Thawed Hearts

Chapter 2

Nature doesn't fight the winter. It's a part of creation. It's who it inherently is. The natural world doesn't go around pretending that winter is not happening. It doesn't attempt to live the same life it lived in the season before. No. The world readies itself, adapts, and performs extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get through.

Winter is a time of retirement. It's where sparse resources are utilized at utmost capacity and carry out acts with brutal efficiency. The most remarkable change occurs during that time, for winter is not death but refinement.

The best refinements are not large or grand. They're simplistic, which is why winter is the most spartan season. There's nothing showy about it like spring draped in colorful blossoms and blooms. Neither does it feel the need to wave a dramatic goodbye like fall. Winter is bare, monochromatic, and unfashionable.

And when it's cold, so cold the sky rains thousands of soft kisses to the ground, winter showers its flawless beauty on the earth. The icy, frigid forest echoes lost dreams and shadows of things past. Yet, in those same wintry woods, hope glitters in the sun. It has a choice, stay frozen or keep moving toward the heat for a thawing.

It's inevitable. Everyone has a winter--- a season for flourishing and one of growth, where we're stripped to the bare bones. It's the same as a dreary deciduous tree that loses its leaves and looks like a skeleton amid the snowy landscape. This refinery season either brings out the best or the worst, exposing painful nerve endings open to feeling so raw. If it's not treated correctly, that skin will harden and numb. In some cases, the damage is permanent.

When that happens, instead of hibernation, a disappearance is invoked. It's easy to disappear in winter because it brings darkness when the sun fails to rise above the horizon due to shorter days. Most people are cozy, warm, and content inside their dwellings. No one thinks about getting lost in the cold except those who are already freezing, and usually, they're disoriented and practically frost-bitten. But it's a slow type of freeze until an eventual vanishment has occurred.

Disappearing is an intriguing thing. Even though it's easy to disappear in winter darkness, it makes nothing permanently go away. The absence of light distorts reality because the truth is still there, only blanketed and often forgotten. Usually, those that vanish were first erased. That only happens in an intense winter of the soul.

No one knows more about vanishing than Mary, the Princess of Wales. It started with her father's discontent at not having a son and grew as his displeasure with her mother increased. Instead of dealing with the issues, the man became enchanted with the beauty of another. All of his pain ceased and whispered promises were made in the shadows. The King eventually married this enchantress, and once the wicked queen rose to power, the princess withered away to a castle in the countryside.

But promises come with a costly price that must be delivered. Promises made, promises kept in the form of another baby girl. And so the expense grew. The King faced a considerable conundrum. He divorced his wife for lack of a son and married another who now birthed another princess. In order to "try again" with this woman, he would have to make her child number one. His Majesty became rendered frail of mind to the desire of a son.

Once again, Mary faded a little more. Being declared a bastard is akin to nonexistence. Her world tilted on its axis. While she was dreaming of butterflies, the King dreamed of other things. It was then the princess learned a harsh lesson. People who are not beneficial, who make mistakes, and who aren't needed can be removed. She had been removed and replaced.

Some realities are too punishing for anyone, much less children. Yet somehow, Mary had found herself in a different existence than she had wished. One that felt a lot like she had been cursed. The world pauses for royalty but does nothing for bastards or common folk. And Mary supposed that, like the rest of the populace, she would have to make her own way. She's not the princess who's saved. She's the princess who survives.