( • plush, pt. i • )

Strokes of ivory hair

Against a silver brush

Flakes of snow crawling

To the winter's daughter

Long before her rise

As a woman

Before her mirror

She rests in her cottage

Isolated in a spruce forest

But warm within her home

Staring deep into her icy eyes

Yet to crack to the cold weight

Of her harsh, numb future

A thin scar dashes across her cheek

A mystery under pale snow

The memories of her past

Locked deep in the crevices

Of the earth

Her sister enters the room

Eager to bring her sibling

A gift of remembrance

If the ice ever lost its shade

Of blue

A plush bear

Light as a snowflake

Falls into the arms

Of the gift's receiver

The girl with ivory hair

Looking up to her sister

Strands of navy

Running through her fingers

Brushing the silky waves

Of her sibling's hair

Away from her ocean eyes

And as the two sisters

Hold each other close

In the warmth of their home

The plush snuggled deep

In the crevice of space

Between them

The whirr of gunfire

Slices through the air

And the force of an army

Storming through the forest

Invades the warmth of home

With the avalanche

Of a tyrant

The children run

Abandoning their comfort

Their home soon in shambles

The gunfire roars louder

As the sisters rush outside

Leaving their parents behind

As they sacrifice themselves

To give their kin a path safe

From the incoming storm

And the two leave together

Chasing the warmth of the dawn

As they watch a tyrant force

Claim what was once theirs

A gift stolen in the name

Of salvation

And the sisters hold the plush

The only warmth left

In the dreary, frozen world

As the blue of the ice

Begins to feel the heat

Of a bleeding red