Thaw of Hope

𝕆𝕟𝕝𝕪 𝕀𝕔𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕔𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕘𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕.. .⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧. ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆ ❄︎ ❄︎

White. Bleak. Pure. These are the words I use for Nix, my home, but they’re just fragments of what I can remember, echoes of a place that shaped me and left me cold inside. I remember the way the snow pressed against the windows, the way it muffled every sound, making me feel both safe and trapped. Sometimes I wonder if I ever truly belonged here, or if I was just another soul lost in the endless winter.

Blind. That was the word my mother spoke over and over when I had asked what it meant that I could no longer see. Unfortunate. Sad. She used many words when my sight didn’t return. It wasn’t till she told me the tales of the people of Nix that I truly understood why being blind was so ... sad.

The people always spoke of Nix as if it were eternal, as if the snow had always been here and always would be. I used to believe them. I used to think that the cold was a kind of promise, a certainty in a world that offered so little comfort. But as I grew older, I realized that even the snow could change, and that no matter how permanent it seemed, that it would eventually disappear like all things do once their time arrived.

My mother told me stories about beasts and men, about how we became the monsters we feared. How Nix was home to dragons, deer, trolls, and the Wulver. She warned me that the Wulver were the most dangerous of all, these creatures were half-man, half-something else. I used to imagine them lurking just beyond the edge of the forest, waiting for me to stray too far. But the truth is, the real monsters were always closer. I saw it in the way people looked at each other, in the way fear turned to cruelty. I learned early that power was something people craved, and that the desire to control could twist even the kindest heart. I only could see for a short time, but it was enough to know what true cruelty was.

My grandfather, Everest Snow, was the name everyone whispered when they spoke of strength. He was the king, the one who united us against the beasts. I never met him, but his shadow hung over everything I was able to touch. I used to wonder what it felt like to be so strong that no one dared to hurt you. I think strength is just another kind of loneliness. Everest ruled for decades, but the stories I heard were filled with blood and sorrow. He never seemed to embrace any emotions that didn’t carry the bitter chill of the snow. I don’t think he knew any warmth.

It was inevitable that he would soon wither. Just like the snow, there would be a day it began to melt. That day was a day I felt something shift inside me. The entire country felt it. The seasons changed for the first time in decades. It was spring, and the world seemed to hold its breath. I remember standing at the edge of the forest, listening to the drip of water as the snow receded. Some said it was the breath of a dragon, a monster from the south whose power turned land into ocean. I never saw the dragon, my eyes long gone by the time the world took on more warmth, but I felt its presence. I heard the roar as it must have flown over the endless snowy hills, a reminder that even the strongest can be undone by fear.

My mother took us deep underground after that spring. King Everest had changed. He became a tyrant, his heart frozen by jealousy and dread. I heard stories of his castle in the north, of how his people grew vain and distant. I wondered if he ever looked out at the snow and felt the same emptiness I did. Maybe that’s why he tried so hard to hold onto power, because letting go meant facing the cold inside himself.

My mother did tell me there was more than a lonely old man to worry about. Emilia, the Snow queen, had another story. This woman dared to love another man; a man whose warmth drew her away from the icy heart of Everest, her husband. I think about her sometimes, about what it means to choose fire over snow. Her betrayal divided the world even further than the King’s jealousy. The land is now divided into four kingdoms: Vine, Ember, Sea, and Snow. I was just a child, but I felt the ripples of her choices in every corner of my life.

Then Everest died. A man so great that he left no one to rule behind him. All that was left was his daughters, seven of them, the youngest only five. Each of the daughters having heirs, but each as alone in this world that had no mercy for women. Their mother was left to decide their fate, but hatred and grief towards the Snow Kingdom consumed her. The years that followed were a blur of fear and loss. She married her lover, the self-declared King of the South. He was born of the Kingdom of Ember, he was ruthless, and the genocide that followed erased everything I knew. This man, Apollo Ember, decreed there was only one rule to survive within his kingdom: no one could carry the traits of the Snow family.

No white hair. No purple eyes.

I remember begging my mother to tell me if I carried those forbidden traits, desperate to know who I truly was. She tried so hard to hide the parts of me that marked me as different, wrapping me in secrecy, shielding my entire existence from a world that wanted me erased. And as Ember burned everything until there was nothing left but ashes and memory; I stayed hidden.

The massacre of my people was relentless, stretching even to the daughters of Everest: Gwen, Fern, Eve, Frita, Conleth. Some were slaughtered, others suffered fates so cruel that death would have been a mercy. My mother’s grief was a living thing, fierce and unyielding. She swore vengeance for her family and made survival my only purpose. My mother swore her relatives would be avenged.

That’s when I heard about the fate of my aunt, Therese, the seventh daughter of Everest. She was spared because she didn’t look like the rest of us. Green eyes, yellow hair, and she was allowed to live. I wondered if mercy was just another kind of cruelty, if being different was the only way to escape the fire. They called the culling of my eyes a mercy, but I knew it was just another way to erase who I was. I wondered what Therese had to sacrifice to be accepted by the enemy.

The kingdoms of Sea and Vine tried to help, but their losses were just as great. Refugees scattered, battles raged, and the world grew smaller, colder and emptier. After all the bloodshed, years slipped by, and the people of Snow were forgotten. The myth of a people once living has become fragile and easily lost.

The King of Ember beheaded the last Snow citizen himself. The crowd cheered, convinced the curse was broken. Everest’s shadow was finally gone. But I know better. Some things linger, even when the world insists, they’re finished. Let them celebrate. Let them believe Ember won. The world has changed, but as I sit here tracing frost on the window, I wonder if the story is truly over. Or maybe, just maybe, a blind girl could bring back hope—could warm a world that has forgotten how to feel. ❄︎

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