eight ✶ memory;
Serdish winters are the harshest of Endiness - the land does not adapt like Mille Seseau, and when the fields are unprepared, all suffer. Parents starve to feed their children; when there is nothing left, mothers feed from their breasts, until all they can give is dust from dried flesh. If the strong are fortunate, the snow begins to melt before their stomachs eat themselves.
(But what is fortunate to living without the joys that make life?)
This winter came early. A little town, far from the metropolis, is perhaps the worst place to be, but it couldn't be helped. The townsfolk are new settlers by a year or two; they are not yet practiced in the winter survival, and early snow has buried their fledgling traditions. Come spring, this town will not exist.
Their hope does not die, though. Every day, you walk through the streets, a honey-kissed reminder that spring waits, a sun-kissed reminder that summer is not a dream. (Moran laughs each day, too. She calls you a daughter of Summer with the traitor's heart of Winter; she knows you well.) Holy magic consumes energy, but you give life to the strong so that they can shoulder the weak; in return, the strong share with the holy, and the priestesses may deceive they are not human like the townsfolk a while longer.
It doesn't sicken you, but it is difficult, all the same.
Three new orphans huddle on a doorstep. Their father went missing weeks ago; their mother has frozen to death to feed them. No one claims them as new family; no one has the room in their hearth or heart. Neither do you -
- or so you, a holy woman of Soa, are suppose to.
You return to Moran without your wolf's fur cloak and your basket, a third empty than what it should be. She asks, calmly.
"To children," you confess.
"To children," she repeats. Behind her seat, two girls exchange nervous looks. They are new to sisterhood but not so new they have not learned to fear Moran. They step back, close to the pathetic fire, when the mistress stands. "And what are dead children," as she walks toward you, "to do with your cloak and our meat?"
"Live?"
Her hand collides so quickly with your cheek, you fall to the ground.
For several moments, the room is painfully silent and still. You know better than to stand.
"No, Shirley. They are to become hungry ghosts, and your sisters are to starve in life." Moran pauses, her wrinkled mouth tightening in a false smile. "Ah... No. You are to starve in life. Since you are so keen to give your shares."
One of the girls - Berna, with a soft voice and flower-colored eyes - protests on your behalf. "But she could die!"
"Then, she can walk the town without fur. The dead do not need it, after all."
Still bent over the floor, you glance at your mistress through a sea of red. "Shall I do so without boots as well?" You talk too much. If you weren't on the floor, you would have been smacked a second time.
"If you so desire."
You lick your lip and since falling, move - removing the suede boots, as you stand. Moran frowns; you talk too much, and you defy too much. She raised you, but she did not, will not, break you like she has your sisters. You bow, and: "thank you, Mistress Moran, for this valuable lesson."
She smacks you. You remain this time.
"Go. Teach these people who we are."
When Berna attends under you, to hone her magic, she brings your boots. Half a fool for those not with you and half a superior to everyone present, you refuse them, and snow collects inside until you return to the sisterhood's church. Not because you wear them but because Berna is your apprentice that day.
And in a fortnight, the orphans are dead. Satisfied, Moran tells you to retrieve your cloak from their corpses. Instead, you bury it with the tiny, broken bodies.