"Wintery Discovery" by R.E. ´Riibu´ Kankaanpää

The day was young and the air was cold. The snow glistened in first rays of sunshine. A mother told her children to dress warmly, when those two happily skipped out the door and hopped down the stairs outside to the fresh, crispy wintery air.

Soon the siblings were joined with a bunch of neighbourhood kids. They started playing, running around in the snow, making snow angels and throwing snowballs at each other. The little girl, giggling, tried to escape from her brother, who was quite talented when it came down to throwing those blasted snowballs. The girl hopped and carefully landed on her belly on to the snow. She giggled and started to rise in an attempt to get at her brother when she saw something poking out of snow. The little girl leaned closer and saw something colorful. Warily she removed some snow away from it.

Her brother came running next to her asking why was she staring the snow so quietly away from everyone else. Then he saw what she was looking at. He called the other kids to come there. They stopped fooling around when they noticed how grave the boy had sounded. Gracefully they formed a circle around the siblings. One of them suggested they should probably give it a proper burial. They all nodded in silence.

Because the girl founded it, she cautiously lifted it on her palms. Two other kids went to grab some shovels from their homes and when they came back, they with great effort dug up a small pit in the frozen ground, close to an oak. The little girl placed it on the hole and shoved some soil on top of it. They all stood close to it some time in silence, honouring it. Then the boy suddenly took off. The others were surprised to notice that when he came back, he had a small flower on his hands. Shrugging he went to the grave and placed it on top of it.

A shout came from many of their parents. Dinner was ready and they were being called to come back inside. One by one they all left the grave, the siblings to do it last. In the middle of the way, she stopped and looked behind her. To the grave in a little grove. She stared at it. And then they both ran inside. Once there they informed their mother that they weren't that hungry. Perhaps later.

The siblings went to the girl's room, which had the view to outside, to the grove. They looked outside the window from her bed, which was quite conveniently placed right under the window. It started snowing. Pure white snowflakes rained down softly down. She spoke quietly: "It looked really sad. In the books mummy read to us they never looked sad. Only happy. I thought faeries couldn't die like that." A tear rolled down on her cheek. "I know", the boy said and patted her back. "I know." They sat there until their mother came in to the room wondering what they were doing since they hardly ever were so quiet.

And life went on.