Disclaimer: I do not own RotG characters; they originally belong to the amazing children books writer that is William Joyce.
At first, she thought him to be a trick of the light.
Just another glimmering shadow in the midst of the multicolored sparkling frost.
And yet, she could have sworn to have just made out the shape of a thin, clothed arm.
Aideen frowned and looked around. The woods were alive with soft natural sounds, but completely devoid of any human presence.
She focused again on the frozen pond, and, after a couple of minutes the sparkle condensed into forming what was, without an ounce of doubt, a hand, casually moving mid-air.
She gulped noiselessly, seized between fear and entrancement, and sat very still.
Then, she saw him.
He was a boy, trapped in that awkward stage that is no more child yet not still adult.
Thin to the point of being gaunt, clothed only by a hoodie and a pair of tattered pants he glided effortlessly on the ice, seemingly chasing the light sparkle rising from the pond surface.
With extreme gracefulness he fluently lifted one skinny leg from the ground, twirling around in a perfectly symmetrical circle like a practiced dancer.
Returning both feet on the ice and skating backwards towards the edge of the pond, he opened both arms wide like a butterfly and then proceeded to elegantly fall back, collapsing bum first into the deep, soft snow bank.
And he didn't move anymore.
Aideen shook herself from her stupor, forcing her brain into activity.
Leaving her sketching material unattended on the rock, she hurled herself towards the fallen boy, trying her utmost to be fast despite the two-foot tall snow wall covering the pond's edge.
When she finally made her way to the boy, he still lay unmoving and silent in the cold layer of white.
She swallowed hard and hovered over him, taking inventory.
He was motionless, arms still spread out in an uncaring and free gesture.
His eyes were closed, and a tuft of heavily bleached hair fell haphazardly on the bridge of his straight greek nose.
His dark eyebrows were relaxed, giving him a serene appearance.
A small, satisfied smile played on his thin and very white lips.
It was that unnatural whiteness that prompted Aideen to speak.
"Hey" she inquired softly "are you…alive?".
A shiver seemed to make its way through the boy's body.
Suddenly a pair of impossibly blue orbs were staring at her.
"That depends on your definition of alive, of course!".