A/N: This is another one-shot ficlet that comes with a moodboard that sadly I can't post here but it's post 650116843569332224 on my tumblr if you want to see it. I wrote it a while back for one of the Barry Allen weeks on tumblr and the prompts 'fairytale' and 'role reversal'.
Say My Name
The spirit of winter and the spirit of summer only officially have to meet twice a year, to start the change of seasons - shifting from the peak in their hemisphere towards that of their opposite's. One would pass by the other, north to south, as the power is exchanged. That is how it used to be. Simple. A step in the right direction and the magic flowed as it was meant to. Humans had more elaborate rituals but the two spirits did as they always had, as they surely always would.
Over the years the spirits had changed as the stories about them changed. Winter became Jack Frost, taking on a playful demeanor as if he had always been so. He was beloved in his own way despite the biting chill he brought and Summer could understand it because she could see how his presence would warm hearts deep inside. They no longer passed each other by to signal a new season, for he would insist each change that they make more of it. A handshake at first. Then a game, a dance, a song sung. Even a rhyming verse - practically a spell - pressed close to her ear like a secret delivered just for her. Once he kissed her unexpectedly to hand the power over, a moment where the clash of fire and ice ended up perfectly balanced between their lips.
Winter had flourished, yet the spirit of summer faded, for she was not spoken of in the same way. Summer was a blessed heat beating down, ripening the crops, providing life and light. But that same unrelenting heat was quickly wished away by people, as tiresome, just as much as she was wished for with the spring beckoning.
There was a duty there, practical, inevitable but her other names - from languages mostly forgotten - were not spoken on the breeze; they did not reach her anymore. She was not seen like she had been. All the fire inside burned her until she felt numb. She thought no one would notice how fiercely brighter she was, consumed at the thought, but no, Winter came early. His cold hand upon hers forcing her to finally feel again and look up into too earnest eyes.
"Tell me your name, any name you want to be called by, and I'll speak it."
She says nothing. She doesn't know what Summer should say to Winter when he should not be there, when the usual rituals did not apply, though he'd long since abandoned those, she supposed.
"I promise you, you'll never be forgotten. I believe in you. Call for me any day, any season, and I will come running."
He presses his mouth close to her ear, like he had done before, and the intimacy of it dawns on her. This time it wasn't a surrender of his power, not in the same manner she'd grown accustomed to. He speaks one word alone.
"That's my name. The name I choose. Only for you, so when I hear it I know who is summoning me and I'll always come."
He's staring at her and all she hears is the silence of the breeze beside them. She still doesn't know what to say in return.
He goes to leave, his staff raised and one hand reaching out to crystalize a bridge of ice as she's seen him do on many occasions. That will surely take him away and she knows then what she wants to say.
"Barry?" she calls out uncertainly, almost afraid of invoking the power of his name despite it being freely confessed.
He turns and smiles that brilliant smile of his. It could just be the perpetual twinkle of the frost he has about him, but she swears his eyes as he stares back at her are alight with hope. Suddenly, she finds it in her to be braver and not shy away from what he's given to her. To speak his name without hesitation now.
"Barry, will you stay with me?"