It was an old winter when she came to us. A night after the unforgiving frost swept through the kingdom we tromped out into the deep snow. Our legs sunk up to our knees and the wind pried open our lips and snuggled inside our lungs making us cough. We barely knew each other’s names, we were all just guards for the Lord, following his orders and the icy river water- falling through the mountain. Our hands crusted inside gloves, our swords banging endlessly on our thighs we all thought this patrol would never end, but the Lord needed it done, even after the Unforgiving Night. We were nearing the Forest of Skeletons the bare white trees appeared to have leaves with the clumps of snow hanging from their bare branches. Icicles hung down like giant thorns threatening to break and impale any of us as we struggled on in the blinding white silence. That’s when one of us stopped dead and we all crunched into his back, snow clouds puffing up from the collision. We all leaned around gazing through watery eyes under frosted eyelashes and there she was.

She was tiny, frail, and naked. A small girl with stark white hair, she couldn’t have been more than eleven. We stood there the snowflakes drifting down between us. She had her arms wrapped around herself sitting on her knees and staring into the thick snow all that white hair falling in her face like a frozen waterfall. One of us tentatively said “hello”. The word bounced around the white trees with their white trunks and slid into the girl’s white ears. She tilted her head up and we were met with those pale blue eyes, the only ounce of color on her small body. They were wide and terrified, but she didn’t move to run.  One of us raised his hands like he was approaching a spooky mare. He whispered that it was okay and that we would help her. She eyed him but didn’t struggle when he threw his cloak around her and gently picked her up.

We didn’t finish the patrol on account of her. She was wrapped tight in the cloak it’s dingy brown fabric seemed to have such color next to her corpse like complexion. We were all concerned that she would die. That perhaps her lack of shivering meant she was in the late stages of hyperthermia and that she would die in one of our arms before we ever made it back. We switched off carrying her and she fell asleep in our arms. We kept a tight hold on her wrist waiting for the soft thudding to run out, but it never did. None of us knew each other or that girl but somehow on that long trudge back through the snow she became our daughter.

We all stayed when the maids took her from us and plopped her into a hot bath. We waited holding our breaths while they struggled to warm her up and all she wanted to do was sleep. They dressed her, braided her long pale hair, and tucked her under layers of blankets on the cot in front of the fire. She fell asleep there with her thin fingers gripping the pillow and her white eyelashes fanned across her cheeks. We all had homes to go back to, some of us had wives and even a few of us had children of our own, but none of us wanted to leave her. We stroked her hair, squeezed her bony shoulder, and promised her we would be back tomorrow. We promised. The maids promised. We all promised we would look after her, protect her, teach her, and none of us did.