enough is enough. Maege, now in a long white dress, boots lined with white fur and a white furcoat, wakes up to the sound of something cracking.
It seems a blizzard is forming, but something tells her to go to the center of it. Instinct or gutfeeling, she does not know.
Her mouth falls open at what she sees. In the middle of the blizzard her father stands. A chunk of ice seems to be floating in front of him, cracking and being shaped into something she does not immediately recognize.
The blizzard eventually stops and her father turns to her. His hair is gone, and in place something akin to spikes have grown on his head. His skin is greyish, free of all human colour.
She gasps in wonder at what lies in his hands. It is a crown. A crown of ice. 'For you.' Her father says, putting it in her hands. Maege is enthralled by it, the way it feels cold in her hands and the way it catches light, as if all possible colours are trapped in it.
Her father motions for her to bow and puts it on her head. She goes to a nearby lake and looks for hours at her new gift. It is the first time she has somewhat peace with what she has become.
The crown is a lot like her she decides. Beautiful, breathtaking, but also incredibly dangerous.
