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Winter has never been the same — and like every single snowflake that falls to the ground, there's always a little something special, a little something unique that marks one year's winter different from all of the rest.
Her first winter she ever remembered, she made snowmen with her friends at the playgrounds at the Fairy Tail Children's Home.
Master Makarov was the best at making pot roast for the holidays, and somehow through a combination of his wisdom, good spices, and having eaten his food for long enough, Lucy still yearns to eat a meal that surpassed Makarov's holiday dishes. Loke is a very good cook — perhaps half the reason why she loved in the first place — but his food, while delicious, isn't the same as Makarov's slow-cooked stews, and to this day, even after compiling everything that Mira and her remembered about the master's recipes, she still can't seem to get it right.
Her tenth winter, she met her mother for the first time, and she discovered that her mother was lonely and broken and distrustful of the rest of the world.
Her mother told her the story of how she came to be, and why she could neither stand to see her nor stand to kill her. Lucy cried and cried and cried for the rest of that night and for the remainder of the nights that week, but she had a good home, a good foster family, and a good new friend from school, who had strange ginger hair and an even stranger tattoo under his right eye, to embrace her in silence when she needed.
Her eighteenth winter, she went on a week-long road trip with that very ginger-haired boy — now her best friend Loke — for seven full days with no destination in mind and only a desire for time with him, not distance.
Around day three, while sharing the same motel bed with a not-so-clever-after-all excuse to save extra money, she brings herself close to him to ask for him to share some warmth. They end up sharing confessions and a few kisses instead.
Her twenty-second winter, she doesn't remember anything at all except for the few moments just before Loke asked her to marry him.
It must have been an otherwise unimpressive night — or maybe a night he did such a perfect job that she wouldn't have suspected anything in the first place — because she only begins to recall when she was holding his hand, pulling him through the busy sidewalks to get home as soon as possible. He pretended to slip and fall on the ice, and when she turned around, she found him on one knee and holding a small diamond ring.
Last winter, she spent at home with her four-year-old boy while Loke went out of the country for the season to help his sister to take care of a dying great-aunt as she passed.
Loke's absence was tragic for the child, who had never seen his father gone for more than a few days at a time on business trips, but by the beginning of the new year and after many many movies and bedtime stories, there were plenty of inside jokes and new made-up words shared between her son and her — ones that even to this day, Loke still doesn't know the meaning of.
And this winter?
This winter, they're taking their newborn daughter out for her first winter, opting for a short walk around the neighborhood park just a street down their apartment.
Of course, the baby isn't awake to see the fresh snowfall. She's asleep, bundled up snug and warm into a dark red bundle within her proud father's arms. Her eyes are closed, her cheeks are flushed pink, and her small hands are gently curled into a loose fist by her chin. There's a clear trail of drool at the edge of her lips, and every now and then a small bubble of spit pops inside her mouth.
Loke chuckles softly at this.
"I'm beginning to think she's gotten all her genes from you," he remarks, lowering his arms a little so that Lucy could see. "She drools in her sleep, too."
"She's a baby!" Lucy says, giggling. "And I do not drool."
Loke gives her a look.
Her toddler son points at her. "Yeah, you do!" he shouts at her. "Daddy and me took a picture of you when you were napping once!"
She snorts at both of them. "Okay, if there's one thing that I'll admit to doing while sleeping, it's snoring."
"Yeah, you snore," her son affirms.
Loke chuckles before looking up to the sky to think for just an emphasized moment. "Well, now that you mention it, she snores, too," he adds, eyes back on Lucy.
"She does?" Lucy asks, a little surprised.
"You're a much heavier sleeper," Loke reminds her, shifting the baby's weight to his right arm so that he could bring her into a brief side embrace. He nuzzles her temple with his lips, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "I probably take care of it before you even realize."
"Heavy sleeper! Heavy sleeper!" her son repeats ecstatically, bouncing ahead of them in pace.
She sighs, reaching out for her toddler's hand before he gets too far ahead of the two of them.
"She even has my hair," she reflects, watching the light snow fall on the baby's tuft of blonde on top.
"Indeed," Loke agrees.
"Well, I suppose the baby's going to end up just like me," she says, dryly, rolling her eyes.
"She'll be perfect then, too," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her cheek.