I stared onto my plate, filled with a bun, delicious cheese and so much more. This was really the best breakfast one could get around these villages, but I still couldn´t dig in. Eyes wide open, I could only ignore everything around me while fighting with the scenes that played out in my head. My one hand pressed onto two pieces of paper, folded for obvious reasons, but still way too close to me.

“Hey, slut, that’s nothing to fret over. You were good, I swear.” The whore whispered into my ear. I seriously didn´t know if her words made it better, or worse … they probably made it worse.

I could feel my eyelid twitching as I lifted up my bun and bit into it. The tavern owner was watching, so I kind of had to force myself to eat, even though I felt like puking.

As soon as we finished, we stood up one by one, stored all of our unnecessary things in our carriage and saddled the two horses in front of it. The whore and I each got one of them. It was quite obvious why I would get one, but she was only allowed to ride one because of her status as my chaperone. At least on paper, she never did any hard labour as she taught noble children how to behave properly for years.

I could only daydream for hours as Hannah took the reigns of my horse and guided it further north. Trees, devoid of any leaves littered the hilly landscape as our little caravan decided to take a break at a nearby creek. I was still gazing into the distance, busy with myself the whole time and didn´t even realize the change in the weather until Hannah looked up.

Beautiful snowflakes were falling down the sky, melting as they hit my nose. I reached out to one of them, but it evaded my grasp and flew onwards to the ground, only to melt there as well. I looked up into the sky, noticed the white clouds and a single bird in the sky, doing his circles above us.

Winter was coming.

We were already packed in clothing at this point, so the cold temperature wasn’t really a problem, but the snow certainly was. Even though I had no instinctual fear of it as I had with water, it still hindered our progress, especially after the third day since we left that village. The snow was already knee-deep at this point, and the trace we were following was buried beneath it. And yet, we still headed in the same direction, hoping the poachers didn´t make any detours.

We were thus left with no other choice but to rely on my senses each and every night. And thus, it happened that I was sitting alone outside in the darkness, the snow blazing around me. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of the forest very intensely.

I heard the sounds of wolves in the distance, howling loudly. They were searching for prey, hungrily and feeling cold.

A nearby deer breathed loudly, exhausted from the snow, but also glad to have found a relatively warm place to rest.

I heard the sound of the wind, whistling around something human-sized three metres away.

The blazing of the wind overshadowed the sound of smaller animals but here and there, I could still make out a hare, a fox and even a bird, resting in a nearby hollow tree.

The snoring of my guards felt so distant to me, even though they were close by.

I ignored the sound of the whore as she failed to control her hunger once more. I ignored a wolf growling at me from close by, I ignored how Hannah stepped out from the cave and swung a torch at it, I ignored the crunching of the snow underneath her feet as she walked towards me, the wolf running away from us.

“Still no luck?” She said, crouching down in front of me and freeing my hair from all the snow.

“Worse. It is unlikely I will find the unicorn in that weather. And even if they have the exact location of its nest, it is improbable they will get to it.” Improbable, but not impossible.

“Should we turn around?” She asked, to which I shook my head. We couln´t go yet. The unicorn was only one of my objectives after all.

“No … it was pure luck that one was spotted. They are nearly extinct by now, but we need one of them.” Unicorns lived long, but they didn´t reproduce that much. They weren’t useful animals like a cow or a horse, but their horn had unique magical properties. And thus, they were hunted to extinction.

“We only have proviant for adventuring three more days. After that, we will need to turn around.” Hannah stated concerned about the snoring men inside the cave.

“I see … so a godly intervention is needed?” I mumbled quietly.

“… so it seems.” Hannah stood up, looked around in curiosity and then left quietly. She didn´t want to interrupt the meeting with me and the goddess after all.

Finally, I opened my eyes and looked at the goddess three metres away from me, glowing in green, gentle light. She wore her usual clothing, a tight green dress that went down to her knees and green summer shoes.

“We need to talk about your winter fashion.” I said, smiling wryly, looking down towards her feet where flowers seemed to grow out from underneath the snow.

“You are wearing your thick jacket just for show as well, so let´s not.” She said and strolled towards me, leaving a trail of colourful flowers wherever she went. She sat down beside me and together, we stared into the distance for some time. “This world … is so fragile.”

“Life always is.” I said quietly.

“And only death is absolute.” She stated, much to my surprise. I raised an eyebrow because of her untypical words and made her smile. “Why are you so surprised?”

“You are the goddess of life, so why are you praising death?”

“Have you ever imagined a world without death?” I did. Purgatory was such a place and except for the times Aska entertained me, it was quite boring after some time.

“Sounds kind of boring.” I stated.

“It is. The rich would get richer while the poor would lose every bit of power they have. Slowly but surely, new ideas would be drowned out by the established system as the rich refuse to let go of their position. Greed would reign supreme, inequality the only factor driving this world. Otherwise, it would stagnate, it wouldn’t change at all. Life means change Lucinda. Life means ageing, loving another person, the will to reproduce … death is necessary Lucinda. Everyone is equal in front of death, and without this ultimate cut in life, this world wouldn’t turn around anymore.” She said, looking into the distance.

 “It looks like you know what you are talking about.” I said and noticed how the flowers around her vanished slowly.

“The world of the gods is exactly that place. Since eternities, nobody had brought forth change on this planet. Only the ideas of humans or other dying creatures changed our world as well, and that only marginally. It is the centre of everything, and yet it is completely frozen in place.” She said while looking kind of sad.

“You want them to die?” I asked slowly. If I had the chance to, I was more than willing to eradicate a few of them.

“No … my brothers and sisters, my friends and adversaries alike live there … and I would dearly miss them as well. Just like them, I am frozen in place, barely able to change my way of living. I am life itself, and yet I fail to live.” And Aska was death, yet he failed to die. It was quite the irony.

“… you desire death?” I asked, already imagining what her answer would be.

“In the same way you and Aksa are desiring life. We are drawn to each other like magnets, we are nothing without each other.” Without life, there would be no death. And without death, all life would be meaningless.

“I like children because …” I stated, slowly realizing why I acted how I did around them.

“They are full of life. You wanted to be close to Jacob because he was overflowing with life at that point in time … but you already knew that, didn´t you?” I nodded slowly. I already had a hunch, but I wasn’t entirely sure then.

“… can you tell me why I am forgetting these things?” I asked and frowned as the green-haired goddess shook her head slowly.

“… no. I wish I could, but I can´t. You were already like this the first time I noticed you and after that I could see no reason for your amnesia.” So the reason for it must lay in my time in purgatory if she told me the truth.

“Take a look at my memories.” I stated, hopeful to find out what Aska did to me.

“I can´t. Aska protected your memories from me in the same way I shield them from him.” She muttered, seemingly a bit depressed. “Only you can remember … or maybe Aska is able to help you with remembering, but I am certainly not.”

“Fine …” I said a bit depressed about my helplessness.

“But I can give you a tip.” She stated, but her expression already told me I wouldn’t like it. “Sometimes it is easier to remember things when you put yourself in the same situation.”

“Oh, please, not you as well.” I groaned and held my head with my hands in frustration.

“I never said it was a great tip.” She said, smiling wryly.

“… no, you did not. Can I ask you a personal question?” I asked, just as I felt she wanted to change the topic altogether.

“I guess so.” She said and looked into my eyes deeply.

“Are you my birth mother?” I asked, tilting my head and staring back into her green eyes. She was quite shocked by my question, then smiled bitterly as she failed to find the right words instantly.

“… no. I wish you were my child, but I am not your mother … Aska is your sole creator.” She said slowly, seemingly worried about my feelings. I exhaled loudly as this question was finally solved. Aska who I refused to see as my father was in fact my dad. Even though it was weird that I had no mother …

“How do you know that?” I asked, squinting my eyes. She just told me she didn´t know where my amnesia came from, but she knew about my missing mother. She was either lying, or there had to be something else.

“That … I´m not the right person to tell you that.” The goddess said and lowered her head. I couldn’t sense her lying, but that didn´t necessarily mean she told me the truth. She was a goddess after all. Still, the bond that grew between us as we talked about life and death was severed at this moment. The magical atmosphere vanished, leaving behind nothing but the winter landscape.

“Why are you here?” I asked. She wasn’t here to tell me about my desires. And neither was she here to talk about life and death with me. I could see that in her eyes.

“You need my help, don’t you?” Irminsul stated. I did need her help to find this unicorn, the question was what price I had to pay.

“And you want something.” I said slowly.

“Certainly. You need to listen to someone.” She said as if it was nothing. If I just needed to listen … well, I could do that.

“Hmm … alright.” I nodded and stood up.

“How fast can you run?” She asked. Come to think of it, I never ran that fast, except when I tried to reach the mansion before the werewolves. But back then, it was more like parkour than anything else.

“Fast.” I answered and grinned wildly.

“Great. Take a sword with you.” She said. Silently, I turned around and walked towards the cave the others were resting in. I placed my index finger in front of my mouth as Hannah looked at me in wonder, strolled towards a nearby guard and stole his sword, including the scabbard. Securing all of it on my back, I stepped out of the cave once more and looked at the goddess floating in the air.

She pointed eastwards and started floating in that direction, at first slowly though. I jogged behind her for a hundred metres, until I kicked the ground and dashed through the snow.