Permafrost

by rice

hoar frost

The icy, bitter winds cut through my glazed fur, its howls and moans kissing my ears. Snow accumulates and fuses against my glass mane as I pass through the mountain side. Every step down the frosty path feels crisp and sharp.

Trees are stripped bare of its leaves, their bark suffering quietly against the cold. The grass is no better. It lays shriveled and weak under the heavy blankets of white. Creatures large and small alike are hidden deep, deep, beneath the underground, waiting for the alps’ eternal winter to mitigate. Any that remain on the surface are to fight for their lives against the harsh environment.

The cold does not soften for anyone here.

I have lived through millennia and millennia again: these mountains hold secrets that she and I only share. Nothing within them leaves my watchful eyes, for I guard her and she guards me. The perpetual cold that runs through here keeps me from thawing, but lately, this chill has been too much for even me to bear. The peaks of the mountains are at its coldest this time of year, white-coloured winds swim through the dark alps. It is a comforting sight, or rather a familiar one, but I keep hiking down.

Clouds of snow become less condensed by the edges of the mountain side, and the sound of the riverside sings for me to come closer.

Her song stops me in my tracks. It is always gentle, but there is an undertone of vibrancy under it that overwhelms me. Full of stories to be told, her music urges me to come closer to the edge of the mountainside.

My hooves trip down the slope, and I let out the breath I was holding so tightly. I quickly regain my balance and keep trotting down the diminishing hill. What once was a harsh frost that bit at my heels now becomes patches of cold, wet grass and dirt. I would consider it vulgar to taint my hooves here, but I see it as a welcoming feeling.

“My, my, it took you long enough, darling,” the mare of water intones before she whipped her mane away. Her mane fell in waves against her face, the sprays of water froze into snowflakes whenever it dared come my way.

“My apologies. The trek down here took longer than expected.”

“Oh, always so cold with you, Pommel.” She laughs and rests her shoulders against one of the large rocks adjacent to the river. Moss begins to flourish under her touch, it creates a soft velvet that tickles her.

I smile and lay against a tall fir tree, snow quickly overtaking my sides with a vicious hunger. I feel the tree that holds me still grows weaker and rigid, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. The frost comes to a halt before the great rock that my friend lies on.

“Did it take you too long to get here, Rarity?”

“Me? Oh none at all, the stream was quick and- no actually…” She took a moment to scratch her cheek before her face creased in anger. “Beavers made a dam that made it nearly impossible for me to pass through Whitetail Wood!”

I tilt my head to the right and cross my front hooves. My eyes search through the floor to find anything to say.

“Wait Trail Woods,” I enunciate.

“Oh, right. Well, you see, Whitetail Wood is a forest quite a ways from here. I would not expect you to know.” Rarity pauses and scratches her chin with a frown.

I have never left this mountain range. Before she appeared to me within this river, I thought I knew everything there was to see. The sun rises when the pine trees start to face west. White meadowlarks means hibernation season is soon to come, yellow ones mean that it’s soon to come to an end.

And the cold does not soften for anyone here.

I chew on my lip and my hooves dig on the cold dirt. Words fail to form and staring at her doesn’t help. She’s been everywhere, seen everywhere, felt everything, and she decides to spend her time with me, someone who’s been nowhere, seen nowhere, and felt nothing.

Rarity looks onto the sky behind her and rests her head on her hoof. The stars are dim and barely sparkle within the growing twilight. The small streaks of purple and gold that adorn the heavens reflect onto her fur.

“Can you…” I muster up a small bit of courage. The spirit before me faces me but her cheek remains rested on her hoof. “Can you tell me about White Trail Wood?”

Rarity smiles and breathes out a laugh.

“You’ve always been so curious. It’s only fair that I tell you.” She slides off the rock and disappears into the stream. Everything goes quiet again until she reforms near me, but not close enough to touch the layer of frost around me. Rarity sits herself by the running stream and points her hoof to the south east of the horizon.

“Over there, far, far, from here.” She waves her hoof away twice.

“Past the clouds?”

Rarity laughs again and lowers her hoof. “No, darling. There they have so much verdure, why, you can almost swim in it. I have rarely ever seen a place so alive in my life.” She picks up a single leaf. Its dead, rust hue begins to regress and turn a vibrant green.

“And the creatures, they range from bunnies with the fluffiest fur you can imagine to snakes with the most lustrous scales. All so different, yet they’re able to live in harmony with one another.” Rarity holds the leaf close to her cheek in delight.

I don’t really know what a snake or scales are, but she seems too deep in thought for me to interrupt. I could always ask her later. I have always asked her for stories of the outside world every time we met together before dawn.

“And in every spring,” she continues. “The inhabitants of a nearby town all gather together in Whitetail Wood to celebrate new life…” Rarity twists the leaf around with her magic. “And love.”

“Love?”

“Yes. Spring to them, spring means new opportunities, new life. To them life is to love and to be loved.”

I lie there, puzzled. I turn my face back to the mountain, the small flecks of ice kiss my eyelashes and the wind urges me closer to her.

“Rarity?” I return my face back to her and inch myself closer, but only a miniscule bit.

“Yes, Pommel?” Rarity said absentmindedly.

My tongue and jaw goes stiff. Every time she utters my name, my chest feels like a blizzard storming inside it.

“What is it to love?”

“To love?” Rarity held the leaf tightly against her chest. The waves of her mane begin to ruffle and undulate frantically.

I nod and turn away from her, my cheeks turn an embarrassing shade of deep blue. A great pause remained between the two of us. The gentle whistle of the wind keeps us company, but what use does it have for me? To mock me?

I close my eyes shut, as shut as I possibly can and bite my lip. The soft winds pick up and grow louder, louder, louder. The air around me feels so chokingly cold. I don’t have the courage to face her, but the anticipation is crushing me so tightly that it feels like I might shatter into fractals.

“Being able to see you everyday, Coco.”

In an instant, the winds are gone. All is quiet, no, more quiet than it was before. This silence isn’t deafening, however. It feels welcoming. I turn my head back to face her and all I see is her smile. It’s a small smile, almost timid, but it makes the hairs in the back of my neck stand on end.

Rarity holds the leaf up and puffs her cheeks. With a huff, she blows the leaf towards me. I grab it with my teeth and gingerly set it on my hoof. The leaf is rapidly coated with a layer of hoar frost yet it does not shrivel or burn from my touch. I hold the leaf tightly against my chest, it feels warm, warm to the point that it would melt a hole through me. I want it to.

“And I wish to keep doing so forever.” Rarity whispers out, facing the sky with a smile. She didn’t need to whisper it out, no spirit or creature was around us to hear. Maybe she wanted to hold it close. If she said it any louder it would have broken apart like seafoam into the dawning sky.

I inch myself closer to her yet she remains in her bliss. Every moment I crawl closer to her, the leaves below me scream and wish to pull me back by sticking themselves to me. The droplets that fall from Rarity’s mane feel more prominent and often, they kiss my cheeks and whisper to me to come closer.

If seeing you means to love you, then what I feel isn’t love. I want to be with you through every breath you take in the deep waters. To meet with your lips like the moon does to the mountain top every night. If I were to melt, I’d only hope to feel your grace one last moment by mending with you. If this is to love, I never want to feel anything more.

But the cold does not soften for anyone here, especially for me.

The sun begins to rise, but you don’t.

The condensation of my breath burns the quiet spirit. My lip quivers inches away from her cheek and my ears scream at the sound of the crackling river.

I kiss her tears, but they feel just as cold as mine.

It was selfish of me to love you.

Comments

[Snow Quill]

Oh fuck this hit me just as hard the second time reading as it did the first. The imagery here is absolutely beautiful and just, I can’t express how much I loved reading this. So short and sweet and with an ending that is really impactful. Amazing job here

[Silver Mint]

“What is it to love?”

“Being able to see you everyday, Coco.”

These two quotes speak to me so much. I loved this, it's short, it's vivid, the imagery is excellent. Short and sweet doesn't do it justice but really, excellent work.

[TheLegendaryBillCipher]

An interesting take, rice, and very powerful imagery. A sort of twist on ice-and-fire - I like it. Excellent job.