Snow Maiden

Chapter 3

“Have you seen her?”

“Alina, come look over here.”

“Oh, she’s so fair!”

“Just like an angel with all of that golden hair.”

“What do we do with her? If we keep her, she’ll be found.”

“We must keep her hidden. We can’t let the queen know about her.”

Nika woke to a chorus of hushed voices, her lashes heavy with cold crystals. When she fluttered them open, immediately, a hand brushed away the tiny ice fragments that broke, then fell on her cheeks. Beautiful feminine faces met her eyes as soon as she opened them. She gazed up, bewildered by the crowd that looked down on her.

“So blue…” a small voice gasped, “… her eyes!”

A flurry of excited whispers, further back, could be heard. Nika pushed herself up, finding the ground where she lay covered in snow. She shivered, wondering how long she’d been asleep.

“Wh-where am I?” she asked. “And who are all of you?”

Her observers brought forth a long, thick pelt of white fur to wrap around her. It warmed her in an instant.

All the women hovering around looked young, about her own age, but they were all as white as the snow on the ground. They wore frosted head wreaths, some made of fir pins and others of bare branches with berries. Even more of their crowns looked to be made entirely of silver icicles that shined and glinted like diamonds whenever they moved. To a one, their skin was milky white, shimmering in the moonlight as though they’d all been sifted with fairy dust.

Their dresses were beautiful, some long, some short, but all gleamed white, and were decorated with fur trims and gemstones of silver, gray and blue. Nika looked around wide-eyed at the place she found herself in. She had no idea how she’d come to be here. She remembered finding the little cave above the creek and crawling in. After that, she recalled falling, but then nothing else.

Wherever she’d landed, it was full on winter here. A pristine layer of snow covered everything. It sparkled the way snow will do in the sun, even though the dark of night currently blanketed the area. All the snowflake girls stood around her in a clearing of otherwise dense forest. Tall, grand fir trees coated in frost stood like sentinels around the perimeter.

The beauty of it all took Nika’s breath away. Even more incredible, she didn’t feel the cold anymore. Sinking her fingers into the fur on her shoulders, she marveled at the cloak, wondering at what kind of magic it held.

One girl turned her head, revealing a faint pattern, like the markings one might have seen on a native of the warm South Lands, high on her cheek and forehead. It looked like a snowflake or spars on a cracked sheet of ice. When Nika looked closer, she saw all the girls had similar markings on their skin, in various patterns.

“Don’t be afraid, fair one.” One of them came forward. “We found you here sleeping and sheltered you so you didn’t freeze.”

“H-how did I get here?” Nika asked, not at all sure about these enchanting beings.

“You must have fallen,” the same one explained. She was the bravest and appeared to be their leader. “We all came to watch over you and keep you hidden.” Nika studied them, the Snowflake Fairies. That was, surely, who they were. Legends from the northlands were filled with accounts of them.

“Thank you,” Nika said. “But keep me hidden from who?”

A gust of wind blew through the clearing, stirring a swill of fine snow off the trees. She hugged the fur tighter and the fairy women closed in around her.

“We have to move her, Anna.” One of them whispered to the leader of the group. “Sleya will find her. We won’t be able to send her back if that happens.”

They helped Nika stand, then ushered her into the trees.

“Wait, who is Sleya? Why wouldn’t I be able to get back if she finds me? What is this place?”

“Shh,” Anna said as they moved, “you must be quiet, fairling. You are in the Frozen Forest, an enchanted place. You have heard the tales, yes?”

Nika nodded.

“Yes, my grandmother told me stories when I was a little girl. Sometimes she would sing…” her voice started to grow weak, sounding far away in her own ears. “But they were legends, bedtime stories… fairy tales.”

The Snowflake Fairies all smiled at her, forming a tunnel around her as her steps grew heavy and her vision blurred.

“And so we are!” Anna chuckled. “The story fairies of the Frozen Forest, all changelings, stolen by the sorceress, Sleya.”

It didn’t take long for them to lead her to a nook carved into a wall of stone and ice beside a lake.

“In here,” one of the fairies said, pulling aside a curtain of pine branches.

Nika shuffled into the enclosure. It felt even warmer here, away from the wind.

“I remember now.” Nika muttered, after she sat. “The legend of this place. A witch from the North winds cursed a kingdom, I think.” She tried to recall the story Yula had told her. She’d heard so many. One of her few joys had always been sitting and listening to grandmother recall tale after tale from memory. ‘Another, baba! Another story’, little girl Nika would say, hungry for every drop of love she could squeeze from those magic moments.

“She stole all the young girls, the fair-haired ones, from the land. But I can’t recall why. There was a wizard too, or was it a bear? I-I can’t remember…”

She was suddenly very drowsy, even though she’d only just awakened.

“Yes,” Anna said, her voice getting distant, “the fair-haired ones.”

“Rest now, dear one.” One of the other girls whispered.

Nika’s eyes became heavier than she ever thought they could. She stretched out on the ground. The fairies covered her in more furs as she drifted off to sleep again.

*The snow scene from the Nutcracker ballet has always been my favorite part. I've seen many different versions with various choreography, costumes, and scenery. This is what I envision when I think of the snowflake fairies come to life.

Do you have a favorite winter or snow-themed fantasy creature / character?