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With another insomniac night looming, sometimes all you can do is take yourself off outdoors, just to avoid cabin fever.
Winter`s coming. This is something you can tell in a hundred small ways...the wild geese overhead and in the fields, gathering up the spilled grain of harvested crops. The feverish foraging of other wild birds as they raid the currant bushes and feast on rose hips, fattening up against the cold like we don more clothing.
In the way the sun rides lower in the morning skies every day, blinding but pale, a thin kind of light, not the rich gold and red of summer but an iced lemon thing that bleaches out the browned grass and makes for softer shadows than the hard and sharp ones of summer.
The sea dances more, being a moody witch when winter strides in to claim her own territory. She`s rough and wild often, not a woman to mess with, that sea. But still I see bonny brave wee boats go out across the body of her every morning and return safe, if battered, in the evenings.
The air is colder and crisp and has a bite to it. These are nights for hugging the fireside, and in older, maybe kinder days, we`d have gathered family around us and done just that.
Yours truly is taking a wee break from IB, just because life catches up with you sometimes and you have to give it a little more attention than normally or it tends to slip out of your hands! But here`s a wee story, a bit early given we`re still waiting (and some of us, hoping) for snow. Will be back soonest, when I`ve caught up on some sleep. :-)


In the Realm of the Lady Winter


Her breath mists the twilit air, frost and pearl,
as she mounts her horse, a steel grey beast
of taught muscle and lean limbs, built for speed.
Pulling the collar of her cloak around her, she
gazes out at the surrounding landscape.
She owns it all, in a way which will never be
written on parchment, never be lodged in the minds of men. Her cloak is fur, the white fur of the northern bear, trimmed with tiny bells that announce her passing to the ears of night creatures, trimmed with bone and fang and links to the souls of the creatures that run beside her, unseen but heard in howl, baying slow, trembling songs at the winter moon.
Her eyes are pale, diamond hard and piercing and gifted for far sight. Kicking her heels into the flanks of the horse, she sets out. At her side run two white wolves, barrow-wight wolves, red in fang, red in eye, thirsty for the chase.
At her shoulder fly two white ravens, ghosts of the skies, hiding in cloud and hail, riding the cool winds like small ships at sea.
Over the ice sheets, cracking and dancing, hooves ringing on frost packed earth, over snow drifts and through flurries, leaving behind clouds of soft white sugar dust hanging in the air, already growing dark.
The moon shines his lamp on her and her retinue as they fare forth, shimmer of white and silver, cold as ice and deadly as steel, and she who looks so beautiful, so ethereal, will gift the kiss of death to any who will come to her.
The night wanes, journeys end approaches, and as time passes with the travelling of the moon, she changes....ice is there still, white, grey, strong, but the crone shines through, the hag shimmers in and out of her face, now young, now old, always cold....
Harsh life and work is hers, the depths of cold winters are hers, the gathering of souls, frostbitten and bound are hers, the horizon of the night sky is hers, and in her work she sees the frailty of many, the little deaths of small creatures under rocks, the passing over of others sheltering with false hope in the lee of home and wall and barn, and in the benighted travellers, the lost crying of souls brought forth by the gentle, sleepy kiss of winter herself.
Her wolves seek, their noses to the ground, to the air, the faint warmth of passing blood, the soft whimper of last sighs, they pad unseen into rooms and under grass and into water, ravens screech above her head, always seeking, far seeing they find new prey, new souls to take, to lead home, to let sleep, for a while...

Lady winter reins her mount and looks backward, over her shoulder she sees the glimmer of sunlight, yet cool and low on the horizon. Reaching down, absently, she pets the wolves, those white rangers, panting now, with hot hungry breath in approaching morning air. Looking up, faint against the clouds she sees the ravens, white specks against black and gold, and smiles, and they gift her with two solitary, lonely cries, before veering northwards, and even now she feels the faint breath of the wing beats against her cheek.
She is old now, growing an age in one night as she always does....when moon raises his head again, she will be young, smooth, awesome to behold. The weight of souls lies on her heart, in her eyes, and she must bear them home, north, to winter halls of rough wood, warm fires, where time has never lived but other things do...
as the sun chases away the moon, she steps north, and in each step a country is crossed, and in each step an age is added, and the woman who crosses into the land of eternal winter is old, older than time, and only those who would know will see the strength in her step, how firm her hands on the reins, the small smile of knowing on her lips. stabling the grey, she pauses...her old ears pick up the sound of laughter, of soft glad tears, and she knows they have reached those rough wooden halls, the warm fires, and the others....