Before her daughter was even born, the first yuki-onna knew her child would also be a yuki-onna when she grew to womanhood, and when the time came, just as she had taught her how to sew hides together into garments, and how to bank a fire so the coals would last until the morning, she taught the girl how to feed, for without feeding she could not use her powers, and then how to race over the earth in the form of wind and call or cease snowstorms.

By that time, though, the yuki-onna had several children, both boys and girls, and all of them were as healthy, tall, and pale as their mother. Only the girls, though, could become yuki-onna. As time went on and she had grandchildren, her daughters' daughters were also yuki-onna, and sometimes the sons' daughters, too. After that it became hard to keep track of them. Also, her children and their children were mortal—they lived much longer than most humans, but eventually they died. Only she went on, although she moved back into the mountains or sought out other human settlements after she had lived in one place too long.

She lived a very long time, but at last there came a time when the world had changed so much it no longer made sense to her. She had loved, lived with and lost many consorts, borne many children, and the years piled up upon her like the snow upon the village roofs, until it seemed she might give way under the weight of all of them. She wanted to stop remembering, to be free of time and her body as she was long, long ago. Yet she could not, did not die.

So she went to the kitsune, and spoke to their kami. Inari told her this: you were the first of your kind, so you are the kami-yuki, the spirit of snow, and spirits do not die. There will always be a spirit of snow in the world, but it need not be you. Choose one of your daughters or granddaughters, take her up into the mountains, and—.

Yukie woke. She had seen all of that in a dream as if she were watching from the sky, and when she woke, she was in the sky. Flying? No. Not flying. She was the wind and the snow it drove before it. Her first reaction was not disbelief but panic. Am I dead? How do I undo this? I never wanted this!

In that initial fright, she roiled around in the storm, tearing over the rocks and whipping through the trees. No! NO! I WILL FIGHT THIS!

Then she saw a vivid patch of red tucked in between the rocks, and she swooped down to discover it was her ski pants and the rest of her clothing. Coalescing back into a human form was instinctive, and she found herself standing on the mountainside entirely naked but otherwise herself—other than that she too now looked as though she had been sculpted out of snow. Yet there was something changed in her, something missing, and she couldn't tell exactly what.

Picking up her ski pants, she shook the snow off them, then froze as she examined the stain, the darker red against the scarlet of the fabric. It was blood. Holding them up against herself, she frowned at where the stain would have been-and there were stains on the camisole, too. Yet her flesh was whole and unbroken, like unglazed porcelain.

Was there really any need to put the clothes back on? Traveling up to the peak as a gust of wind would be much easier than climbing up, inch by grudging, painful inch. There was only one thing she did not want to lose—the engagement ring Slade had given her. Well, if she zipped it into the belt pouch of the pants, and put them somewhere that they would not get lost or buried…

She could not find the ring. It was not in either of the hand wraps, or any of her other clothes, or anywhere around the spot where she had spent the night—nowhere she could find it, at least.

Another sadness, one last thing lost to her.

'We are not like other people. What we are, I do not know, but I was told, years ago, that if I wanted to know what I was and why, I should give up every earthly tie and ascend Mount Hakkoda before the plum trees blossom in the spring.' Those were her grandmother's words.

And I have done all of that, although I no longer desired it. I did not choose this, but the choice was taken from me. I wanted, I still want, to live with Slade and Rose in the house on the lake. I found everything I wanted in this world and it was taken from me, ripped away as soon as I held it in my hands.

None of that matters anymore. None of it is possible anymore.

'Find me at the top of that peak, and you will know,' the yuki-onna said.

Yes. I will find her.

And I will tear out her heart as she has torn out mine.

She had realized what was wrong, and the loss of her engagement ring was nothing compared to it. She could not feel her heart beat, not even when she pressed her hand against her chest. The yuki-onna had literally torn out her heart while she slept. Perhaps she did not need it to live, changed as she was, but a heart was more than simply a muscle for pumping blood. It had a greater significance than that.

The kami of kitsune, Inari, had told the original yuki-onna, 'Take her up into the mountains, and there you must tear out both your heart and hers. Place your immortal heart in her breast, and take her mortal heart into your own. Then you will be able to die and she will become the kami-yuki. There must always be a kami-yuki, or else there will be no snow anywhere upon the Earth.'

The yuki-onna had torn out Yukie's heart, but not given her the immortal heart in return.

Becoming part of the blizzard again was equally instinctive, and Yukie tore up into the sky like swords into flesh and bone.

Where? Where is she?

How could she find someone else in the storm when they were both part of its winds and its fury? The answer was: stop the storm. Calm the winds, banish the snow, let the clouds disperse—and then find whatever meteorological anomaly was left.


For Victor Fries, forty below was shirtsleeve weather. Literally. For once, the scientist was the only person not in heavy environmental gear. He wore a sort of singlet over the top half of his body, and dark pants and boots on the lower half of him, plus goggles to keep wind and snow out of his eyes, but that was all, and he looked as though he was quite comfortable when the door of his aircraft opened out onto the hospital parking lot.

"Please, come in," he invited the six Titans. "I'm sorry the cabin isn't heated. I can either fly in this weather or warm the compartment. There isn't enough power for both."

"It's okay," Rose assured him. "I'm just so glad you came and you're helping." She glanced into the cabin, seeing two other people: her father, and somebody who might be Nora Fries inside a lot of protective gear. "Hello," the girl greeted them.

Nora replied with a hello of her own and a wave; her father only nodded.

Slade Wilson's mood could not be told by his face, which was masked, but by his body language, and it wasn't good at all. He looked like a high tension cable on a suspension bridge, one that could be about to snap and bisect anyone who was in the way of the whiplash. This wasn't good—if Yukie wasn't all right, if she was…if she was dead—what then? Her father didn't deal well with grief and loss. He didn't really deal with them at all, he just went out and found somebody to hurt, or, or, or… to kill.

The Kuwanos were the first, most obvious target on his list, and then Ra's, most likely—and given how many people who were in the League of Assassins, chances were that her father would probably get killed, at least temporarily. Once he resurrected, he'd have…episodes. She knew the way it went, and it was not good. Not. At. All. Her heart hurt at the thought of losing him like that.

"Dad," she reached out and touched his sleeve as the other Titans found places to sit or stand, "you know you have me…right?"

For a moment, that grimness lifted, and he turned his head toward her. "I know, Rose."

"I mean, I'd even come during the summer. Forget about what I said, before," she offered.

He'd extracted the promise that she would come and train with him that summer if he let her stay in Japan with them, and she added the condition that she would only if Yukie were there. Now she would do it anyway, to help keep him from…parachuting into war zones and taking on entire armies, just as an example of things he might do. And to have somebody to remember Yukie with, too.

"It'll be all right," he told her. "The GPS is sending a good, strong signal. She's as good as found."

But the words rang hollow. She heard that, too.


Yukie scoured the top of the peak, looping back and forth upon her winds, raising great plumes of loose snow as she went. Where? Where was the other yuki-onna?

She found a cave. The cave, from the genetic memories of that first yuki-onna. She streamed down into it, changed back into human form, the better to see what it was like. Disembodiment did not lend itself to seeing well at close range, she was learning.

If I cannot have my own heart back, I will take the immortal heart from her. I want to live. I will live.

Looking around, she could see that it was inhabited, after a fashion, by someone who used her human form at least part of the time. There was a fire pit with a wood pile not far away, there a neat pile of patched cotton kimonos, worn, faded and threadbare to the point of near transparency. That pile of branches under the bearskins had to be a bed, and there were pottery jars with uncooked rice and other dried foodstuffs near the fire. So at least sometimes she ate cooked food and—yes, that was aged sake in that jar—drank as well.

But there was also evidence of the other way she ate, as there was a pit in the back full of skins and bones. Some of the skins looked…yes, there were human remains among them. She staggered back.

I should not be so shocked. I have killed people. Slade kills people for money. Should that not be more horrible than this? She wanted to laugh and cry both. I have become a vampire, but a much more efficient one than a blood-drinker. They waste so much of their food.

Then her eyes fell upon the shrine. It was somewhat like the household shrine one might find in any Japanese household, with soul tablets to memorialize each member of the family who had passed away within living memory. The tablets remained as long as someone who knew them when they were alive, yet lived. When the last person who remembered them passed away, the tablet was removed, and the tablet for the newly deceased took its place.

There were hundreds, literally hundreds of them. Too many to count without losing track. Most were so aged they were unreadable. These are all members of her family. Sons, daughters, husbands… how long has she lived?

How long will I live? Is this my future?

Another thing Yukie noticed—there was nothing of the twenty-first century in that cave, nor even of the twentieth. Nothing modern, no plastic, no glass, very little metal, and what there was, looked ancient.

She could not bear to look at it any longer. Shifting back to her wind-form, she whipped out of the cave and back up into the sky.


Tim was looking out the window at the storm when it suddenly ceased. It didn't just cease, it absolutely vanished, leaving a clear blue sky. All around him, the others exclaimed at the change.

"This is unnatural," Mr. Freeze said from his place at the controls. "Is one of you responsible?" He cast a glance back at them.

"Uh—no," Tim replied, looking at Raven, who was hanging on to the aircraft seat with both hands, her nails digging into the fabric. She was not paying attention to what was going on around her, but to some inner sense.

"It's not just happening now," she said. "It just went critical." Tim grimaced, which was lost due to the fact that his entire face was covered by a balaclava.

"What did?" Rose asked. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, nothing," Beast Boy said, trying to distract her. "Hey, did you know there actually are green polar bears? It's due to global warming. They get algae in their fur, see, and—."

"I think it is wrong not to tell her," Starfire cut in. "To tell them, that is."

"Tell us what?" Slade's voice cut in, and he leaned in, looming over the Titans. Gar audibly gulped.

"Friend Raven has sensed that there is to be a new Snow Elemental," Starfire said, guilelessly, "If we had known before that your betrothed's name meant Lady Snow, we would have warned you this was coming."

"What?" Slade fumed, clearly on the verge of an explosion, but Rose interrupted.

"A Snow Elemental? You mean, like the anthropomorphic personification of snow?" She didn't sound angry; rather she sounded like the light was dawning on something in her head. "And it's going to be Yukie? That's what's going on?"

"Uh—well, yeah." Raven said.

"Then it's going to be okay! It all makes sense! I've been reading up on yokai for weeks," Rose reached out and put a hand on her father's arm. "What did Yukie call herself the night you met? Yuki-Onna. A Yuki-Onna is tall and beautiful, with skin like snow, just like Yukie. She lives in the mountains and loves the winter, just like Yukie. She can be fierce and terrible, but with her family, she's loving and gentle, just like Yukie. Dad, we were looking all over Japan for yokai, but all we had to do was turn around. One was with us all along!"

Slade looked at his daughter intently and then looked to Raven, "Is that it? Yukie is becoming a Snow Elemental, a yuki-onna?" His voice had a new note in it. It sounded like hope.

"It's not that simple," Raven admitted. "The old Snow Elemental isn't going to give up the powers without a fight. She's ancient, her power has accumulated over a thousand years, and she's not sane. There's a war going on down there—and your fiancée—she may not win."