Ravna and the Melody of Light

It was the longest winter I had ever known.

It started off like any other, but with no end in sight. We were in the grips of a great ice storm that had been raging on since before the new year. The sky was black and filled with dense clouds. The snow was thick on the ground and piled high against the walls of our houses. For weeks we studied the weather, looking for a break in the clouds, but to no avail. It would be an early spring if this kept up.

And so it continued for month after month, until people began to forget why we counted days at all. There was no sun to rise or set over the horizon. No moon or stars lit our nights, and no fire could keep even the smallest spark alive for more than a few seconds. There was just us and whiteness everywhere, and sometimes when I looked out into it, I thought I could see faces in it: dark eyes staring back at me from beyond the veil of snow. They would appear only for a moment before melting away again, leaving me wondering if they were real or not.

We learned to live by the cold and move around by feel alone. People would get lost constantly as they strayed from familiar paths through the village, until we marked them with stones painted red and black that could still be seen through thick drifts of snow. I had been told that our ancestors from thousands of years ago did not mark their trails; they simply knew where to go without thinking about it at all. We were far from living such a life now.

We tried to stay warm inside our homes with candles and braziers burning hot coals day and night, but even then things got bad quickly if we took too long to gather fuel or fell asleep with them burning away too low. Sometimes there would be fires that burned down entire houses along with their occupants before anyone noticed anything was wrong. It was hard to remember these things while they were happening - there were times when I forgot myself why we made such an effort to make sure everything stayed lit, because it felt so good when you finally lay down in your bed after a long day's work, surrounded by nothing but warmth and darkness. You would forget until you woke up hours later with your face frozen stiff and your hair iced white across your head as you struggled to open your eyes against the sudden bright light of all those candles burning away in front of you - then, suddenly, there was no warmth anymore and you were left shivering in place as realization returned all too quickly; then you would remember again why those lights never went out for very long at all - not until everyone's bedtime once more passed. Then there would be warmth once more, darkness... sleep...

I don't know how long this went on for: weeks? Months? Years? There are some things that fade from memory as time goes on - it is easy enough to forget certain dates when there is no way to mark them besides counting days or moons or years; who can remember forever when they first started walking? Or started talking? Or grew their hair long? But I have always remembered that first day of spring clearly: My mother held me outside beneath gray skies while the wind blew heavy white flakes around us both until she said "there - do you see?" And I looked up and saw a sliver of blue sky peeking through above me; she smiled wide and laughed out loud while tears ran down her cheeks as she hugged me close with both arms around my waist; then we went inside where my father waited by the fire (he didn't laugh like my mother did; he said nothing). That night we ate well - fresh fish caught in our nets that morning - then slept soundly for hours before waking again well-rested and happy because of it. In one day our fortunes changed entirely: The snow was gone! We went out into it happily again two days later only to find it deeper than before, but still far better than what we'd been dealing with for so long... And so began another winter full of grim determination (and some laughter) as we filled our bellies with what little food we could scratch out of frozen earth beneath early snows...