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Her name is Yngya, that she is aware of.
She is a lamb. Her nails are black, blunt, and thick. Her hooves click when she walks over stone, as do the hooves of others she is familiar with, the synonymous members of her flock.
She's laid simply on the grassy ground, flowers of many colors blooming underneath her skin and her wool—white, white wool, like that of snow—and she brushes her fingertips against the sodden, silk-made cloth she is laundering.
The flowers are so bright, so floral, so fragrant in their soft insistence on being known, she feels the colors will blend right into her. Like she is blank slate, she will become home to gentle pastels and striking blues, stubborn purples.
The bar of soap is dragged over the shirt she holds onto, and for a moment, her hands are stained red.
Her mouth twists into a frown.
Underneath the light of the nourishing sun, she withers.
Her shoulders hunch. Her mind clouds.
There is an expanse of endless tundra.
And then she doesn't know just what it was she was so concerned about, and she continues her work.
She presses the basket of berries into the hands of a pale yellow rabbit she could swear she's spoken to before at some point and pulls herself, stumbling, over to the healing bay.
She can hear herself breathing and there is an unbearable ringing in her ears. Suddenly, in her work, in a moment where she'd stared at something she cannot recall, she'd become dizzy, and her vision now disobeys her wishes, and she cannot see much but the world phasing in and out around her in herringbone square stitches, pulsing with the beat of her heart.
When she reaches where she needs to be, in the shade just past the healing bay's threshold, she collapses, back pressed to the inner wall, breath short.
A hand is clutching at the bone above her heart.
Her whole body feels like her heart.
The air rattles in her chest.
She prays, in instinct, might this ailment pass me by as swift as the spring current. Her palm is pressed to her feather-light heartbeat, fluttering as if frightened. What could she be frightened of? And may the swell of fortune cast mere dredges of its mercy upon—
Her hands won't stop trembling.
The healing bay is empty. The cots are bare. There is light—hot, inescapable light—streaming through a window high on the dome of the building's walls
She stares at the ground. At her feet. At her legs.
She feels cold. Then hot. Then cold.
She feels like something bad is going to happen. Or, she feels like something bad did happen.
She can't remember what.
She'd been staring at… at… she can't hold onto it long enough to recognize.
For a while she sits there. Her mind is slow-moving, sluggish. When she does think, it's to mutter a prayer. They're routine to her. She doesn't know why they are.
She wants something acutely. Something… some kind of pretty thing. She wants to hold it.
She wants to hold something.
She holds her own hands.
She holds her own head in her hands.
For a while, she does nothing but try to settle herself, on her own in the almost-dusk of the building.
Then, there is the quiet ringing of a bell, resounding and simple, as the Lamb steps in.
A moment. Yngya breathes. Yngya pulls her face from her arms. She looks over to them.
Their eyes, almost apologetic, crinkle at the corners. They smile gently.
"Yngya," they say, "is something wrong?"
Her Shepherd come to tend to her. She cannot help the way her shoulders release their tension; bent, now, in towards her body, slack.
"Oh, Lamb," she says to them, "I do not know precisely why…" she blinks, faltering, "but… I do feel unwell."
Their fleece is cherry red in the sunlight, darkening to the shade of some kind of immortal rose as they step inside, coming to kneel beside her.
They hold themselves with a sort of air that Yngya respects, someway.
They place a warm hand on her shoulder. "Are you frightened of something?"
She frowns. "It is foolish fear. I don't know why I'm afraid."
They hum, something low and soothing, and stand. Their hooves click along the flooring.
Back turned to her, they open cupboards. "Tea, then. Peppermint will do."
She'd been staring at… back in the farm… she'd looked at… the scarecrows have… there'd been…
There is a flash of red behind her eyes, and she doesn't know what she was thinking about.
She nods, grateful. "Thank you, Lamb."
Her meal consists of some kind of meat, cauliflower, and berries. It's sweet on her tongue.
In her quarters, she stares down at it. It's all so curious.
Her light, thin clothing drapes her arms. She pushes the cerulean cloth back, up to her elbow, as she eats.
Each bite is slow. Measured.
She is hungry, but she does not want to eat. Though she must, of course.
It's all so curious.
Her quarters are cool and shaded entirely. She need not worry about overheating here.
A cold front falls upon them.
Spinning silk thread for the tailor's, she smiles quietly to herself. It feels, inescapably, right.
Yngya has always felt the call of the cold in the tips of her fingers and the innermost reaches of her heart.
Her winter is coming.
In great flurries and harsh gusts.
Her winter is coming.
Somewhere, somehow, there is an expanse of endless tundra.
She doesn't think she's ever seen it before.
Just knowing it's there is enough.
She is tasked with tending to the snow fruit seeds.
It's the cold, icy dirt beneath her fingers that adds to her peace. Elegantly cruel, scraping up her fingers. A perfect climate.
For her. For these gifts of plants. All that might flourish on midwinter's night, she covets so dearly.
She feels unsteady with her love, somehow.
She doesn't know how she does a lot of things.
She just does.
The Lamb, as they do often, bids her goodbye before their next crusade.
She stares at their crown, so red, as it stares mirthfully at her. She tries to shake it off. She tries to, instead, focus on the whites of the Lamb's eyes, the curve of their soft smile, the familiarity and the power she finds comfort in with them. But it nags. It's irritating, almost. This must be blasphemy to think. Sacrilege.
Their farewells with each other are quick.
The Lamb presses a wooden box, full of loose leaf teas, into her hands.
She thanks them, lowers her head in deference, answers in farewell.
Their retreating form reminds her of something. Their fleece, great ancestral garment. They appear to her, almost, as something close to youthful. Young creature, forever. It pains her.
And the crown. The Red Crown.
She feels frustrated with herself, then calm.
She presses a palm over her heart.
A crown. Her crown.
…What?
She has no idea.
The Lamb. The Lamb. They are… a source of strength. So influential.
She is a lamb. They are the Lamb.
Something about that makes her so happy, she could just burst from it.
Their Shepherd is one of them.
In her nightmare, she is falling. Or, she is trapped. She is looking at the ground. She is stuck somewhere, weeping blood from her many eyes.
She cannot use her hands.
She is miserable.
There are a thousand things that she wants to do yet can't, a thousand souls lost beneath her watch. She is great and she is vast and she is dead, but here.
Nothing was ever meant to contain such suffering.
None were ever intended to endure this alive.
She is stuck somewhere, weeping blood from her many eyes, and she knows that she has been here for many, many years, and she knows that she will be here for many, many more. And she knows she will do nothing about it. Even if she could, she would do nothing about it.
This is a languid suffering, burning and needful, and it is an agony of love.
For love, she would do this. For love. Only for love.
All of her thoughts are prayers.
Strike down those who would act in such selfish indulgence, bring unto me my winter's kiss, think of me once and maybe more, find ways to give back unto those who continue the struggle anew, keep my flock, my dearest flock, keep them—
A crown. She has— had—
She cannot see the tundra. Everything is the thick, veiny red of blood.
She wakes. But maybe she hadn't needed to.
She remembers none of what she'd seen, after all.
She gives her thanks, my deepest gratitude for the endless growth bestowed by the world. There is no greater gift than winter's garden.
She prays, stay safe, our Shepherd.
The evening sunlight filters weakly through the full blanket of clouds covering the sky. The birds are quiet. The butterflies are dead.
When the Lamb comes to see her, she pauses her consecration, the holy words dying on her tongue with respects to her Shepard.
She turns to face them, blinking when she finds them frowning.
"Lamb?" she asks.
"Yngya," the Lamb answers, courteously, before questioning, "are you alright?"
Off kilter with their worry, quite suddenly, she smiles softly, grateful. "Oh, yes. I'm alright."
Was that all?
The Lamb stares at her a moment longer. "You're sure?"
It appears not.
Confusion edges in on her periphery. She nods. "Certain." And, to make herself clear, holds herself openly, palms and wrists facing them, entirely innocent.
They nod to themself, face pinched in worry for just a moment longer before smoothing. They reach into their fleece.
They pull out a handful of ten flower stems.
She doesn't know how she recognizes edelweiss and its furry petals, but her heart softens in glee merely to see them.
They are offered to her—undamaged in their six-pronged stars, their many-eyed middles—and reaches, gingerly, until they are laid in her hands.
Her voice is an awed, breathy thing. "Oh," she says, "oh, thank you. Thank you so much, Shepherd."
Her Shepherd smiles at her, bright and simple in the way of cosmic things which carry weight.
"It's starting to get late," they tell her, "rest early tonight."
She stands in place, merely to admire the flowers, for several minutes after the Lamb leaves.
She tries to think quickly of a plan.
The edelweiss— she may never get another again. She cannot grow them, for winter will end.
She curses summer. She curses her end.
She will— yes, she will press them. She will take tw pieces of wood, or, she will beseech the Lamb for a book, and she will part with the flowers for however long it takes, it is merely—
That she will miss them. During that time, she will miss them, and it will hurt. Her longing drags sewing pins from her heart. Her blood beads on the thick muscle and congeals.
The heat will strangle them, as it does to her.
So, she takes them to the edges of the flock's noble stone fencing, burying herself in a snow flurry.
The night is dark, and the air is cold, though she does not heed it. The only warmth is from her blood and her breath, and even that is lackluster.
Her wool insulates her.
It protects the flowers from her heat.
In the snow and the dark, she cradles them to her chest. She looks up to the night sky and finds the flowers reflected in them. Great northern stars from up high.
She does not remember finding anything more beautiful.
That is enough.
She curls around her gift. Time is stolen from her. Gentle darkness holds her close.
There is a bell chiming. She is barely awake enough to recognize it. She is too tired to shake herself of her cozy exhaustion.
Her mind is free of doubt.
She is utterly devout.
She is safe here, and she knows it.
The Lamb sits next to her. And when she succumbs to sleep, so—too—do they.
She wakes in the morning to red on her kindred, and they are splayed out limp in the snow, and their crown rests beside them dutifully.
It does not alarm her.
In her grasp, her flowers have not wilted. Not even a bit.