If you look closely, the sun still shines behind that fortress of clouds, the storm that never sleeps.
Snow falls every night and every morning, the cracks in the statues at Monument Square have long since frozen over, trails of ice cascading down and into the floor around like roots of an oak. I've almost forgotten the colour of grass and the feel of it beneath my feet, the autumn leaves crunching beneath my toes. It's been a long winter, my son breathed life for the first time in this winter, and died too; the cold took him, the cold and the night. My wife died soon after that, doc says it was the frost tar, but me and my daughter know it was of a broken heart.
This town has long since been abandoned by the majority of people that lived here, strangers and family alike. The walls that once kept us safe have crumbled over time, and the old halls that once shone with laughter and love, now lay quiet, the shields on the walls never stir. The harbour used to invite al kinds from this island, all across the land they'd come from to bargain and trade and celebrate, now the ships never stir, they creak in the wind as it howls through our town. Still we become targeted by invaders from the south and west, they seek what the few of us know lies here, a secret forge left by our ancestors, and when this winter passes and the town life blooms again we will craft our mighty arms, our spears, axes, and oak-wood shields. We will rebuild for the next winter, the long winter, the long cold.
I wander through this town, the taverns, the houses, the halls and the walls; a maze it has created. Snow and ice are all we know in this town, this eastern town, snow, ice, cold and death. I long for sun, my eyes have grown sensitive to light and my skin has hardened, like a bear I hunt and track along the once-be rivers that travelled through our land. As my daughter still tells me, the sun, like the storm, it never sleeps and it is coming back. We can feel it.
