Winter is a merciless season which takes the life indiscriminately with the freezing temperatures, consuming the life of anything that wasn’t prepared to face it.

Even with all proper preparations, one would still feel cold and even fall ill.

In those times, anybody with sane judgement would stay inside the walls of their homes or shelters. The barren and inhospitable land remained unpopulated. 

Many consider being exiled or thrown away into the barren land a cruel death sentence where one could slowly witness the fire of life being consumed by the cold.

But everything has an opposite side.

A mountain dressed in white is one of the many sights to behold, the frozen lakes and waterfalls. Artists could find inspiration from a tragedy but from a war it would twist into propaganda to get a reaction out from the population to rise the sense of belonging, brotherhood, nationalism and more. 

But every ounce of inspiration and romanticism would die the moment those souls set a foot onto the battlefield and come face to face with the true scenery of what war truly means.  

It should be lonely.

Yet a single armored man didn’t have the feeling of loneliness as he used his broadsword to support his weight while he kept moving forward, the cold white land didn’t proportionate good company but for the bodies burrowed in the snow provided a morbid company to each one with a different face that told a different story with an unfortunate and early end.

Unlike him, whose story has yet to end, whether his ending is happy or tragic matters not. But the present is engulfing his mind with doubt, as the winter slowly drains his life force with the sole intention of extinguishing his dim witting flame and embrace his body for the eternal slumber.

The dangerous familiarity of the cold touching his vulnerable body despite wearing his armor and bear’s force him to reenact memories dropping his mind more into the pits of despair yet he uses them to fuel his flame and move forward with renewed vigor helping him to ignore the cold and exhaustion.

His gaze focused on what is in front of him and not of what is around him, the bodies of his fellow knights shall be immortalized in songs and poems from bards yet their bodies forgotten between the snow next to the scum who forced their hands.

One vision isn’t the best in the middle of the night, but the moonlight is strong enough to allow him to see the form of a makeshift camp, now abandoned and devoid of life. His gaze looks around, noticing a cooking pot and the food inside completely frozen solid. His mind lingers the thought of food and a warm meal, yet he still must rescue her highness, the sole reason of the sacrifice of his group and his only reason for his determination.

He moved towards a tent and moves the thick curtain only to find animal skin piled up pretending to be some sort of bed; he moved towards another tent only to find the exact scenery than before but his search didn’t stop even if it felt fruitless when the numbers of tents to search became few in numbers, his heart tightened as a knot formed in his throat when a horrible thought came to mind.

If his deepest fear become true, then everything would have been for naught and he would have to surrender to the embrace of winter for the last time, the winter which has been waiting for him for a long time since he was merely a kid.

His hand moves away from the curtain of the next tent and finds almost the same scenery, yet before he moves to another tent, his eyes catch the small mountain of skins and wool at the corner of the tent.

He would have left for another tent if it wasn’t for his instinct, like a call for him to approach that mess.

His heart skipped a bit when he noticed the indigo hair as he approached. His heart ignited his flame in life again.

Between the skin and other type of fabrics, he found her young highness hiding from the cold inside, asleep and ignorant of what had happened outside.

Yet he couldn’t return in the middle of the night with no means of fast transportation. Trying to do so in hostile lands would mean in certain death.

With little choice, he left her highness inside the tent. His body was hit by the icy wave of winter again. 

Immediately, he reached for the other empty tents and tore them down for the fur that could provide any sort of warmth for the pair. 

He gathered the mantles along with pelts and carefully put them inside the tent to not wake her Highness Anneliese and expose her to the cold reality. 

With his job finished, he entered the improved tent and laid on the makeshift bed, allowing his body to rest after a long while of strenuous work and lengthy battles.

Even if he completed his mission, he couldn’t celebrate.

Because he had nobody to celebrate with.

Alone in the world once again.