Hi ya'll, and welcome to my latest fanfic. This one is actually completed, and I'll be posting chapters as soon as I work out how they flow--and hopefully before I have my computer shut down for moving. Stupid lack of floor space. [sigh] But now, for your enjoyment, the first chapter of 'Winter's Rose'.

Chapter one.

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"I am Darkness, I am Death, I steal your heat, I steal your breath. Toy with me, lose the way, forever lost you stay."

This is the first entry of my first journal, dated June nineteenth, year two-thousand four. My name is Aislin Moors, and I am a woman you should not toy with. To begin, I am approximately five feet in height. I am also part demon, and well over three hundred years old. I am the element of ice, with a healthy dose of mortal--I suppose the common term is human now--and a wide spectrum of traces from many other demons/spirits. It has made the discovery of my abilities and powers a path filled with pit-traps and snares, but it is well worth it. Some of the faces my enemies have made as they died have been rather amusing, actually.

I have chosen to make this journal into a record of memories of both past and present.

This is the most information I will ever willingly give, and that is if I am pressed. If I am not, you are lucky to get my name. If you are an enemy, you find out one other thing: why my other name is Whiteout.

You may laugh, thinking that it means the human invention of liquid paper, the 'white-out' that allows you to correct mistakes. No. I was named thus long before paper became common in the human world. I am the blizzard that wipes out your sight, and leaves your frozen and dead inches away from your door. The sentence I open this journal with is something like my motto, though rarely uttered, it describes me almost perfectly. Because I am human, I still have a warm core of emotion, though I have locked it in ice for many, many a year. And yet--

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The petite white-haired woman looks up from the thick pad of paper on the ebony desk and gives the door an icy stare. "The door is unlocked. Come in or go away, it is your choice. Just make it quickly." The door opens, seemingly by itself until she looks down. One snowy, thin eyebrow lifts ever so slightly upwards. "Koenma-san. I am surprised you did not choose to come in your more-mature form. Actually, I'm surprised you came at all."

"Yes, well," grumbles the child-like ruler in mild irritation. "There was a reason I came to see you." The woman sighs, picking up the stack of parchment she'd been writing in and tapping it against the desk to neaten it before laying it flat, leaning back in her over-stuffed chair and tucking her hands inside the arm-slits of her house-cloak. On the far corner of her desk lies a folded piece of honey-brown leather--the journal's soon-to-be cover.

"Koenma-san, what reason would be so great that you would come visit my lair without an incredible amount of prodding? Is it time to vet another Detective? After all, you sent the last three after me to capture or kill, and all but one returned with virtually nothing to show for their efforts but hypothermia and exposure. Poor choice of employees, Koenma-san," she adds in a mockingly-mournful tone, shaking her head slowly.

Koenma flushes at the barbed scorn buried in the insult and retorts heatedly, "If I wanted your opinion on my choice of Detectives I would have asked for it, Aislin!"

The eyebrow, which had gone back down, rises in the tiniest sign of exasperation. "Then why are you here?"

He deflates, and looks rather embarrassed. "What do you think of my latest Detective?"

"That's what I thought," Aislin says quietly, without inflection, stretching one hand and tapping on the nearest corner of her desk. "Filing system, please bring up the file on Spirit Detective Yusuke Urameshi." There is a soft click and a whir, a thoughtful hum, and an electric blue folder suddenly appears by her waiting hand. "Thank you."

Koenma stares at the folder in her hands while she opens it and flips through the pages with an air of unruffled concentration. The stack it holds is several inches thick, all of it the same electric blue as the folder. Aislin catches him staring and acknowledges the silent question. "I prefer going by several coordinating filing systems. The folder and its contents are color-coded to match the color of his energy. I've been keeping a close eye on this one."

A few more moments pass in silence broken only by the sounds of pages turning and the small cottage settling on its foundation. Finally the ice-apparition pulls out a page and sets the folder in her lap, eyes scanning over her choice. "Yusuke Urameshi, human, age approximately fifteen years old. Mother, Atsuko Urameshi, father, unknown. Poor attendance in school, attitude is cocky, brash, and stubborn. Does not excel at planning ahead or thinking things through, yet has extraordinary luck in pulling his ass out of the fire. Has been dead once already--" one pale eyebrow lifts slightly and she looks over at Koenma, "--which seems to be one of your requirements for application, yes?"

"Keep going," Koenma sighs.

"Indulges in bad habits such as smoking, drinking, gambling, and excessive fighting." A small sigh escapes her as she sits back and gives Koenma a studied look. "Poor choice, Koenma." The ruler deflates even further, then is stunned with her next words and the tiny smile that pulls at her lips. "I think he'll do just fine, so long as you don't send him against the Sleeping Ones." Her eyes move back to the paper in her hand, flick back to Koenma. "He shows outstanding loyalty to those few people he cares about and has a remarkably quick mind when it comes to battle tactics. He also has an enormous amount of potential without the warning signs of obsessive behavior and he has a healthy honor code. You've caught the best of the litter, Koenma." A slight incline of her head. "Congratulations."

Koenma looks up at her hopefully. "So then--?"

A sigh escapes her pale pink lips, sounding suspiciously like amusement. "Oh, very well. You have my permission to try him against me. But only once, and if I defeat him--which is entirely likely--you will not continue to use me as a measuring stick of future Spirit Detective abilities. Only a source of opinion. Are we agreed?" Koenma steps forward and offers her his chubby hand. With the greatest of solemnity, she reaches down and clasps it just above the wrist.

"Agreed."

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--some strange, silly people like Koenma and his assistant, Botan (how someone that perky became the Pilot of the River Styx and the Goddess of Death is beyond me) persist in edging their way past my defenses and into the select group that I call friends. Sometimes it is all I can do to not try and turn either of them into a block of ice. Powerful I may be, but the child-king's father, King Enma, would probably take offense and he has many more tricks and some power more than I. I do not choose to have my death at his hands. Most likely he'd choose my native element, and since I have very little body fat and feel 'cold' quite sharply, it would be very uncomfortable. When I do battle, I make sure to dress appropriately.

I suppose a physical description of my coloration would be in order, and then you will know me when you see me and will know to leave me the hell alone. These days I wear my hair cut short, about shoulder length, and leave it its natural color of ice-white with the two streaks of wine red at the part of my hair. My eyes are slanted, the irises a pale turquoise blue. My demonic markings are very simple, as is often the case with the more powerful demons and apparitions, consisting of a single peacock blue teardrop where a Jagan Eye would normally be planted. Easily covered with a bit of human makeup.

I am also a retired thief. The Games most demons play have become boring and pointless, so I have taken myself off to a life more suited to a hermit, and am well content to meditate and train my days away among quiet trees and unobtrusive bird song. Koenma comes to pester me now and then with this new employee or that, but all of them since I have gained the strength I have, have been disappointment. The last one--a Spirit Detective--was somewhat interesting, but entirely too focused upon his task, borderlining on the obsessive even. I warned the boy-king about that, but he either did not listen or did not care. The more fool he.

I suppose I've confused you. It's something I seem to have a gift for, so I shall start at the beginning and make this into a kind of tale. Perhaps that will help, and let me remember more clearly. 'All the world's a stage' and all of that rubbish.

This performance called my life began so long ago I can't even remember how old I really am. I was born to an Ice Maiden named Shimohana, or Frostflower, on the floating island my mother's people call home; immediately branded a bastard child because my mother had conceived me with a man. Such a practice is taboo to the asexual koorime, and even worse: I was a mixed blood and the only child of that union. Because of that, I was also branded a freak, since a koorime who lies with a man is supposed to bear two children: a girl of ice, and a boy of whatever race the father is. I still don't know how my mother pulled it off, but she did, and never once felt any regret for my existence. I know, because Empathy was an ability that rose early.

I grew up hearing stories about another child who was, at least in part, like me and mere months older. His name was Hiei, and his sister still lived on the island. Of course, no one was allowed to tell her about him, so I kept my mouth shut despite my better judgement. Hiei had gotten thrown from the island a day after he was born, with nothing but swaddling clothes and his birthright tear-gem necklace to his name, to live or die as fate saw fit. He was labeled the Forbidden Child, and I wasn't supposed to hear half of what I did.

And so I grew older, and wilder, and more dangerous to the tradition-loving koorime every day. When I was seven, the others of the tribe had had enough of me, and exiled me as well. I wish I knew if my mother was still alive; I'd like to thank her again for trying to stop them, and to show her just how much I've grown. Hn. She taught me another cliché; 'If wishes were fishes we'd walk on the sea'.

I spent another year wandering, teaching others not to mess with the little koorime-bastard child, and learning how to survive in my new environment. That's when I first met Hiei. Oh, I didn't know it then, of course, it was long after we parted that I figured out who he was. We didn't like each other much, when we first met.

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"Come on, little bunny, just hop into the snare…come on…come on…" A tiny wisp of a girl crouches under a bush, waiting for the plump bunny to take the bait and become tonight's dinner. The little furball's pink nose wriggles, sniffing at the carrot she'd placed to lure it, and it hops a little closer. Just as it stretches to nibble the stringy root, branches snap and it bolts away, the girl rising to her feet and snarling every curse she knows as she retrieves the carrot and looks around in defiance. "All right, I know you're there, and thanks bunches for scaring off my dinner, you prick! Come out so I can give you a good dose of frostbite!"

"Hn. Like you could." A boy about her height steps from the bushes, looking at her with arrogant wine-colored eyes and rubbing the hilt of a sword with his thumb.

"You just watch me, porcupine head!" the girl snaps, lifting her hand up in preparation of chucking a conjured snowball directly into his face. Before she can blink the sword is pointed at her throat, the boy watching her with cool anger.

"I am not a porcupine head, snowflake. Take it back."

"Take back the sword or I'm gonna break it."

"Hn," he repeats, "like you could." His eyes widen as she reaches out and grabs the blade, heedless of the edge biting into her palm. The metal fogs over and he drops it with a muffled curse, only to have the girl grab the hilt with her other hand and snap it over her knee with zero effort. When she tosses the pieces back he finds that the metal is pitted and rusted, and still icy cold.

"Ice makes metal weak, stupid. Just like you."

"I am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Not!"

"Are!"

"Not!"

"Are!" The two stand inches apart, both of them with hair puffed up like two fighting cats', glaring at each other with unchildish anger. The standoff is broken when a male voice calls faintly through the trees: "Hiei! Time to go! Boss is callin' ya!"

"Hiei?" the girl asks in surprise, turning back to find the boy gone. But where he stood is the rabbit, lying there with a neatly broken neck.

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I spent decades like that, living hand to mouth and doing jobs that didn't disgust me. I guess I was too mule-headed to let the corruption of the Demon World mar my childish honor. And I was a child, I suppose, believing that somewhere, somewhen, there would be someone waiting for me with open arms and no hidden agenda. But before I met him, I found Hiei again.

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"I can smell you, you know. You stink of campfire and blood." Out of the darkness beneath the trees a thin, short figure materializes dressed in black and white with a headband wrapping his forehead above feral, mulberry eyes. The white-haired apparition looks up at him, her barely-starved body clad only in a sleeveless short kimono, a blade of ice already sitting in her hands.

"I took a bath this morning," is the affronted reply, and the corner of her mouth twitches upwards.

"Then you need to use a different soap, kajihenge." She rubs a long scar running along the palm of her hand in deep thought. "You're that boy I met, aren't you? The one who caught my rabbit for me."

"Hn." He looks away, seemingly indifferent. "You'd never have caught it with that stupid snare. And I know what it's like to go hungry." He focuses a measuring gaze on her, frowning as the snowflakes fall past them. "Aren't you cold? It's gotta be somewhere around twenty degrees out here."

"Nope! I'm a third koorime. This is a little warm for me, tell you the truth. If I wasn't a whole bunch of everything else, I'd probably be roasting right now." Deciding to let the smile fighting to be free spread across her face, she reaches into her campfire and pulls out a slightly-charred shish-kebob and offers it to him. "So, you're Hiei the Forbidden Child, huh? I always wondered if I'd get to meet you--you're all the elders talked about when they wanted us little girls to behave."

Reluctantly he takes the meat and settles beside her fire on a piece of log, looking at her in mild surprise. "And did you?"

She snorts as she drops another log onto the flames. "Are you kidding me? I went right on terrorizing the other girls anyway. Getting thrown off the island didn't scare me, but turning into a weak, weepy little bubble-head like they wanted me to be did. I like who I am, I don't want to be something or someone I'm not."

"That's a dangerous attitude in this world."

"Screw the world. They don't like me, fine, they can just stay outta my way." And she pulls another kebob from the flames and bites into a piece of singed root. Hiei stares at her in disbelief for a breath or two, then throws his head back and starts laughing in honest mirth.

"I've never met someone like you," he comments, taking a bite out of his cooling food and looking her over more thoroughly. "You're interesting. I don't have an urge to kill you, anyway."

"Hn. As if you could." The two stare at each other over the flames, then the corners of Aislin's mouth twitch and they both start chuckling, then laughing outright. When the laughter dies away, Aislin stands and starts stamping out the flames and burying it under snow. "I'm going thieving tonight. Want to join me?" she asks, holding out her hand. Looking from it to her, a slow smile spreads across Hiei's face as though he'd forgotten how to smile, and he reaches for it, clasping it firmly and getting pulled to his feet.

"Love to."

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That was when our career as Aisu and Kasai began, the elemental thieves famous for stealing whatever they felt like, only to sell it or give away when bored of their prizes. That was the most fun I'd ever had; for once I didn't have to be afraid of someone punishing me for something I did, because no one could catch me. More importantly, I had a friend with an honor code like mine, and a sense of loyalty all too rare in any of the three worlds. I didn't have to worry about him sneaking around in the middle of the night to stab me in the back while I slept. No, I only had to worry about him sneaking around in the middle of the night on a heist he forgot to tell me about.

But, like everything, people--demons, apparitions and humans alike--change with the passing of the centuries. And so did we. We were still friends, still called each other 'mirror' because of our similarities, but we stopped spending so much time together. I guess it's our mixed blood; crossbreeds either yearn for large groups or for solitude, and Hiei and I were of the second camp.

We started drifting slowly at first, a heist there, a killing there, not telling each other what we'd been doing. Then when we found out, we started splitting up on purpose, making plans and contacts that didn't involve the other in any way. We'd never wanted each other for lovers, and now, it seemed, we didn't much want each other as friends either. Allies, it seemed, would be the best and only thing we could have. But in a world that was filled with beings that would kill you as soon as look at you, I was willing to settle for having Hiei as my ally.

One of the last times I saw him before the mess with Urameshi was approximately four hundred years ago, when we finally went our separate ways. I kept tabs on him, and I'm sure he did the same for me, but we didn't try to contact each other that much. And while nearly a century and a half later, wandering, I met him.

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"What's a pretty little thing like you doing in a place like this?" A smooth voice asks from above, and the petite ice-apparition busy picking a complicated lock merely glances upwards to find a silver-haired fox apparition sitting on a branch, watching her with avid amber eyes.

"I'm working," she replies brusquely. "Go away."

He shakes his head in mock disappointment. "Sorry, pretty lady, but I can't do that. See, I'm after something here, too, and if you're after the same thing I'm just gonna have to kill you for it."

That does it. Carefully setting her tools down, she unbends from her crouch and glares upwards at her antagonist with icy blue-green eyes. "Hn. As if you could. And I dare you to try."

"Might I inquire as to your name first?"

"Fine." That impish grin he wears gets a little bigger.

"All right, then. What's your name, my little ice sculpture?"

"You can call me Aisuhana. You don't get my name, and I'm not your anything. Now let me work or neither of us gets anything." He gestures politely for her to continue, and she bends back down and resumes picking the lock. He waits in polite silence while she works, but the second the lock clicks open, he speaks up again.

"Well, Aisuhana, what exactly are you after in this place tonight?" He must be a thief, she thinks to herself sourly, since he knows I'm probably gonna be back here eventually.

"If you absolutely must know, you nosy fox, I am after a small gem known as the Tear of the Rose. I've been tracking it for three decades until it came here."

"Why is that?" he asks, ambling behind her as she slips into the vault.

"'Cause it's mine and I want it back without having to fucking pay for it through the nose." Surprised, he falls silent and she is grateful for that small mercy as she navigates the complex networking of traps and alarms, the silver fox passing through them as though they simply aren't there. Gods be damned, this pest must be that Silver Thief 'Yoko' I've been hearing about, the koorime thinks to herself in extreme aggravation. If he tries to take my prize he's gonna be known as the Beaten Thief, so help me!

She breathes a tiny sigh of relief when she reaches the desired storage room holding her target, and she slips a fingerless glove off her hand and presses it against the door. Sending her energy out, she slowly--and oh, so carefully!--freezes every motion sensor, heat detector, and every other object resembling a trap, camera or alarm in the door and the entire room beyond it into total dysfunction. Slipping her glove back on the takes out a chisel and taps it around the simple locked knob, catching it when it falls and the door swings open. Her 'tail' is looking at her with new respect as she creeps into the room and searches for the jewel she's after.

There. In a glass display case practically covered in alarm sensors is a round jewel the size of her thumbnail and the color of blood-wine, set into a simple gold frame and hung on a thick chain of the same metal. Walking confidently but cautiously up to the case, she lifts one gloved hand up and wriggles her bare fingers. Her thumb- and pinky-nails now taper into sharp points, the tip of her middle finger suddenly coated in a sap-like substance that glints under the single light.

She carefully etches a circle into the glass, sets her middle finger to the glass and presses firmly, then strikes the glass next to the circle with the heel of her other hand. The circle breaks free without a single sound and she gingerly sets it down on top of the case. The sudden intake of her 'tail's breath makes her whirl and clap a hand over his mouth in warning, glacier eyes practically daring him to speak just so she'd have an excuse to kill him. He gulps silently and nods; only then does she release him and let her feet return to the floor instead of her levitating at his height. She never wastes rei if she can help it.

Reaching in, she gently gathers up the jewel and its chain, stuffing it into the pouch secured to her hip and looking around for anything else worth stealing. Finding nothing she particularly feels like taking, she raises one eyebrow at her unwanted companion and gestures at the rows of displays lining the walls and piles of valuables stacked on the floor in invitation.

He simply smiles, shakes his head, and holds up his desired prize: a heavy gold chest-collar nearly covered in precious jewels, intricate enamel, and finely detailed filigree. Shrugging to indicate indifference, Aislin simply takes her glove off again and presses it to the floor for one last detail. Spreading out from her hand is a stylized snowflake in frost, with a word written clearly on each leaf. 'Compliments of the Whiteout. Have a nice day.' Below it more calligraphic words form by themselves in the white crystals: 'Just taking what's mine. This heist has been brought to you with the accompaniment of the Silver Thief. Thank you for your participation.' Looking as though he would pop from trying to hold his laughter in, the silver fox claps both hands over his mouth and leaves the room at what could be called a dignified trot while Aislin uses her practiced skills to erase any evidence besides the damaged case and doorknob, the frozen calling-card, and the missing items.

The frozen burglar-foiling devices would be thawed in a few minutes, and after someone discovered her calling card, it would disappear as well, leaving no print or rei-signature for the authorities to follow. Satisfied with her work, the silent apparition slips out and makes a bee-line for the exit. She glides out of her original entrance with no noise and nearly invisible in the darkness, and then she turns, shuts the door, and relocks the padlock. With any kind of luck, even the bad, the 'good-guys' would never know where she came in.

Only after she has thoroughly checked over her work does the petite female take off at a blurred sprint through the forest, zigzagging, backtracking on her own trail, and crossing every stone and water-hazard she could find in order to muddle her path and confuse any followers. Only when she considers herself 'safe' does she takes her prize out to reassure herself of its reality.

"You're quite--eep!" At the first word Aislin had thrown a conjured ice-shuriken at the voice's source, aim only slightly off from the sudden leap of adrenaline pouring into her system. Panting from fright and effort, she looks off to her left to find the silver fox from before staring at the weapon imbedded into the wood just beside his head, his long hair practically standing on end from fright.

"Oh. It's just you." Unconcerned now, she simply places the jewel and its chain back into the pouch and starts walking off indifferently.

"'Just me' indeed! You could have killed me with that!"

"Hn. You should be thankful my aim was off. Your death was the general idea."

"What?" He stares at the slender grey-clad female in shock. She stops, turns to him and speaks as though he is a very small child.

"I. Missed." And then she takes off again, leaving (hopefully) the fox to stare after her with growing intrigue on his handsome features.

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After changing into regular clothes she'd stashed in one of her many cache trees and taking the time to strip the gold from the gem, she bundles her thief-gear into an unrecognizable package and takes off for the third time, her destination a town known for being a haven to thieves. She is known there, and left alone.

Arriving at the outskirts without so much as mildly exerting herself, just as the sun is rising, she leisurely saunters into her neighborhood, face neutral and body language set to maximize that neutrality. No use advertising her take for the whole town to see. But as she passes a beggar sitting next to an alleyway, one she knows is a real beggar and a fighter on hard times, she sleight-of-hands the chain and setting into his bowl. A quiet smile is all that she allows in acknowledgment of the beggar's single murmur of 'thanks' before he gets up and heads straight for the jeweler's shop. Aislin knows he'll get a good deal for the gold, or he'd break every bone in the jeweler's reptilian body. She frowns as that triggers a thought. She really must remember to find a time and place where she can train without interruption. Some of her fighting skills that she learned alongside that needle-haired kajihenge are getting rusty.

Once inside her small, Spartan apartment with every alarm and trap of her own unsprung she allows herself to relax with a whoosh of outward breath and a sudden flooding of the space with her aura. The temperature drops several degrees and she gladly sheds her outer layers down to a tanktop and shorts, walking barefoot on the thick carpet towards her tiny icebox. As she'd grown older she'd found that she needed less and less to sustain energy, only for replacing what she used. Like tonight, or rather this morning.

She selects a few early fruits and a pre-made roast-beef sandwich (or equivalent thereof) and settles into her armchair, dangling her legs over one arm and picking up a book on the end-table beside it. Flipping it open to her bookmark, she wriggles to get more comfortable, bites into her sandwich, and starts reading.

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