#competition winner

Solstice: by Harry Rooke-Kelly

This job was never easy. It has never been easy, in large thanks to you lot, with your cars, your cities, and your infernal gender reveal parties. Do you know how hard it is to cultivate a blizzard when everything is on fire? So perhaps it is petty of me to snow you in, freeze your roads, and ruin any holiday travel plans but like with most things, you have brought this upon yourself.

Regardless of your bothersome existence, this job has become increasingly hard as of late, largely due to the ever-bright Spring. Once a cycle we meet, to pass the ceremonial, and entirely metaphorical, baton. Every time, I watch him tumble over his words like a new-born fawn struggling to stand for the first time, while a small horde of bunnies hop around his legs, leave droppings and paw prints in my pristine snow. Every moment is misery, and he seems so blissfully unaware, nattering on about plants and desperately trying to drag me to see the lambs.

He is yet to succeed.

When time was new, and we equally as new, it was quiet. Yet to meet, I performed my duties, took one day of recuperation, and then began work for next winter. No one appreciates how hard it is to cultivate well-laid snowfall, or how long it takes to create individually unique snowflakes. No, you just whine about how cold it is.

Now I must meet with Autumn to take over duties and responsibilities, before handing them over to Spring. I have never encountered Summer, nor do I think I ever will. Autumn is pleasant enough, a little cold, but in a cosy sort of way. We share brief conversation, a light jab at what you lot are doing to the planet, and then she disappears back into the amber of mounting leaf piles.

This cycle, Autumn insinuated, like the cryptic witch I have come to know her as, that I have a semblance of affection for the naïve and childish Spring. It’s stupid, isn’t it? He’s an oaf, a boisterous loudmouth, constantly trying to drag me to his grove while mudding mine. But when I returned to the clearing where we meet, convinced I had misplaced my shawl and furs, I found a fern growing from the snow. It had been brief, but he had ‘accidentally’ trespassed into my domain and left a little reminder.

I thought of pulling it root and stem, then and there. But, what a curious experiment this could be.

So, every day, after my duties, I would attend to the fern, watering it, nourishing the soil as much as these icy hands could manage, and slowly, over the summer months, I grew attached to the little sprout. It was resilient, growing just as strong despite being an admittedly frozen thrall of this place, despite how brutal and cold it could be. It remained and wouldn’t go away.

It seems, unfortunately, Autumn was indeed correct.

He had been too slow, too stupid, too distracted, too much of everything he saw in himself every time he stared into a mirror.

All there had been was noise, and metal, and the blood thumping so hard in his temples it was a miracle he didn’t start screaming. You’d stayed standing for a moment, a horrible look of realisation flashing across your face before you gripped your shoulder, choking out a quiet “Arthur…” before you collapsed.

The bastard who shot you didn’t live to see you hit the ground.

Arthur, breathing heavily, his vision cloudy, pulled you so close to his chest you felt like a tiny bird. You were shaking, your head spinning, his heart beating like a maddened machine in your ear. All you could do was continue to gently whisper his name, over and over again.

“Arthur…Arthur…”

“Don’t you fold on me now, Y/N.” he choked.

An anchor, clinging to you, keeping you from slipping into the dark. He smelled like fear. You clutched him tighter.

Returning to camp was like being dropped into a hurricane. It was gasps and shouts and hands all over you, pulling you down from Arthur’s horse, away from the calloused denim of his overcoat that you had burrowed into as you sped through the grassy hills. Susan mopped your drenched forehead and gave you a shot of whiskey which made you shudder, her brow knotted with concern. Looking down, you saw that your shirt was stained scarlet, the sickeningly warm wetness sticking to your skin like the swamp. When Strauss started to check you over you felt bile rising in your throat and tried to scream, the panic of the last hour crashing down on you like a monsoon. You flailed, almost rolling off the cot, and once again it was Arthur who caught you, steadied you.

You gritted your teeth and wept silently as alcohol was rubbed around your wound. Arthur held your head in his lap.

“Y/N, I…I’m so sorry.”

You glanced up at him, feeling your stomach lurch when you saw his expression. He somehow looked smaller – shrunken, downtrodden. Defeated.

“Always told you I’d look after you, and now look where you are.”

“Arthur…it’s not your fault. None of it was.” you sighed, beads of sweat trickling down your face and seeping into your pillow. Arthur looked at you, his eyes sorrowful.

“It should’ve been me.”

You shook your head weakly and tried to laugh, but a wave of dizziness left you reeling. Arthur cupped your cheek with a large, warm hand.

‘Y/N, I…” he began.

But a searing pain jolted through your body as Strauss gently prodded the bullet hole, and the world fell into darkness.

Perhaps it was sleep, perhaps it was exhaustion, but whatever it was you clawed yourself back. You realised you were still breathing, though your shoulder felt heavy, and it throbbed with a rumbling soreness. Your eyes fluttered open to be greeted with the dusk, crickets chirping rhythmically outside the tent. A candle burned sleepily at your bedside. Arthur sat on the ground, his head resting back on your cot. When he heard you stirring he leapt to his feet, almost knocking Strauss flying.

“Y/N?”

You smiled, your vision still slightly blurred, breathing in his warm scent again as he knelt beside you.

“The bullet appears to have gone clean through…that bodes well for you, Fraulein.” Strauss commented, nodding towards your shoulder, which was swaddled in bandages. “I cleaned the wound and stitched you up as best I could. Though I cannot promise it will be a painless recovery.”  

“Thank you, Herr Strauss.”

“Think nothing of it. Herr Morgan here will be quick to chastise you if you decide to overexert yourself before you’ve fully recovered, I am sure.”

Arthur flushed pink and you couldn’t help but smile even wider. Strauss nodded simply and left the two of you alone. The tent was silent, save for the gentle crackle of the candle.

“I thought you’d died.”

Arthur’s voice was tiny, shrouded in exhaustion and relief. You sighed shakily, reaching for his hand.

“Not yet.” you breathed.

“I don’t ever want to be without you.”

He spoke so suddenly, so quickly, that you barely registered his words. His head was bent, his thumb tracing small circles across your palm. You blinked. He slowly turned to meet your gaze.

“I never dreamed of sayin’ it until now. Till it almost came true. But I mean it, Y/N.”

“Arthur…”

He kissed you, his lips pressing down on yours, impossibly soft, impossibly sweet. In your eagerness to kiss him back you pulled him on top of you, his weight pressing down onto your bad shoulder. You yelped.

“Oh hell, I’m sorry…” he stuttered, panic flashing across his face, but you laughed. He grinned, placing a kiss on your forehead. You gradually wrapped your arms around him, letting him settle on top of you, laying between your legs with his head under your chin.