"A clear, moonlit night."
~*~
“Alistair.” The voice whispered urgently just from beyond the tent flaps and Alistair turned his head toward the sound groggily.
“What?” he mumbled.
“Alistair,” Kalea whispered again. “Come here.”
Sighing, he sat up and pushed the blankets off of him, shivering as the cold leeched away the body heat that had been trapped in their blankets. He pulled his clothes on and shoved his feet into his cold boots.
“I swear,” he muttered, crawling out of the tent, “if there isn’t a huge darkspawn raiding party about to descend upon us, I’m going to….”
The words died in his throat. It had begun snowing yesterday afternoon—it was one of the reasons they had set up camp early—but the storm had apparently passed during the night. Now the sky was brilliantly clear, the stars twinkling like diamonds set inside a perfectly black sky. The moon was full, a radiant white disk whose light reflected off the undisturbed snow around them.
The reflected light lit up the area almost as if it were daytime. He could read by this light if he wanted to. But that was the furthest thing on his mind.
Kalea stood on a slight rise, her small tracks in the snow to only thing breaking the smooth whiteness around them. In the moonlight, her skin was eerily pale, her red hair appearing far darker than normal, and her eyes looked like black pools.
“This is amazing!” she said.
“Snow?”
“Yes! It’s incredible.” She bent down to scoop up a handful of snow and held it before her face. “Each one of these is a tiny ice crystal. We read about them in the Tower. Those of us skilled in ice spells used to recreate it, but it never worked very well. I’ve never gotten a chance to see real snow before.”
“You’ve never seen snow before?”
“Uh-uh.” She reached out with her tongue and licked some of the snow out of her hand, laughed and let it fall.
Alistair swallowed past the lump in his throat. Kalea was such a contradiction. When dealing with people, she was often cynical, expecting the worse. She was always on guard and never let people to close.
But other things revealed a child-like wonder and naiveté. She delighted in sunrises and sunsets and counting the stars. The changing of the leaves fascinated her and he knew she kept a journal where she’d carefully preserved them between the pages. And then there was the time he had to bodily haul her out of thunderstorm and back into the house they were sheltering in for the day.
And now…snow. She seemed fascinated by it, like a small child would be. Moving quietly, he reached out, scooped up a handful of snow and packed it together. Waiting until she was distracted again, and turned slightly away from him, he threw it—right at her bottom.
She shrieked and spun around, eyes wide as he packed another snowball together and lobbed it at her. Another shriek as she dodged out of the way and then she was laughing and reaching for her own handful of snow.
They chased each other around the clearing, throwing and dodging snowballs—missing more often than not—until they were red faced and panting with breath. Abandoning the icy missiles, Alistair caught Kalea around the waist and spun her until they landed in the snow. She was giggling as he rolled on top of her and leaned in close to kiss her.
Her nose was cold against his cheek and so were her fingers as her hand crept around his neck. But the rest of her was warm and delightfully soft beneath him. He was about to suggest going back to their tent to warm up when something cold and wet fell down the back of his shirt.
With a sharp cry, he sat up on his knees, frantically shaking the snow out of his clothes before it could melt too much. “You little…” he growled and picked up a handful of snow, brandishing it over her face.
Kalea squeaked and covered her face. “Please don’t! I’m sorry!” She sounded contrite, but her eyes danced with mischief and she was grinning.
Alistair let the snow fall and brushed his hands off as he stood, and then leaned down to pick her up by the waist. He settled her in his arms and she wound her own around his neck, leaning in to nuzzle against his neck as he carried her back to their tent.
“Alistair?”
“Hmmm?”
“Can we play in the snow again tomorrow?”
He chuckled against her hair as he nudged the tent flaps aside and ducked to enter. “I promise you, Kalea, as long as there aren’t any darkspawn or people trying to kill us, we can play in the snow whenever you want.”
“Good,” she said as he laid her down and stretched out next to her. “And you know what I like even better than playing in the snow?”
“What’s that?”
She leaned in toward him. “Warming up,” she whispered against his lips.
As it turned out, that was Alistair’s favorite thing about playing in the snow, too.