Once upon a time, there was a woman.

No. Not a woman, not a girl, not a lass.

Once upon a time, there was a monster. A monster that looked like a woman.

A monster, indeed, a monster. Did she have horns, or did she have fangs? Did she have a sharpened tongue, for people to call her a monster that steal bad children from their beds at night?

No, no, no. She did not have fangs nor horns. She did not have a sharpened tongue nor poisoned bite. She did not eat children. No, not even the bad ones that stole your lunch and push you down into a puddle.

So why did people call her a monster? Did she have a clawed hands or magic eyes that turn you into stone?

Or maybe she just had monstrously smelly feet?

Well, no. in fact, she probably had a pair of the nicest and cleanest legs in the entire world! Well, at least the entire world as far as she was concerned.

In a particularly hot day, the monster would go to a certain lake to cool her very nice legs. This lake was big, bigger than the field, bigger than that one swimming pool you once saw on TV, bigger than the lake at the park, and bigger than the house.

But alas, the size of the lake could no longer impress the people around, because for most of them, it was the only lake that they will and ever see, in that secluded land of fantasy.

But for a certain Ice Fairy, the lake was her entire world.

As the monster walked down the road to the lake in a particularly hot day, carrying an umbrella made of a giant sunflower she grown herself at her garden of the sun, no man, woman, boys nor girls, would walk the same path as her. They'd see the birds and feel the wind running away from her, scared, and then they'd become scared too, and then they'd run away, too.

As she arrived at the edge of the lake, she would take off the shoes she had knitted for herself from the stalks of an Elderberry, as no one would make shoes for her. Not even if she offered to pay with the most delicious cookies she baked herself!

The people are rude. The monster did not like the people and the people did not like her. The monster liked to be alone. She did not feel lonely at all.

Sometimes, though, she would meet people that were not like the other people, people that are unique, kind of like her. Sometimes, when the monster sat at the edge of the lake, these special people would greet her, and then they would leave. These people are special persons with special jobs, they cannot be bothered with her for too long. The monster understands this, and she did not mind. She's fine with being alone.

One day, when the monster was cooling her feet, she was approached by an ice fairy. Not just an ice fairy, but The Ice Fairy, the strongest and the prettiest of all the fairies, with clear crystalline wings that was the envy of all other ice fairies. The ice fairy was curious. She had seen the monster a couple times before, and she's wondering why the monster was always alone.

Fairies were not too bright, and the strongest and the prettiest of them was not an exception. She cannot remember the monster's name, or that she's a monster at all. For her, the monster was merely a kind young lady that likes flower. The ice fairy loved flower, especially the Winter Bloom.

The ice fairy asked what the flower lady was doing. The lady answered that she was cooling her legs.

The ice fairy said that she could help with cooling the flower lady's legs. The ice fairy was confident of her ability as the strongest. But she was too proud, too eager to show her power. The flower lady's legs were frozen, and the flower lady was angered.

The flower lady was not particularly fond of fairies. And the strongest of them was not an exception. With her power, the ice fairy was easily destroyed into hundreds of ice cubes, enough to open a hundred shaved ice stands.

But one cannot kill a fairy, just as you cannot kill the cold. You can only make them go away for a while, and that was what the ice fairy did. She came back. And came back. And came back.

Day after day, the ice fairy would bang on the flower lady's door in her garden of the sun, demanding a match. A card match. A rather deadly and painful card match. This greatly annoyed the flower lady. Every time the flower lady beat her, and every time the fairy would come back the next day.

The ice fairy was strong. Even as her body was destroyed over and over again, and as her soul broken and rebuilt, she didn't want to give up. She is strong, and she knew it.

And she knew she was strong, no matter the lies of the people calling her stupid or weak, the people that discarded her as a mere obstacle to their destination, a speed bump on the road, a piece to be walked over without a second thought.

The ice fairy was strong, but even the strongest has their limit. At one particular day, among the giant stalks of flowers that symbolize the cheerfulness of bright summer day, an ice fairy was crying.

As the flower lady watched, the ice fairy sounded her regret. Her regret to not be able to stand up as the strongest, to not be able to stand up to those who can slaughter her friends by the hundreds, to not be able of even the simplest task of helping a lady cooling off her legs!

The flower lady did not know what to do. She never seen any of the special people she knew cry. They are the kind of people that shut all their worries inside, and only reveal their heart to their closest of friend, and none of them consider her as their closest of friend.

The flower lady did not know what to do. She did, however, know what she had. She was almost finished baking her lemon cake, and she sure it would be delicious. And it is an established fact of the world that nothing cheers people better than a lemon cake! Except perhaps a warm hug from a person you love the most, but unfortunately, the flower lady was fresh out of that particular ingredient at that moment.

The ice fairy was sad, but the ice fairy was also hungry. She was hesitant, but no fairies could refuse an offering of cake, and the flower lady knew this. The flower lady offered to share her cake, only if the ice fairy would stop crying. And thus she did.

The flower lady kept her promise. She took the ice fairy inside her house, and the ice fairy willingly follows along. And when the ice fairy stepped on her floor, the flower lady realized that she hasn't had visitor for quite a while.

The flower lady pull the cake from the oven, and then she put on the cream, and the fruit, and as the ice fairy put the freshly dressed cake in her mouth, she began to smile. For some reason, the flower lady does not want that smile to go away. She wants to see that smile, every day from now on.

The flower lady asked if the cake was delicious, and the ice fairy answered yes, it was delicious. Then the flower lady asked if the ice fairy could make a cake better than her. And the Ice fairy said, of course! She was the strongest, after all.

A lot of things happened then, but the ice fairy began to visit the flower lady regularly, every day with new ideas for her chilled frosted cake. And then the flower lady would take out her own cake from the oven, and they would eat together at her porch in the middle of the garden of the sun. And then, most of the time, their little feast would end with the ice fairy declaring her own defeat with a smile. Because, as the flower lady had told her, accepting the occasional loss was part of being strong, and she was the strongest, after all!

Every day, the flower lady would wait for the ice fairy on her porch, and the ice fairy would come every day without fail. She would come with a smile, and the flower lady would wait for that smile every day, without fail, sitting on her porch.

Day by day passed, and without any of the two realized, they had become friends.

And later, without any of the two realized, they would become closer. Much, much closer than friends.



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[ ] Domineering Yuukarin.

[ ] Seme-seme Ice Fairy.

[ ] Battle of dominance between two equals.

[ ] Twice shy.