It's cold, colder than you've ever been; a poison that seeps through your pale skin and reaches your bones and chills the marrow within so that you can barely move. Panic assails you, the first emotion in an otherwise blank mind, and your green eyes widen as the only thing you see is white, the white of your ragged dress, of your pale skin, and of the cold frost that surrounds you, an impossible snowscape that seems to go on forever.

You grope about you, blinded by the lack (or perhaps, the sum?) of color. You try to find your bearings and stand up; you fail and collapse on your knees. You can't move. Fear stabs your heart - you're going to die. You try to stand again; again you fall. Sobbing, you crawl into a sitting position, your slender body wracked with shivers. How could you die here? It's ridiculous, you must be dreaming. 'What is this? Why am I here?' Then, another question, one that accentuates the panic until it's an iron lance plunged through your chest and twisted around. 'Who am I?'

You try and think. You glimpse vague visions, images. A picture of a mother you've never met. A table full of materials next to a roaring fireplace. Neatly arranged dolls, crafted by hand. A woman with black hair, and a book, and blood, and fire...

You remember.

For a moment, all feeling disappears. The cold, and the pain and the fear of death become nothing during a long, sharp breath of disbelief.

Then you scream.

You scream and scream and scream again, beating your fists against the ground, pulling on your long golden hair so hard you tear out clumps, dragging long nails over your face until the skin breaks and your blood stains the snow.

Eventually, your throat gives out and all you can do is whimper and lie on the snow, crying as you bury your face into your arms.

The cold overtakes you, and you die.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You wake up, your eyes surveying the interior of a four-poster bed so soft you feel you might sink in it. You blink, trying to adjust your vision to the daylight filtering in through the curtains. Is it morning or afternoon? You cannot tell.

You consider getting up, but find little motivation to do so within a painfully hollow heart. You find you don't care for living even one second more, so what's the point? You've lost everything, so it scarcely matters where you are, or why, or who saved you from the snow.

You sigh, feeling your breathing grow heavier as sleep threatens to overtake you again. 'I'll stay here,' you think to yourself, 'and close my eyes and hope I'm dreaming and not move an inch until I wake up. But because it's not a dream....' Your breathing wavers at the thought but you find yourself without the strength to cry. 'Because it's not a dream, I'll never wake up; so I'll stay here asleep until I wither away, like a princess in a fairy tale.'

You close your eyes. 'At least I'll die comfortable.'

You sink deeper into the darkness, feeling your consciousness slowly disappear into nothing. This is not sleep, but death. Once it all fades completely, you will not awaken.

Or perhaps, you think as your mind slips into nothing, perhaps you will? The darkness, you realize, feels familiar - you've been here before. You remember a sharp pain in your head and your vision going at first blank, then dark, then engulfed in bright flame that faded away into the distance no matter how much you grasped at it as you felt yourself falling down a deep well, falling for what felt like hours, and then days and then eternity.

And you remember whispers and symbols, and a shining golden braid.

And you remember how, finally, after centuries, the fall stopped. And then the cold.

Something saved you from death. Something pulled you out of the dark.

Your green eyes snap open.

"The book," you murmur, voice incredibly hoarse. "The book!"

You cast about the bed, finding nothing. Then, suddenly full of vigour, you jump out of it, pulling back the curtains. You rub your eyes at the sudden light, the breeze around your body telling you you're naked or mostly so. You don't care - the moment you get your vision back, you start looking about the room, opening closets, drawers, knocking over the things on top of the dresser, simultaneously scouring the room and ignoring everything about it. You can't find it; you start to panic and breathe heavily, you can't find it; something starts to tear you up inside, first a vague feeling of nausea, then actual, physical pain. Why can't you find it? You can't bear the thought of having lost it, it feels like the ultimate defeat; you've lost everything, everything, everything, so why-

The book is on a nightstand to the left of your bed.

You let out a sigh of relief, then a sob, then start crying again, grabbing the book and pressing it to your bare breasts, holding on to it for dear life. Then you feel something cold and metallic press against your skin.


You pull the book away from you to get a good look at it.

It's changed. The ragged, ripped leather from the cover is now pitch black and smooth and new, the corners are not worn, but tipped with solid gold, and the edges of each page have been painted gold as well. Moreover, the book can't be opened. Golden chains encircle its width, attached to a large lock made also of gold and encrusted with rubies and sapphires the size of pigeon's eggs.

You run your hand over the lock. It looks incredibly complex, with no apparent way to manipulate it and no discernable keyhole.

You look closer, and shudder. There is a long, thin, spatter of blood over the leather, starting from under the lock and moving up before disappearing. You turn the book around. There's nothing unusual along the back.

You don't understand, but having it is enough. Standing on wobbly legs, you head back to your bed and lie down, pressing the book against your chest. Perhaps with this, you won't die alone.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] Ice

[ ] Fire

[ ] Steel