Road to Ruisea

❆ ❆ PROLOGUE ❆ ❆

seven years ago

"Tell me a story!"

The old woman chuckles as the little girl hops around the room excitedly. "Haven't I told you enough stories today already?"

"But grandma, your stories are the beeest," she whines.

"Oh? And why is that, little flame?"

"Because they're all true!"

Her grandmother laughs heartily, "Oh Kumari. Yes of course they're true."

"So will you tell another...?"

"Alright. But just one more, or your parents will be upset I kept you up so late."

"Yayyyy!"

Kumari crawls up on the large bed and sits next to her grandmother, leaning in close, brown eyes wide open and twinkling in anticipation.

"Now, my flame... This is a story I haven't told even your father, my son. You'll be the first who's heard it in a long, long time."

"Oooh," comes Kumari's soft voice. "What's it about, grandma?"

"It's about a prince."

"Oooh," Kumari repeats with even more enthusiasm. "A handsome prince?"

"Indeed. A prince with hair as white as snow and eyes as blue as the ocean."

Kumari wrinkles her nose, "What's snow?"

"You've never learned of it?"

"No. It's not in any of my books..."

"Then it's time I taught you. Do you have any paper?"

Kumari hops off the bed, rummaging in a drawer and pulling out a piece of parchment.

"That won't do... Do you have any black paper?"

"I don't," Kumari looks dejected.

Grandmother rubs her chin, "Ah! No matter. I have a better idea, bring the parchment!"

Kumari skips back to the bed and holds out the paper to her grandmother, who takes it from her with a quick thank-you, and immediately begins folding it smaller.

"A knife, or scissors?"

Kumari brings both out of the same drawer, and grandmother takes the latter, snipping at the folder piece of parchment while Kumari watches, deeply curious.

Snip snap, snip snap, soon enough there's little bits of paper all over the sheets, and grandmother's holding what seems to Kumari, a very strange shape.

"What is it...?" Kumari asks, confused.

"Here," she pushes it into Kumari's little palm. "Unfold it and see."

Kumari struggles, trying her best to be gentle with her grandmother's creation, and manages, unfolding the paper to reveal an interesting circle design, like nothing she'd ever seen, except for maybe a woven picture on one of the fancy carpets in the castle halls.

"It's so pretty! But what is it?"

"It's a snowflake."

"...What is that?"

Her grandmother laughs again, before taking a breath and explaining.

"It's a snowflake. It's much larger than a real one, however real ones are even smaller than the itty bitty nail of your pinky finger. They fall from the sky, hundreds of them, none alike. They decorate the entire kingdom in nothing but cold white beauty."