It was spring when she returned to the Land of Winter Wisps--cold, muddy, rainy spring. Drifa laughed as she jumped in a puddle on her walk back to her cottage, but her mood turned somber as she approached it. What would she find when she got there? Had the Sun King been true to his word? Had she convinced him in time? The weather might have changed because Frey was no longer a god... or because he had died. She didn't know which reality she would find behind her front door.
When she opened it, though, she found neither. The cottage was empty. Frey's bed was neatly made. There was no sign of him or any indication that he was dead or alive.
"Oh Frey." She slid her hand along his moth-eaten blanket. "What's happened? Where are you?"
In a panic, she left the house and ran all the way to the village. Soaked to the bone by the time she arrived at Lumi's, she didn't even bother to knock before opening the door.
"Lumi, I'm back and I..." She stopped. In the middle of grinding herbs, Lumi stared up at Drifa, her hands frozen around a mortar and pestle. "What is it Lumi? What's wrong? Where's Frey?"
Lumi dropped what she was doing, walked over to her, and placed her shaking hands onto Drifa's face. "You're alive. I can't believe it."
"Well of course I'm alive. Lumi, you wouldn't believe the Sun King's garden--flowers everywhere you turn, some as big as your head, and... why are you looking at me that way? Is that an actual smile? Just yesterday you were so mad you practically spit at me."
"Yesterday?" Tears traced the wrinkles on Lumi's cheeks. "No Drifa, it's been over a year since you left. I thought you were dead. We all did, Frey as well."
Drifa's heart leapt. "Frey! He's alive. Lumi, tell me where he is!" In her joy, the time that she'd been gone mattered little. What was a year if Frey was saved?
Lumi led Drifa to the table, pouring her a cup of tea before sitting next to her. "I thought he wouldn't live. He grew so much worse after you left, if you can believe it... as did our world." She shook her head. "We lost fifteen wisps in those dark weeks. They transformed into orbs and floated about, unable to return to human form. One by one, they shattered into a million pieces of ice, just as we'd feared would happen." She shook her head. "That old story was true after all."
"Lumi, that's terrible." Her Frey was alive, but others were gone. She wrapped her hands around her cup, trying desperately not to cry. This was her fault. She had saved her world, but not fast enough to save everyone in it.
Lumi took a sip of her tea and nodded. "One night, Frey slept soundly for the first time in months. The next morning, I woke to discover that the snow had finally stopped falling. His fever had broken, as had winter's hold on our world. Our true winter returned--still cold, still dreary, but manageable... wonderful. Then spring came, as it has again this year."
"And Frey?"
Lumi sighed, placing her hand in Drifa's. "Frey missed you. He knew what you'd done, had assumed you'd sacrificed yourself for his sake. He wasn't happy here anymore, not without you."
Drifa could hold back tears no longer. "But where would he have gone? His father is a terrible man. He wouldn't take him back, especially not now that he's been made mortal." Mortal. Drifa pulled her hand from Lumi's. "He's gone to Bindland, hasn't he?"
"Don't go running after him, Drifa. You've only just gotten home. Besides, he's a human now and you're still a wisp. Going to him would only lead him from his path. Do you want that?"
Drifa didn't want that, but she also didn't want him to live the rest of his days believing she was dead.
"I have to at least see him, Lumi. Can't you understand?"
Lumi did her tongue clucking and returned to her kitchen tasks. "Despite everything, you still have a place here, Drifa. Come back for it."
Drifa stood, placing her hand on the old woman's shoulder for a moment before rushing from her house, through town, and out into the open countryside. Could she return here? She imagined the broken shards of what used to be living wisps scattered across frozen fields.
Her fault, all her fault.
Taking a few deep breaths, she calmed herself and thought of Frey. She needed to get to Bindland, and Lumi's transportation magic required a quiet mind.
As the rain beat against her skin, she imagined picking up her skirt to dip her toes in a stream. In her fantasy, Frey called out to her. "Be careful, Drifa, the stones are slippery!"
Drifa laughed and splashed water at him. As she kicked up a leg, she found that indeed the stones were slippery. She fell with a crash into the shallows, arms flailing all the while.
"Drifa!" A hand grasped onto hers. "Drifa! How can this be?"
Frey pulled her up, wrapped her in his arms, and sobbed into her neck.
"Frey, am I really here with you?" She wiped the water from her eyes, as the truth sank in. She had done it, she had magicked herself to Bindland and to Frey.
He pulled her closer. Soon they moved to the riverbank where he sat studying her face, her shoulders, her hands. "I thought my father had killed you. When you didn't return, it was as if a winter wisp truly had taken me. I was so lost."
"But you aren't lost." She clasped his hand. "And neither am I."
He sighed, rested his head against her shoulder. "I have a cabin not far from this stream. It isn't much yet, but I'm working the land. Now, with you here..."
Drifa squeezed his hand. "I can't stay."
Frey sat up. "What? Why not?"
"This isn't my world. I'm a winter wisp. When I'm here, the urge to transform, to take a human from this life, it won't let me be. Even now I feel that desire. I could hurt you, Frey. You're not a god anymore."
"Then I'll come with you, back to the Land of Winter Wisps. We can be together there."
Drifa shook her head. "You were miserable there, and for good reason. It isn't a place for mortals. You know that." She couldn't bring herself to tell him that she no longer belonged in the Land of Winter Wisps either.
He hung his head. "I don't... I can't."
"You can. You're on a path now--your path." She recited Lumi's words to him. "I shouldn't interfere. And besides, there's something more--the Sun King."
"My father?"
"I'll have to go back to see him. He wants another... taste."
Frey's shoulders slumped. "You gave him winter. That's how you convinced him to help me."
"I did. But there was a condition--I must return to him whenever he wills it. The winter wisps won't be safe from him unless I keep my promise. And now I know, time moves differently in the Land of Fire Gods. Years here may pass every time I'm there."
"Oh Drifa." He buried his head in her hair again.
She stroked the back of his neck. "You'll have your life, Frey, free from your father. The seasons will change, you'll have summer and winter and then summer again, many times over. You will make your own fate. Don't be sad."
He pulled away just enough to place his lips upon hers. She felt the magic of being kissed by someone who loved her, but nothing more than that. The day around them needed no doctoring, no illusion of warmth or chill.
The weather did not change but the amulet did. Its glow spread across her chest until she could no longer ignore it. She pulled away from Frey.
"I have to go now." She kissed his brow and left, ignoring his calls begging for her to return. Running along the bank, tears falling, she reached a high bluff and held the amulet up to the sun until it and the sun joined as one. She let the heat fill her, let the sun blind her, let herself be taken.
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The new world before her was fertile, lovely, predictable. She turned onto the garden path and headed for the Sun King's house. He stood waiting for her on its front steps.
"He's in the mortal world, I take it."
She narrowed her eyes. "And you'll leave him be, just as you promised."
He held out his hand. "Whatever you desire, Wisp."
"Whatever I desire?"
An afternoon spent along a riverbank.
The kiss of a red-haired boy, warm lips upon hers.
A cabin nearby with land tilled and seeds planted.
A dream that goes on and on and on.
"Will you really give me that?" She reached her hand towards his.
Warmth. Enough warmth for a lifetime.
~END~
Thank you for reading WISP! I hope you enjoyed this tale of a love that can melt even the coldest of days.
This story is entered into the #WattysShorts contest. Wish it luck!
