Archive of Our Own

There’s blood on the snow and there’s fire in the cornfields;
And we know the patterns, we’ll follow the rules,
We’ve been burned and been frozen, and always, the wound’s healed,
To bring us back here as fate plays us for fools
“Follow Me Down” Seanan McGuire

“Your highness,” a laughing, lilting voice teases, and Win turns. Her lady stands there, between Win and the sunrise, black hair illuminated by the golden light of the rising sun. Her green eyes are spring grass, lush and fresh and fertile, her red lips cherries, ripe and sweet.

(Her red lips are blood, slipping down pale skin to drip onto fresh snow, heat and life fading into the cold.)

Her hair this time is long, past her waist, past her hips, the longest strands curling at her knees, but for a moment, Win can see her as she has been before, short hair, curly, straight, black skin and brown skin and white skin, tall as the trees rising on the mountains, deep as the trenches curving through the sea.

Names twist through Win’s mouth, all the words she’s called her lady and all the words she has not yet used, but will, all the words for spring in all the languages of the world that are, and have been, and will be, until her lips and teeth and tongue settle on this: Ver, she breathes, and her lady bestows her with a smile like a kiss.

Win is eighteen, Ver twenty, and summer heat melts the world around them. Win’s noble steed is a classic muscle car, all sleek black paint and shiny chrome. Ver leans against the trunk, smoking black cigarettes that smell of mint and clove, and plants put out runners to twine around her toes, drawing strength from her brightness.

(She is their sun, and Win tries not to remember how bright she glows when she burns.)

“Come swim,” Ver says, grasping Win’s hands, lacing their fingers together. They run to the edge of the lake at dawn, plunge fully clothed into the sea under the high noon sky, sink naked into cool rivers at night. “I dare you to jump,” she adds, or “how long can we hold our breath?” or “Cannon ball!”

Water slicks through Win’s hair, plastering short red curls against her cheeks, and her skin is warmed by the sun or cool beneath the spread of the stars. Ver tastes like green things when she presses her mouth to Win’s, and sweet berries, and metallic -- no.

“I love you,” Win whispers into Ver’s skin, and Ver sets a crown of white flowers on her head.

*

Ver traces her fingers along Win’s bare stomach, unerringly finding all of the scars that were visible once, or will be visible soon. She has been carved open, broken apart, buried bloody and bruised deep beneath the earth, and yet still she rises and she will fall again.

“We could run away,” Ver suggests, because one of them always does, and this is Ver’s time. They sit in the middle of the woods, hours from any road, red and orange and yellow leaves tumbling down around them with each rush of wind. Ver has leaves tucked into her hair, and gathers the biggest and brightest in her hands, bouquets of autumn and the dying of the year.

“Across the ocean?” Win asks, but it’s not really a question. They can run (they have run, they will run, they are running), and no matter where they go, how far, how deep, they will come back. They don’t have to be found, they don’t have to decide to follow the rules, it is ingrained in their flesh and blood and bone.

(Shredded, torn open, spread across the land, and the world is reborn from their death.)

“Through the trees,” Ver responds, and tosses a handful of leaves into the air. They float down, float down, float down so sweetly, one following the next as they twist and they fall.

Win grabs Ver’s hands and pulls her to her feet. Hand in hand they run, Ver’s hair streaming behind them, and when they reach the edge, Ver leaps from the cliff first, and Win follows but a step later, surrounded in a cloud of her hair as she follows her down.

*

Win’s fingers are cold, and her toes, and her elbows and knees. Her lungs burn from the rush of icy air. She spreads her arms wide, basking in it. She is the winter, and the snow her blanket, the ice her domain. Her power can still rivers and bury all life in the cold.

Ver trembles, steam rising from her body, blood pooling beneath her on the snow.

“I love you,” she mumbles, words mostly stuck in her throat. Win kneels next to her, presses her fingers to her chilled skin. Flowers of ice bloom through her hair, down her cheeks, along her calves, and in each place, Win wants to press a kiss.

“My lady,” Win says, each word a chip of ice. “My love.”

Fire rises up, devouring bark and grass, flesh and bone, and Win turns away from her fallen lover. When she walks across the world, she leaves frost in her footprints, and drops of ice fall like tears.

*

Win is buried beneath a mountain of dirt and ice and snow on the longest night of the year, when the darkness has almost beat back the light. The sun will rise again, the world will continue, but Win never sees that dawn. She closes her eyes as cold seeps beneath her skin, freezing her blood in her veins. The winter will turn and spring will rise, and in the summer she will see her lady again.

A crown of white flowers and bright orange leaves rests on her hair, and she disappears with the taste of Ver’s kiss on her lips.

*

The sun rises in spring, and from the earth blooms the lady, dark hair and dark skin and dark eyes. She has burned and been reborn, and with her comes the thaw, warm air and bubbling streams and fresh green plants, and the smell of damp earth fills her with the breath of life.

She tips back her head, face to the sun, and takes in spring like a kiss.

Her name will come to her soon, and then with the turn of the season, she will find her lover, her king, and sink into the heat of the summer and then the transition into the fall.

Perhaps this lifetime is the one in which they will find a way for one to follow the other, follow her, follow her, follow her down.