Chapter Text
It was the first snow of the year. The morning when they had all woken up to the white glittering world, there had been no stopping the children from storming outside. The snowy ground in the Winterhold’s main road quickly turned into a fervent battleground. Snowballs flew through the air while feet trampled the fresh and loose snow into a dense layer. Etheana scooped up more snow to her feet. Blue eyes roamed the crowd of children in front of her. Her sister, Irena, was pelting Assur who had fallen on his back unable to get up as the others swarmed him.
Her eyes landed on her brother, Kari, desperately trying to shuffle some snow together for himself. A wicked grin formed on her face the longer she regarded her little brother. Payback for her sweetroll he ate that morning. Quietly, she dropped into a crouch, her snowball pressed securely into her two palms.
He did not see nor hear her approach.
Until it was too late.
“Kari!” She sang cheerily, holding her snowball behind her back.
With a frown, Kari turned around, red hair disheveled from all the running he had already done.
“Catch!” She yelled and launched her snowball right onto her brother’s forehead.
With a stunned cry, Kari fell on his bottom while snow fell on his chest. Blue eyes blinked in confusion at her. Before the snow on his forehead turned into slush and started to slip down his face.
“You are such a meanie!” He cried, face scrunched up as he tried to wipe away the slush.
Big tears were starting to collect in his eyes and Etheana realized with a drooping stomach, that the spot she had hit him had turned red.
“Kari,” she knelt down next to him and started to help him wipe the snow from his face.
“Kari?” Irena’s voice drifted through. “What happened?”
“I hit his face,” Etheana replied and when Irena’s eyes widened she clarified. “With a snowball.”
Irena winced.
“Want me to kiss it better?” Etheana asked. “Just like Papa?”
Kari looked up to her for a moment before reluctantly nodding. Suppressing the urge to roll her eyes, Etheana leaned forward and kissed the red spot.
“There better?” She asked.
He looked indecisive for a moment before nodding. But then a snowball hit her and Kari in the chests. Irena’s loud giggles betrayed the perpetrator. Etheana looked to her sister, then to her brother.
“Revenge?” Etheana asked him with an evil grin.
Kari was already scooping up snow into his hands while Irena quickly hurried away from her siblings plotting revenge.