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Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a great and majestic kingdom. It was a land of towering mountainscapes and thick pinewood forests, a place of cobalt blue lakes with fields of golden wheat. Or it once was these things.
The king of the land was a man named Anakin Skywalker. He remembered when his country was prosperous. When the land experienced seasons, the warmth of summer and the cool of spring. When the sun shone and his people would till the ground, harvesting fruits and grains aplenty. When winter would arrive so the farmers could rest.
Winter. Anakin remembered when winter was but a single season amongst others. The sky would turn iron grey and it would be a signal for men to enter the forests to chop wood for their fires. Winter, when they would travel deep amongst the thickly growing trees. Winter, when no more than a day would go by before someone claimed to have seen her.
The story was always the same. Taking a breather from his work, some peasant would sense a presence in the wilds. An unnatural stillness fell as nature itself paused in honour of her company. Then he’d see the glittering crystalline shimmer of two eyes watching. Watching curiously. Seeking. Searching.
She was unlike the other young women in their land. She was not bold or merry, but rather shy and withdrawn. Her entire appearance was perfection. Delicate features and lustrous hair. Slim and small and exquisite.
Many grew interested, even more became obsessed. This girl who was the embodiment of both the magic of the forest and the cold of winter. Few were bold enough to call out to her, and to those who did it seemed she wasn’t sure how to respond.
Could she have known their ulterior motives? Could she have sensed danger? For the world of men had grown corrupt and selfish, and even power as pure as hers could be manipulated.
The king remembered watching as his subjects flattered and cajoled, tending to this mysterious female with more care than they had ever shown him. As the attentions of men reached the Snow Queen, their prosperous, bountiful land began to change. Shift.
Previously winter was a period of rest but soon it became a restless storm, a season of discomfort. The king decided his people were to blame. Once they pursued her as if she was the only worthwhile thing, and now… now love had turned to hate. There were stories of men who succeeded in their attempts to catch her attention, but at long last they all failed.
None spoke of their failure.
After many long years, the Snow Queen stopped being curious about the king’s realm. Her glittering gaze grew even colder. Searching turned to caution and then distrust. And one day… she extended judgment.
She brought on winter, her annual ritual, and smothered homes in drifts of snow, froze bodies of water into mirrors of ice, removing life and heat. The people suffered and the months ticked by. And then as one they realised something was amiss, for winter continued unabated. The season stretched and stretched, months becoming years, and soon they were burning their calendars for warmth.
The king sent his best men to hunt and trap the snow witch. He promised whoever brought about her fall would be gifted a room filled with gold. But the men who’d once fought so hard to woo her now just begged her to be gone. Their curses vanished into the howl of arctic winds, their pleading dampened by a continuous fall of wet snow. Months lost its meaning, years their numbering. Time was marked only by the aching advance of starvation and the people longed for death.
At last the king had only his grandson left to despatch from his castle into the wilderness. His one love, his final hope.
The boy had not been born when the interminable winter began. He’d heard of the Snow Queen but only as a monster, insatiable in her appetite for human life. He knew well to fear her, for she must be a beast as immense as a nation, her body encompassing mountains and valleys, her breath able to freeze men to death.
Anakin hesitated to send him, the only evidence of his lineage. His daughter had called him Ben after a family friend the king no longer cared for, the princess dying not long after childbirth. Ben’s father ran away- in grief or cowardice, Anakin did not care- and so he raised the boy as his own.
His only posterity. And this too he would sacrifice to the interminable cold.
Ben dressed appropriately for his adventure, leather britches and fur lined boots, a black shirt made of thick ribbed cotton laced tight at his wrists and throat, gloves and a heavy black cowl. He wore a mask to keep the bitter chill off his face, black leather with a silver cage to hold its shape. Everything fitted him so well there wasn’t even space to shiver.
His weapon, though, was a nobler matter. It had been willed to the king by a mentor- the man who gifted him the throne- and it was a prized possession. That day, the king pressed the heavy silver hilt into his grandson’s hand. When ignited the blade glowed red, a tongue of living fire that would surely defend him from an evil witch who took refuge in ice.
The boy made his way into the woods. It would have been the first time in eighteen years that he found himself alone had it not been for a pair of glittering eyes fixed on his own. At first glance he thought they were an overcast grey, but they cleared and he saw unexpected warmth. Green and brown. They belonged to a girl such as he’d never seen before. The snow covered her small body completely, her hair wrapped in a fierce flurry that ravaged every inch of bare flesh.
In truth, the boy was not especially wise or brave. He was not moved to rescue the girl or attack her, as if by doing either he would drive away the weather. Instead, he approached with no other motive than to come closer. And perhaps all along the Snow Queen was more interested about what was in a man’s heart than any other gifts or skills he could produce.
Ben stared hard at the girl. She had little breasts as steep as snow peaks and a blizzard of hair. He could see her supple form beneath the thin gloss of frost.
“My name is Ben,” he spoke, his voice unexpectedly deep in the quiet of the forest. “What do they call you?”
Slivers of ice fell away as lips as pink as a sunrise parted. “It does not matter what they call me,” she said, her tone surprisingly sweet and young, though it carried the weight of millennia. “You already know what they call me: monster, witch, killer. They have discovered I too am cruel and are surprised that I can be like them.”
Ben felt her voice like a pinprick of icicles up his spine. His hand twitched for his red sword but instead he took off his black and silver mask. He heard the girl inhale when she saw his face, making clumps of snow amongst the tallest boughs shiver and fall, dusting them like icing sugar. She took a step toward him.
“I meant to say, what is your name?” he asked quietly.
“Rey.”
“Rey,” he murmured, tasting the syllable. Her pale cheeks turned the colour of her lips.
He hesitated to ask his next question, not wanting to upset her. “Who was cruel to you, Rey?”
Her lips quivered and he stiffened where he stood.
“Who indeed,” she whispered, sending a swirl of snowflakes dancing across the air. “Was it the peasants who came playing their instruments in this forest, clamouring for my attention? Was it the man who had the loudest horn, which I mistook- simple soul that I am- for the force of his desire? Was it the nobleman who danced most gracefully, which I misunderstood- foolish girl that I am- as a measure of his sensitivity? And then one season I fell for a man with great wealth, which I misinterpreted- dumb creature that I am- as a token of his generosity.”
Ben felt her pain pierce his heart like an icicle. “Rey…”
“Many seasons passed this way until I entirely forgot what it was I had been looking for in the world of men. I returned with winter and stormed the gates. I smothered fires and buried farmers in coats of snow. People- your people- they called me savage, evil and harsh. No longer was I simple, foolish and dumb.”
“I’m so sorry, Rey.”
Her face hardened like a glacial shelf. “I do not want your pity, Ben.”
And all the prince could think was how delicate his name sounded falling from her cold lips. He held out his hands in entreaty and his cloak swung open.
“What is that?” Rey shrieked, and the ground beneath him rumbled.
Ben followed her gaze and caught sight of the silver hilt hanging off his belt. He held it, igniting the blade. “A gift from my grandfather,” he said, the red glow turning the snow to blood. “For my protection.”
“He had that sword,” Rey hissed, backing away from the prince, her movements rapid despite the thickness of the drifts.
“Wait, please wait!” Ben hollered, following after her. “Who do you speak of?”
She paused. He saw her form had half disappeared, camouflaged by snow and ice.
“Do you really not know?” she asked bitterly, her lips turned deep blue. “You who are his blood?”
“Please tell me,” the prince said. For the first time in his life, he begged.
Rey watched him with great big eyes that threatened to swallow him whole. “The man of great wealth… the final one who came to me before I unleashed my snow and fury… he too wielded that sword. He was a king, he said, and his gifts were many but his spirit… his spirit was not generous like his belongings. No, he was selfish and controlling. He wanted me all to himself and when he realised my power could not be his, he tried to cut me down with a burning red sword.”
The revelation shook the prince to his core. It was his grandfather, the king, who had wounded the Snow Queen and plunged their kingdom into endless winter. He wondered if the old man realised the truth.
“Take it,” Ben said, holding out the blazing sword to the girl. “I am not your enemy, Rey. Take the weapon as my proof.”
She floated toward him on a slick slide of ice, unerringly graceful. Those glittering eyes cleared, hints of green and brown showing through once more. She touched the pommel and the red blade sputtered and hissed. Rey sighed and the sword quietened, becoming a soothing hum. She ran a finger down the silver hilt and blood red turned into blue so pure it burned with a white heart.
Ben nearly dropped his grandfather’s sword, his heart pumping in his chest. “What have you done?”
“It is now a true reflection of who you are, Ben,” Rey declared. “The saber is entirely yours to claim.”
He stared at the humming blue blade a few seconds longer and then realised there was something else he’d rather look at. He returned the hilt to his belt and gazed into the eyes of the Snow Queen. “Thank you.”
She shrugged, and little chips of ice floated off her shoulders.
“Rey…”
“Yes, Ben?”
“You said you had forgotten what it was you were looking for in the world of men. Can you try to remember… for me?”
She stared at him and he flushed. Sometimes she was a girl and at other times he caught a glimpse of her earth shattering power, as if seeing through a mirror darkly. Who was he to come before the Snow Queen and ask a favour?
“I think… it began as something I’d seen…” She spoke slowly, recalling a past so ancient it would make his head spin to know its true origin. “It happened deep in the woods, where I have lived for all eternity. A girl… like me but unlike me… walked into an open meadow hand-in-hand with a man. They embraced, and it seemed like they became one flesh, one body… sharing one skin. He said something to her and she wept and yet she smiled. They held each other as if they were too fragile to stand alone.” Rey blinked at Ben, as if clearing away a long forgotten dream. “Was it love? Was it hate? I didn’t have the language to quantify what it was I saw. So I clutched my own numb flesh and dreamed what it would be like to… feel. To desire. To love.”
She must have seen something in the prince’s eyes for she dropped her own gaze, suddenly embarrassed. “I did not know what it was to be lonely until I saw the man and woman come together that day in the forest.”
Ben decided. He stepped forward, closing the gap between himself and the girl. He reached out to her. Her coat of snow was as soft as fur. He brushed it off and it fell. Her bare hands lifted to undo his armour. As the Snow Queen drew closer- frost melting from her breasts and hips, the stretch of her neck, the pale of her thighs- the prince also let go of his layers of clothing.
The kiss they shared caused the forest to quake until white, snow-dusted boughs turned quite bare and green.
They say the Snow Queen took the prince to her realm, until then unseen by any eyes except her own.
Winter withdrew into spring and summer fell fast upon the land. The king went looking for his grandson but all he found was a black and silver mask. It lay unbroken in a clearing, not even marred by the bite of any beast. He found no bones to bury.
Life went on. Winter never came again. The kingdom became a land of endless summer, bountiful and prosperous. Only rarely was the idyllic quiet broken by the sounding rumble of distant thunder. The king didn’t understand its meaning, but his people knew it was the noise of the Snow Queen, coming together as one with her lover, the boy prince.
For in the end, Ben had made her feel everything Rey hoped for- desire, connection... and love.