[Nivalis Silverfrost]
The wind tried to tear the headscarf from Nivalis's silver hair, but the tie that Aster had made at the back of her head held tight. Bushes scraped against her legs as she pushed through them, making a trail for her children to follow. "Keep close," she kept murmuring, looking back at them again and again to make sure that they did.
With every step, her boots disappeared in the snow, heavy and wet, making her thighs burn with the effort of pulling them out again. Behind them, a section of the fence had toppled over into the snow; the wooden posts hadn't survived her attempts to climb over it.
The barn doors, when they finally reached them, were even bigger than they looked from the road, weathered grey wood held together with rusty metal strips, a large, heavy bar holding them shut. "H-help me with this," she hushed to her children, the mist of her breath disappearing in the wind even before her words could fully form.
Aster and Silvia both looked miserable beyond words, trembling all over from the cold, yet they still shuffled closer to help her. Together, they cleared the snow from the bottom of the doors with their boots, then tried to lift the heavy wooden thing together. But it refused to budge, rust and ice holding it firmly in place. A few more attempts, all with the same result.
Only after Nivalis wedged her knife beneath the bar and pried did it finally screech, with her putting all of her weight into it and Aster and Silvia straining alongside her to help. The doors did not open right away, but after several shuddering attempts, they shifted a little. One more collective heave, and they gave way, creaking loudly enough to drown out the wind for a moment. "Hurry, g-get inside," Nivalis hushed, pushing her children into the darkness before her.
Once they were all in, Nivalis quickly turned and pushed the heavy doors closed again, muffling the roar of the storm to a distant moan. For a long moment, they stood in the total darkness, just breathing, with their hearts pounding from the effort.
The air inside was heavy with the thick, earthy smell of old hay and animal dung, momentarily wrinkling her flushed nose. "Aster, l-light," she eventually said, her voice echoing in the quiet space.
A few quiet, shaky breaths later, he hummed back an incredibly tired, "Yeah," then a wobbling flame appeared in the darkness, small and shy above his scarred hand. His face was the first thing to be illuminated, with sunken cheeks and dark circles under his golden eyes. Then the flame grew a little brighter, revealing the rest of him—all thin and shivering, silver braids a mess, in a dirty dress. Beside him, half a head shorter, Silvia was in no better shape.
Slowly, the little flame in Aster's palm pushed the darkness back, revealing the abandoned barn in all its sorry glory. The entire place was small, just a simple, sturdy barn built to house animals and store feed, not people. A mountain of hay filled the left side of the place, all scattered about and half-rotten. The right side held the remnants of an old, wooden stable, its stalls half-collapsed and covered in cobwebs. Chicken coops lined the far wall, empty and silent. A few sad-looking farming tools leaned against them, all wooden.
With her breath misting in the air, Nivalis whispered, "Let's look for something... a-anything," then took a shaky step forward, deeper into the barn, boots crunching on the hay-strewn floor. The kids were right behind her, their footsteps much quieter, their breaths misty like hers.
They started their search near the old stable, with Aster holding his little flame high to light things up. Nivalis went through the stalls, one by one, pushing aside rotten boards and peeking into every dark corner she could find, but only got a bunch of cobwebs in her hair for her troubles. "N-nothing here," she huffed after a few minutes, brushing the sticky threads away from her face.
After that, they moved to the hay mountain, where they started poking around with a wooden pitchfork they'd found nearby. They were hoping to find a forgotten sack of potatoes buried beneath it all, something they'd value far more than any treasure right now, but only managed to stir up a cloud of dust that made them all cough. "Dammit," Nivalis muttered under her breath, her blue eyes turning to the chicken coops.
Their last chance, their last hope, were those sad-looking coops by the far wall. With little hope left on their faces, they shuffled over to them, still trembling from the cold as it wasn't that much warmer in here, and began their desperate search once more.
Aster's flame struggled to stay lit in his tired, numb hand as they inspected every crack, every nest, every nook in the wooden coops. "Anything?" they kept asking each other again and again, their whispers echoing in the dusty, eerie space. And again and again, they shook their heads, all disappointed.
Just as Nivalis was about to give up and tell her children that they'd manage somehow without food, that they'd just make a fire and rest, her blue eyes caught something. Behind a nest, tucked deep into a corner, a small, dark shape.
Her hand reached out even before her mind processed what it could be, fingers closing around a dusty brown bag. "I-I... I found something," she breathed, pulling the thing out from the darkness and into the wavering light of her son's flame, with a grunt as the thing was heavy.
It was an old, very old bag, made of some rough, brown material, all patched up and faded with age, with a piece of twine tied around its opening to keep it shut. Aster and Silvia huddled closer, their golden irises fixed on the dusty thing as Nivalis's trembling fingers worked at the knot. The twine snapped after a moment of pulling, and they peered inside.
Grain. Not the good, clean kind that they had at the inn, but some dark, wild-looking stuff, full of husks and tiny pebbles, the kind used to feed chickens with. A good half of it was spoiled and moldy, smelling like someone had already eaten it once.
And yet, the three of them smiled brighter than they had in days, eyes twinkling in the firelight. "Oh, thank the gods..." Nivalis sighed in relief, her shoulders slumping. No matter how terrible it looked or smelled, it was something to fill their bellies with. Even better, there was a broken clay jar not far from the coops, which they could use to cook the grain in. "...and whoever left this behind."
Jumping up and down on their toes, the children cheered, skirts swaying with the motion, though it lasted only for a few moments before exhaustion took over again.
With a last, tired glance at the coops, Nivalis took the bag and the jar, and together, the three of them trundled over to the hay. "Here... looks good," she hushed, guiding them towards the darkest spot in the barn, a little corner where the hay was piled high and seemed less rotten than the rest. There, they dropped the bags, their old ones with all of their belongings, and let out long, exhausted sighs. "Let's m-make a place here."
That was easier said than done, given that they had barely any strength left in their bodies. Still, the children began digging into the hay, burrowing into it like rabbits, removing all the rotten bits and making themselves a small, cozy nest. Nivalis, while they did that, stumbled almost blindly back to the stalls and grabbed a bunch of the boards they'd pushed aside earlier, anything that would burn.
By the time she made her way back, Aster and Silvia had already made themselves a nice little spot in the hay, with Silvia's old cloak spread out across it to keep their soft, pale bits from getting poked. When they saw her struggling back with an armful of wood, they scrambled up from the nest and cleared a small circle in the dirt for the fire, careful to keep all the hay well away from it.
A bit of awkward stacking and a wobbling flame later, and they had a small, steady fire going, one that pushed the darkness back and cast long, dancing shadows across the barn walls and their tired, relieved faces. "T-thank you, my love," Nivalis whispered to Aster as he finished with it, and together they all settled down into their little nest, butts sinking into the hay, aching legs finally relaxing.
It felt so incredibly good just to sit still, to rest after that miserable, endless day finally. The three of them huddled together on the cloak, with Nivalis in the middle and the kids at her sides, her arms pressing their petite, trembling bodies into her curves and softness. "Mmm..." she couldn't help but hum a little.
All three of them just sat there for a moment and stared at the fire, at the dust motes dancing in the air, not saying a single word. Just listening to the flames crackle and the moan of the wind outside, the rattle of the barn doors. None of them had the strength for anything else.
It took them a while, a good twenty minutes of warming their limbs, to start feeling a little more alive. Nivalis was the first to move, pushing herself just a little bit up, just enough to get her dress off. A bit awkwardly, she pulled it over her head, and then did the same to her tunic, exposing her full, heavy breasts to the firelight, beautiful as ever. The skin around the pink nipples tightened into little goosebumps from the chill in the air, faint veins visible beneath the pale, soft surface. "Take yours off as well. It's all wet," she said, her quiet words making the two snap out of their little dazes.
Silvia groaned from having to get up, but obeyed and did the same, her movements sluggish as she took off her dress and tunic, revealing a flat chest and small nipples that matched her mother's in both color and hardness, almost identical goosebumps on the surrounding skin.
Aster, however, was so exhausted and sleepy that he couldn't even lift his skirt past his knees, his skinny arms trembling from the effort. His boots were the only thing that he managed to take off, tossed aside with laces still tied.
Noticing that, Nivalis was quick to help her boy, her hands finding the hem of his skirt and gently pulling it over his head. She did the same to the tunic with embroidered flowers that he wore beneath, revealing a soft chest with a bony ribcage, delicate as could be. "T-thanks, Mom..." he shyly mumbled, just as her fingers slipped under the waistband of his mud-colored pants.
Lifting his hips off the bed, he let her pull them down for him, one little tug at a time. His boy-handle, pink and small as ever, peeked out from the fabric as she did, then milky thighs that had a bit of tremble in them, still. Knees, then all the way down past the knitted socks that began wiggling the moment they were free.
Those slid off much faster, leaving him completely naked on the bed, knees spread apart; not a hair to hide any of his soft, pale bits from her eyes. "There we go," she whispered, giving his flat tummy a little pat, then finished undressing herself.
When nothing was left on her but the headscarf, she took all of their clothes and carefully arranged them near the fire, then removed that as well, letting her long, silver hair cascade down her shoulders and cover her breasts. Every bit of space near the fire got taken by their soaked clothing, all of which would hopefully be dry by morning.
With a quiet sigh, Nivalis settled back down into their little hay-nest, legs stretching out in front of her. "Alright, let's see what we can do with that grain," she murmured, her stomach growling at the very thought of having something to eat. She reached for the dusty, old bag and the broken clay jar, pulling them closer to the fire, her wide hips shifting in the hay as she did.
Silvia got up and sat beside her, small butt wiggling much like her mother's, while Aster stayed where he was, too tired to move, with his head half-buried into the bed. He watched them through heavy lashes, his golden irises reflecting the flames as they murmured to each other, trying to figure out together how to cook their dinner. "It... smells funny," he heard Silvia say after she took a little sniff from the bag. A few more whispers, then they seemed to come up with a plan.
Grabbing a handful of the grain from the bag, Nivalis brought it for her daughter to see, her voice quiet and tired, "See these moldy and weird bits?" She pointed out the white and dark spots on the seeds, and everything that just looked wrong, then added, "Just pick them out, like that." One by one, she removed the spoiled grains, tossing them back into the bag until only the somewhat decent-looking ones remained in her palm. Those, she then poured into the jar. "Now you try," she whispered.
Silvia nodded and copied her, scooping up a bit of the grain, then began picking out the bad bits, her small fingers moving clumsily through the dark seeds. "Like this?" she asked after a few moments, holding her palm up for her mother to see. A sleepy smile touched her small lips when a hum of approval came from Nivalis, and she emptied the good grain into the jar as well.
That went on for quite a while, with the bag placed between them, a mother and a daughter sitting naked by the fire, picking out the spoiled grain together. "Is this one okay?" Silvia would ask, holding a dark seed between her thumb and forefinger. Nivalis would squint at it in the dim firelight, then either nod or shake her head, depending on how it looked. Aster helped, too; his small hand came to rest upon her tender behind as Nivalis worked, giving her a little pat every now and then.
It was when the clay jar—or rather, a bottom half of one, all sharp edges—got filled to about a third with good grain, that Nivalis called it quits. "Alright, that's all," she murmured, tying off the bag with a soft sigh and setting it aside. She wiped her dusty fingers on her thigh, faint smudges appearing on her pale skin, then added, "Not much, but we need to be careful... this storm might keep us here for weeks."
Silvia nodded, eyes drifting towards the heavy barn doors for a moment, listening to the wind still howling outside, still raging at everything and everyone who dared to be in its way. The girl forced a smile, a small thing on her lips, and looked back at the clay jar, at the grain inside. "Needs water, right?" she quietly asked, to which Nivalis just hummed back.
With that, the girl leaned over the broken jar and held her hand above it, palm down. Then, with a shaky breath, she did her thing—one little shard of ice after another began to appear in the air and drop inside with a quiet clink.
A small pile of ice formed quickly, all shimmering and pretty in the firelight. "Good. Thank you, sweetie," Nivalis whispered once there was enough of it, her hand finding her daughter's leg and giving it a little squeeze, making the girl smile more genuinely.
Straining her arms, Nivalis took the now much heavier jar and set it right into the fire, amidst the embers, being very careful with the sharp edges. Silvia, meanwhile, rummaged through the pile of wooden boards they'd brought and found there a small, flat piece, perfect for stirring. "Here," she said, handing it over after wiping it clean with the corner of the cloak they sat on.
What followed was a long, quiet wait, first for the water to melt, then for the grain to cook, with them trying their hardest not to fall asleep as the jar sat there in the flames. Aster almost did a few times, eyelids drooping lower and lower with every breath, but his head kept jerking back up just before sleep could take him.
The smell of the grain wasn't great, and that was even after they'd picked out all the bad bits. But none of them complained, not even once. Hunger was the best spice. 'Should've rinsed the grain first...' Nivalis thought halfway through the cooking, a sleepy grimace passing over her face, but it was too late to change anything.
Finally, after what felt like forever, came that beautiful word, "Ready." Nivalis carefully pulled the now-hot jar from the fire, using her socks as makeshift mitts. The grain inside had turned into a soft, dark mush that looked more like mud than food, with steam rising in thin wisps.
Silvia made a face at it, her cute, flushed nose wrinkling, and yet she was the first to scoop a bit of the mush with the wooden spoon-like stick, blow on it, and then taste it. A series of expressions flickered across her young features in quick succession—a small frown, then a slight gag, then a thoughtful hum. "Tastes awful," she declared after swallowing, then scooped up another spoonful.
Aster and Nivalis both chuckled at that, then took their turns, all wrinkling their noses at the sour, moldy taste of it. "Yeah, this... isn't good," the boy muttered, licking the spoon clean, then stuck his tongue out and wiggled it around cutely. Pink flesh glistened in the firelight, as did their smiles.
They ate it anyway; the three of them quietly passed the spoon around and scraped it against the bottom of the jar until not a single bit of the sour, half-moldy mush was left. Until their bellies, for the first time in a while, stopped growling and hurting. A little over a minute, all it took for them to finish the whole thing, their faces all smudged and dirty by the end of it. And happy, because the only thing left for tonight was to laze around in bed and forget about their troubles for a bit.
...