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A winter's day; a frozen forest. Along with the ground, trees, streams, and wind, time itself seemed frozen—its telling was impossible with a plane of sheetrock-gray clouds stretching across the sky, blocking out the sun and making distinction between dawn, noon, and dusk impossible. Skeletal aspens reached towards the gray clouds, their limbs dripping with icicle tears as they silently cried out for the return of spring's warmth. The pines suffered more gracefully, drooping under the weight of snow that built up on their branches, warning travelers that fire building in their shade would be a mistake—perhaps the last one they would ever make. Not that there were any travelers in this leg, arm, and neck of the woods to make such a mistake.
No travelers, only the hermit.
Dressed in fur and hide, he walked alone with a fresh deer carcass slung about his broad shoulders. His movement was music: percussion from the squeaky crunch of his boots tromping through the snow, ambience from his rattling quiver and tool belt, and leading vocals from the breath rushing up his throat and misting out of his mouth like palm-sized ghosts. This one-man-band trudged along, retracing his boot prints and making his way home after the hunt.
Though he was wrapped up from head to toe, he could still feel the cold biting his cheeks and nipping at his nose. It was tiring. Sucking in air, he tottered over to a aspen. Taking a moment to rest a mittened hand on the dull-white bark, he caught his breath and shifted the carcass on his back. A crick followed by a grunt of pain; perhaps he would be taking a longer break than he thought. With a sigh that created a billowing cloud of vapor, he let the deer carcass fall to the snow. He could gather up his strength for as long as he wanted; there was no danger of his catch being attacked by flies after all.
Leaning back against the trunk, he slid down into a sitting position: elbows on knees, hands hanging between shins. He closed his eyes. An itch niggled its way into his nose and, scrunching up his face, he threw his head forward in a sneeze. A loud one, but not loud enough to mask the 'THUNK' that sounded off just above his head.
He threw himself from the tree, looking back to see an arrow, still vibrating from the impact, stuck to the trunk. He stared. The arrow was black and had a curvy, gothic style to it that made it look more suitable for the top of a noble's wrought-iron fence rather than a soldier or hunter's quiver. There was a soft hiss and the arrow disintegrated, crumbling like sand before turning into a black smoke that blew back in the direction the arrow had flown from.
Reloading.
Panting, the hermit pushed himself to his feet and ran back onto the boot trail leading home, deer carcass forgotten. The gentle squeaking crunch of his boots was replaced by a steady 'thump, thump, thump,' as he slogged through the snow, its depth restricting his speed to a jog.
'Twang!'
A loud hiss as another arrow shot forth. He threw himself forward onto the ground, barely dodging the pitch-black projectile. It flew overhead, then began to disintegrate in midair, the smoke making an arc and curving around like a boomerang back to its unseen master.
Blowing snow off of his lips, the hermit leapt up once more, going off of his boot trail so he could find cover in a nearby line of evergreens. Diving behind the nearest trunk, he took a split second to catch his breath and assess the situation. A plan formed. Standing up, he braced his shoulder before ramming into the conifer's trunk and quickly stepping back. The impact shook the entire tree free of snow, creating a miniature avalanche that also set off the next tree over. A domino effect took place, each tree setting off the next until the entire tree line had dumped its snow on the ground below.
He now had a snow bank to hide behind as he fled. He charged ahead, keeping a low profile as he followed his new line of cover. Though it kept him from sight, it didn't stop his unseen pursuer from blind-firing. Another black arrow flew through the conifers, flying wild of the hermit but still melting away to smoke before returning to its master for another shot. Once he reached the end of his cover, he redouble his efforts, slogging through the snow and getting back onto his boot trail. A few yards of open air and he would reach another tree line—the beginning of an aspen grove.
Breathing had become difficult; his body was covered with sweat despite the cold. Though the grove would give him cover to flit between as he made his retreat, he began to wonder if his heart would be able to drive him all the way back to his cabin. At this rate it seemed unlikely.
'Twang!'
Another hiss, this one sounding much truer to target. With a shout to psyche himself up, he dove towards the aspens, landing behind a trunk just as another 'THUNK' sounded from above. Another near miss. Scrambling to his feet, he pushed himself forward, following the meandering path of his boot prints through the aspen grove. The arrow shots had ceased but he knew his pursuer was still on his trail.
After another minute of panicked fleeing, he reached the end of the grove. Beyond the tree line was a massive clearing. Four months ago it had been a giant meadow of swaying grass and wildflowers. Now it was a featureless lake of snow. An island rose up from the middle of the white expanse—a sanctuary marked by a tight-knit cluster of snow-powdered pines reaching towards the gray sky. Nestled underneath their lower branches was a cabin, windows dark and chimney smokeless. The boot prints lead there; they lead home.
The hermit charged ahead, limping and wheezing from exertion. His vision was swaying and blurry but he pushed forward through the pain, driven on by a mental cocktail of fear, determination, and pride. The cabin grew in size as he stumbled across the white clearing. It grew until he could make out the individual logs making up the wall. It grew until he could make out the small stones that served as bricks for the chimney. It grew until he could have drawn his bow and shot and arrow right through a window.
'Twang!'
He tried to dodge, but all he managed was a swaying jerk to the right. The black arrow found its mark on his back, piercing through his furs, his skin, and the flesh of his exhausted heart. He screamed, spine arching as the pain whipped through his body like a dry season firestorm. Knees giving out, he tumbled forward, hitting the snow face-down. The ice stung his nose and cheeks, but the pain of the cold was incomparable to the pain of the arrow digging into his insides. Whimpering, legs slowly thrashing in the snow, he suffered as the arrow disintegrated once more, but this time it did not return to its master. The hermit cried out, face twisting like a tragedy mask as the arrow began to melt into his skin, spreading across the surface like ink before seeping through and twisting around his heart. There was no blood. His skin was unbroken, but still the pain wrapped around his throat and throttled him into submission. And this was not a physical pain; this was a pain of the mind. Choking back tears, hands clutching at chest, he rolled onto his side into a fetal position, rocking back and forth in time with his whimpers. The stinging was dulling yet the pain was intensifying; it was like a splinter turning into a tooth-ache—a maddening throbbing in his insides that worked its way from his chest to his head. His mind. It settled there and started to tear something down—something within that had kept him safe in his emotional isolation all these years. As it broke—brick by brick—the cold feelings contained within seeped through like the hot tears that began to leak from his eyes. A bitter taste gripped his tongue, throwing him into a fit of wet coughs as the tears traced lines down his cheeks, following the minute crevices of his wrinkles. He moaned and rolled over once more. Now he was facing back the way he had come. Now he saw the figure approaching.
It was dressed in a hooded cloak of polar furs, white as the snow it moved across, with a pale-pink trim of fluff. It held a rose-colored composite bow as gaudy and ornate as the black arrow that now lay melted around the hermit's heart. Though the figure was drawing closer, the sound of crunching snow from its footsteps was absent, and when it drew close enough the hermit saw why: gently fluttering behind the figure's back was a pair of great white wings.
The hermit tried to push himself away but his legs were too weak and the snow too heavy. As he struggled, the figure stopped before him, hovering in place. The hermit looked up. Now he saw the face beneath the hood. It was a woman. She had pale brown skin and an albino-pink eye—the other was hidden behind a lock of white hair. Her face was stony—a subtle expression somewhere between disdain and pity. It infuriated the hermit. Fighting against the cold that was choking out his heart and mind, he fixed his twisted face on the woman and said: "w-what did you do to me you cur-sed witch!"
The woman said nothing. Her bow disintegrated into a pink mist and she raised her arms out to the hermit as she floated closer.
"Get back!" he said, holding out a trembling hand. The woman gently brushed it aside before resting both her hands on the front of her cloak. She undid the front, opening up the heavy furs and exposing her naked body to the hermit without a single change in her stony expression. Slowly, she bent forward and wrapped him up in her slender arms and warm cloak, holding him close to her chest as she lifted him out of the snow.
"Get'cher f-filthy hands off, you—" the hermit began, but his words fell apart into another stream of tearful coughs. The cold was unbearable; in all his years alone he had never felt a cold like this—a cold that pierced blood, fur, and fire and chilled a man's soul instead of his body. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block the tears. No matter how hard he tried, that cold of the mind continued to chill his insides, and the only thing that seemed to dull that pain—that ache—was the feeling of the angel's heart gently beating in his ear. He couldn't fight her—his one source of warmth in a wilderness frozen in winter sleep. He stopped struggling.
Snowflakes began to drift from the gray sky, dancing around the two of them in time with the flutters of the angel's wings. the hermit moaned again, and the angel rested a hand on his head, pressing him closer to her chest, a quiet "hush" drifting past her lips as she stroked his scraggily hair. In time, his quiet whimpering stopped.
The angel drifted forward, carrying the shivering hermit to his cabin.
♦ ♦ ♦
The fire the angel had started filled the room with a soft rosy scent, masking the smell of pine and earth the hermit was used to. He lay on his cot with a fur blanket on top of him—the angel had removed his bow, tools, and clothing, leaving him nearly naked beneath the sheets. Apart from the snaps and pops that jumped from the fireplace, the only other sound was the raspy breathing of the hermit as he glared at the angel. She had taken her coat off and now hovered in a legs-crossed sitting position at his bedside, her wings folded forward over her chest in a half-hearted display of modesty.
After a gulp and a steadying breath, the hermit found his voice, words wavering in time with his shivers: "what did you do to me?"
The angel said nothing, expression still set in that infuriating blend of disdain and pity. Temper rising, the hermit opened his mouth to repeat the question. Before he could, she answered: "I helped you."
With his mouth already open, the hermit's jaw only had to drop a few millimeters. "What?"
"As a servant of Eros, I helped you."
"Helped me! You think sticking an arrow in some poor bastard's back and cursing him is a way of lending a hand?"
The angel closed her eyes. "I did not curse you."
The hermit tried make a noise of disgusted disbelief, but all that came out was another flurry of coughs. The cold feeling was clawing at his mind once again, and now that he was separated from the angel, its rending talons were twice as sharp. Tears once again threatened to spill out, and it took all of his pride to fight against the urge to let his emotions get the better of him. After his coughing subsided, he resumed glaring at the angel. "So what do you call this?"
"I did not curse you, misguided child. I only—"
"CHILD?" the hermit spat, "I've lived more'n forty winters in these woods of mine, and I did it all without the help of single Tom, Dick or Harry, you hear me? You can't call an independent, rugget bastard like me a tyke! I managed it all al... all alo... nnn..."
That bitter taste had found its way onto the hermit's tongue again, and the ache in his heart intensified so much he had to clutch his chest. That word. Just thinking it was like prodding a fresh bruise. He shut his eyes and clenched his teeth as the urge to cry once again threatened to win over his stubborn pride.
The angel seemed to notice his discomfort. She rested a hand on the side of his head, gently brushing his hair and cheek. As much as he wanted to lash out and swipe her hand away, the hermit couldn't ignore the soothing warmth of her fingertips sliding across his skin, dampening the chills that wracked his being. He closed his eyes. With every tender stroke, his shivers and aches receded, replaced with a strange, fluttery feeling that was as alien to him as the chill of the black arrow.
Eventually the hermit found his voice again. He reopened his eyes and tried to fix another glare on the angel stroking his face, but all he could manage now were the wet eyes and thin frown of a hurt puppy. "why?" he asked, "why'd you curse me so?"
"I did not curse you."
"Nuts to that. you—"
"I only revealed feelings you had remained willfully blind to all your life."
"...What?"
"You have been living without love all your life, neither given nor received. This is unacceptable in the eyes of Eros."
"What in the blue hells are you talking about? My folks gave me plenty of care! And who the hell is 'eh rose?' "
"There is love beyond the bonds of family and you have, by your own devices, been a stranger to that love all your life. Eros, the goddess of love, tasked me with... educating you."
At this, the hermit was able to regain his glare. "Are you saying that your boss sent you here to stab me in the damn back because I was perfectly happy living by myself for the past forty winters?"
"She sent me here to open your eyes to your sacrilege."
"Sacri-what?"
After thinking for a moment, the angel said: "misbehavior."
"Misbeha- I've been living by myself and bothering no one! How is that misbehaving in any gods-damned book of rules, holy or otherwise?"
The angel paused mid-stroke. She took her hand away from the hermit's cheek. Instantly, the freezing feeling returned to his heart with a vengeance, and he had to stifle a cry and clutch at his chest once again.
"Do you feel it?" the angel asked.
"Why—"
"Do you feel it?"
"Yes! I feel your damn curst poison! You—"
"This is not poison. This is a feeling you have caused in the hearts of every soul whose love you have cruelly rejected."
"I what?"
The angels expression instantly tipped away from pity and settled on full-blown disdain. She unfurled her wings and thrust a finger at the hermit's pained face. He recoiled.
"Five winters ago," the angel said, "you turned away a cloaked child when all she desired was to share her venison with you."
"HER venison? She wanted to snatch away a piece of mine! I don't have any grub to spare during the late winter days 'less I want to end up too famished to go hunting again in the spring! 'Sides, I've seen how those little devils move in snow up to their cheeks; she wouldn't have any damn problem catching her own!"
The angel continued unperturbed. "Eight falls past: you refused the knowledge and heartfelt advances of this forest's crow sage without a second thought."
"She had nothing to teach me about skinning a buck any faster and I have no hankering for any wishy-washy poetry hogwash! Why is it a sin to your pushy goddess for a man to want to be left well enough alone?"
"Ten summers ago: you fled from a slug-woman when all she wanted was the comfort of your touch."
"She was disgusting!" the hermit said, throwing up an arm in exasperation before quickly lowering it back to his aching heart with a wince.
The angel stomped her feet onto the cabin floor and stood up, towering over the hermit. Her wings trembled behind her like nimbus clouds threatening to turn stormy. "She was heartbroken."
The hermit shrank back, hand still rubbing at his chest beneath the fur covers. "S-So what to it?" he croaked, "dealing with rejection is part of growing up strong and rugget. That's what m'father always said. 'Fore I left, anyway."
The angel looked down at him. Her face of disdain slowly faltered until she was expressionless. "Very well then."
"Eh?"
"I suppose you are right." The angel turned and drifted over to her fur coat before plucking it off the wall and draping it over herself, the back of it wiggling about for a moment before her wings popped out the other side. She turned towards the hermit. "If a slug was able to survive heartbreak, you should be perfectly able to handle it as well, 'rugget' as you are." She moved towards the door.
"W-Wait!" The hermit tried to prop himself up on an elbow, but with a hoarse cry he lost his balance and toppled forward, hand clutching his chest as he hung over the side of his cot. Pushing himself up from the floor, he looked up, tears once again threatening to wet his cheeks. "Please," he said, "you know as well as me that this... thing you've done to me as natural as a virgin in a whorehouse."
The angel stayed silent, but she did not leave.
The hermit took a shuddering breath. "Look... I'm... I'm sorry I angered your goddess by doing what I did but... this is some disportionate rebution here, isn't it?"
The angel stayed silent.
"I mean, look at me!" The hermit jerkily swept a hand down his torso, his fingers rattling against the ribs pushing against his skin. "I wasn't exactly spry in the first place and now you've gone and poisoned my insides with your cur-sed magic!"
"It's not pois—"
"I don't give a rat's ass what it is!" the hermit said. He paused for a moment, panting as he massaged his chest and wiped his wrinkled forehead free of chilled sweat. "All I care about is that you've left me bed-ridden and short one deer. If whatever you did doesn't kill me the hunger will finish the job." The hermit looked straight at the angel, into the one albino-pink eye that wasn't covered by her white hair. "So what'll it be? Are you going to help me or are you going to murder me? And if you're going to murder me, at least do it where you can look me in the eye while you're doing the deed."
After hesitating, the angel floated forward with a flutter of her wings. "And what makes you think I can help you?"
The hermit faltered, his gaze falling from her eye. "Be... because I... you—ah!" The angel had taken hold of the hermit's arm. The moment her fingers touched his skin the fluttery feeling returned, beating back the chill in his heart like spring sunshine. As he trembled in her arms, she helped him back into the cot, replacing the fur covers on top. She kept her hand around his arm, rubbing her fingers across his skin as she looked down at him.
"I'll help you," she said, "but you'll have to answer a question first."
Slowly, the hermit nodded.
The angel nodded in turn, then said: "Why do you need my help?"
"Whuh... because you—"
"I did not poison you. I did not curse you. The only thing I did was open your eyes to feelings you have been burying for the past four decades of your life. So tell me, what are you feeling right now? What are you feeling that makes you so desperate for my 'help?' "
The hermit opened his mouth. Then he closed it. He realized that his hand wasn't clutching at his chest anymore, and that his shivers had stopped. The angel's fingers were still massaging his arm, rubbing against the skin and sharing their warmth with every tender stroke.
"I..." the hermit began, but stopped, his face darkening. It seemed that one last brick in the wall surrounding his mind remained. That brick could have been pride, it could have been spite, or it could have just been stubbornness. Whatever it was, it allowed the hermit to turn away from the angel and hiss through his teeth: "I just need you to undue whatever the hell it was you di—"
The angel let go of his arm.
One last hoarse cry flew from the hermit's mouth as those cold, rending talons returned once more, swiping at that final brick and obliterating it in a flurry of mental masonry. And finally, with the last of his subconscious defenses scattered to the four winds, the hermit broke. Choking back a sob, he flung himself back towards the angel, wrapping his brittle arms around her waist as he gushed out his confession:
"Fine! I'll admit it! I'm lonely! I'm heartbroken! I'm sick and tired of being by my lonesome in this cur-sed forest and I've been sick and tired for the past forty winters! I just... I just didn't want to admit to something so weak s'that! So... so..."
The hermit looked up from the angel's waist, his face once again sagging with the sad look of a hurt pup.
"So please don't leave me here to rot. I... I need you."
The angel looked down at the hermit. With a gentle sigh, she raised one of her hands and rested it on his head, stroking his scraggily hair. "Do you need me," she said, "or do you just need warmth for the coming night?"
The hermit's gaze fell back to the angel's midriff. He decided to be truthful. "I don't know. I just want this damned pain to go away. Please." The hermit flinched, waiting for the angel to throw him away in disgust. Instead, he felt the tickling, downy brush of one of her wings on his back.
She pushed him away from her waist, but she kept him within her great white wings. Laying him back on the cot, she hovered over onto his other side before sliding underneath the furs, her smooth skin and fluffy coat brushing against his torso. With a sigh of relief, the hermit allowed himself to be gathered up in her arms, wings, and fur. He rested his head against her chest and took in her rose scent.
"Perhaps," she said, "we'll find that Eros has more in store for us than a simple crossing of paths."
"Per... perhaps," the hermit mumbled. He closed his eyes. He felt tears welling, but he did not cry.
An island never cries.
