Frau Frost

The wolf cup tried its best to keep warm.

The blizzard was too harsh, even for this creature of the cold.

A shadow loomed.

The wolf cup looked up, to look upon the imposing polar bear before it.

The pup accepted its fate, it would at least be warm within its belly.

The bear lowered its head, and the pup now saw a woman atop of it.

Skadi dismounted Wojtek: The Polar Bear King from East of the Sun, West of the Moon.

She approached the wolf cup.

It looked upon her with hopeful eyes.

Skadi picked up the pup, and tucked it deep within her winter coat.

" What is your will, my lady? " said Wojtek.

Skadi could feel the shivering of the cup.

" Father Frost will pay. "

Once:

It was a joyous occasion when Father Frost visited.

Now:

That joy was turned to dread.

The Father had gone rogue.

The snow was no longer soft.

The icicles were deadly sharp.

And the cold was even unbearable to the creatures of cold.

No-one is really sure how it happened, or why the kind Father became so cruel.

Some say:

That people stopped taking him so seriously, designating him: as nothing more than a myth.

Well.

Father Frost was indeed real, and so too was the cold he brought.

Skadi trodden the wintery desert.

It was beautiful in his own way, so Skadi couldn't help but admire it.

But the admiration quickly turned to disgust, when she noticed all the corpses scattered about.

" Absolutely aborring… "

" Can I eat some of them? "

Skadi slapped Wojtek on the head.

" Can't let them go to waste. "

Skadi rolled her eyes with a smile.

She then heightened her hunter eyes, as she noticed her prey in the distance.

But just like the deer sensing the hunter:

Father Frost was looking back at her.

" Eeah! "

Wojtek went into a sprint, as Father Frost was jumping from tree to tree.

" This ends now! " yelled Skadi.

" This shall never end! My Winter Wonderland will never melt! " sang Father Frost, giggly.

Wojtek hurried up his pace, trying desperately to keep up with Father Frost.

" How is the old man so fast? " panted the poor polar bear.

Skadi noticed that the distance was widening too much.

" Damn… "

So she tried something desperate.

Skadi pulled out her bow, and aimed.

Given the circumstances, with Wojtek running and her target moving, any hunter would be mad to take that kind of shot.

But Skadi… well: she was that kind of mad.

" Aw! "

" Yes! "

The shot had made contact.

Skadi forced Wojtek to a halt.

" But he is getting away! "

" No he is not. "

Wojtek noticed the blood on the snow.

" He is bleeding... "

" Catch your breath. " said Skadi; " we have a hunt before us. "

The snow was crushed under Wojtek's heavy paw.

The pale sea before them was littered with blood, which meant that Father Frost had lost a lot of it.

Skadi aimed her arrow at a moving bush, she then lowered it upon seeing the sorry state of Father Frost.

" He is dying. " said Wojtek; " you must have hit the mark. "

Skadi dismounted, and approached the weakened old man.

" This ends here. "

" It isn't fair… "

" It rarely is. "

" You do not understand… - frozen tears started rolling down Father Frost's cheeks - it ends here for me… I will be forgotten, no longer remembered… a fate worse than death…. "

" A fate brought about by your own hands. "

Father Frost spat blood before Skadi.

" You would have done the same! They disrespected me by forgetting me. I had to remind them, and pain would do the trick. "

" They will remember you as a villain. "

Father Frost leaned back.

" They will remember me nonetheless… "

Father Frost breathed his last, as Skadi took on the mantle: Frau Frost.