Stepping outside, her feet meet diamonds on the sidewalk, the snowglobe world silently having been turned upside down as she had worked. The turn seems to have met its zenith as the flakes fall fast and thick and heavy. The stark white feathers flutter against her eyelashes and brush her cheeks cunningly, leaving a flushing pink behind as warmth rushes up to her skin after their cold kisses. Pulling her scarf tight, she glances up at the slate-grey sky, which just seems to smile at her in the form of a cold breeze lifting the curls of her hair for a brief moment, and a few snowy zephyrs leap up from the thickening drifts to play and nip at her ankles as she starts to make her way home. But she deviates today, her feet carrying her from path to park; such an even as the first snow deserves the respect of observation. Soon, her steps go from diamond-dusted to a pleasant crunch not unlike that first bite into perfect gingerbread. The wind flirts saucily with the hem of her coat and that of her skirt underneath it, caressing her legs with frosty fingers as though whispering her own beatuy back to her.

The world seems to grow quieter amidst the silence of the snowfall, the flakes interlocking their unique lattices together to form heavy white carpet that softens the cacaphony of the world. The hum and buzz and bustle seem to fall away, dampened by wintry ethereality, as if they cannot bear to disrupt such a transformation. A transformation that borders on the divine, with her as its single witness.

She has always loved winter, the long sleep of nature. Everything must take its rest, even the world itself in its turn. She loves the promise that lies in bare branches and blanched grass, to imagine what nature has in store for its next act in her lifetime. Even more so than that, winter teaches her to revel in the what is and the now. In this moment, not the looking forward or the glancing behind.

And so she walks in snowy footsteps, the world gone silent around and above her. Winter recognizes Her worshipper, a lady of Her court, and sends icy diamonds to adorn her hair and cloak her shoulders for this, the overture to Winter’s first whisper.