Snowfall thickened.
What had begun as thin flurries drifting carelessly through the air now descended with weight, like a hush settling over the world in white fragments. The flaps of the caravan's canvas trembled lightly under each soft strike of frozen breath. The horses' steady rhythm slowed, hooves muffled beneath deepening frost. The fields around them were disappearing—one snowflake at a time.
Kel watched in silence.
His gaze was distant, not detached, but looking beyond the horizon through a lens unshared by most. The gray of his eyes reflected the snowfall, soft yet unyielding.
Reina, beside him, tracked each change in weather as if it were whispering threat rather than beauty. Her posture remained perfectly composed, though her gloved fingers subtly adjusted grip around the hilt resting near her waist.
Landon sat with arms crossed, breath misting with every exhale, eyes cautious yet inadvertently lulled by the quiet surrounding them.
At the driver's bench, Ganz narrowed his eyes through the snowfall, judging visibility as the caravan pressed forward.
For a while, only the creak of wheels and the rustle of falling snow existed.
Then, as though simply thinking aloud across years of lone winter travel, Ganz spoke.
"Tell me," he said, voice steady despite the cold sting biting his beard, "how does snow look to poets and scribes when it falls like this?"
Kel blinked slowly.
The caravan interior settled further into silence.
Ganz continued, nodding toward the white haze blanketing the road.
"When we sit here, wrapped in furs, watching it from cover… snow looks peaceful."
"But when I march through it on foot, it's no small burden."
He looked slightly toward Kel, though not fully turning.
"So tell me, Sir Heral. A poet's words, since you gave us such earlier."
"What does snow mean to you when you're on the road and it rains down like this?"
Reina's eyes shifted marginally.
Landon's brow lifted.
Kel remained still for a breath that lingered too long to be casual.
Then he turned his eyes toward the snowfall.
The world, beyond the weak curtain of the caravan, was a blur of white and silence.
His voice arrived gently.
Soft.
Measured.
Carrying something far heavier than its volume.
"As I sit here," Kel began, "riding upon this caravan, it seems… peaceful to me."
He spoke slowly, watching the flakes gather on the edges of the wagon covering.
"There is a softness in watching snow fall from distance—when our skin feels no bite and our feet do not wade through it."
The air tightened.
Ganz nodded faintly without interrupting.
Kel continued, eyes half-lidded.
"When I look at it like this… I think—"
His lips curved, but not quite into warmth.
"—that I would like it to continue without end."
His voice carried that contradiction with almost fragile honesty.
"Because from here," he whispered, "it gives comfort."
"It quiets the world without asking anything from me."
Reina inhaled quietly.
Kel lowered his gaze.
"But if I were walking through it…"
A pause.
"I may curse at every flake."
Landon exhaled softly.
The driver chuckled once in somber agreement.
Kel's next words dropped like frost on steel.
"Because snow that comforts those under shelter…"
His eyes deepened.
"...is the same snow that burdens those exposed."
Reina's gaze sharpened, reacting to the truth layered beneath.
"When we walk in it," Kel continued, "snow does not feel gentle. It slows our pace. Muddles our bearings. Turns roads into traps."
"It soaks through boots. Eats heat from bone."
His tone remained soft.
His words did not.
"In comfort, we call it serene."
"In suffering, we call it cruel."
Landon looked down at his hands, flexing fingers as if just then aware of the creeping cold.
Kel leaned back slightly against the crate, never breaking his gaze from the frost-draped world.
"And so, yes," he said, "it is irony."
"That we admire the very thing that, if we were walking unprotected, we would curse without hesitation."
Outside, wind stirred the snowfall.
His words seemed to drift along with it.
"We see beauty when our comfort remains untouched," Kel said quietly.
"We speak of peace from warmth… yet when we must bear it with our own body, we think only of when it ends."
His fingers brushed the cold air sneaking through the small gap in canvas.
"Our perception," he finished softly, "is shaped by where we are standing… not by what is actually there."
No one spoke.
The world itself seemed to listen.
Snow continued to fall.
Relentless.
Silent.
Reina's Quiet Reflection
Reina's eyes lowered.
She watched snow travel through air, weightless until it landed and began suffocating the world beneath.
How fitting… she thought.
Kel did not describe weather.
He described people.
It is not snow that is merciless. It is our expectations toward it.
Humans blame cold for being cold.
Weakness for being weakness.
Fate for being cruel.
Yet it is simply what it is.
Those who survive, she considered, are those who stop expecting warmth from things that were never meant to be warm.
Her grip steadied once more.
She kept walking behind him for that reason.
Landon's Realization
Landon swallowed.
When he's calm… he speaks like that.
Not like a noble's son.
Not like a child.
More like—
Someone who's stared at something far colder than this winter and decided not to freeze.
He shifted, adjusting his seated posture.
Without meaning to, he watched Kel almost the way soldiers watched their commanders.
Even though Kel commanded no one here.
Only himself.
That's what makes people follow him.
The Driver
Ganz rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
His voice dropped, softened.
"…You say it more clearly than any scholar I've carried."
Kel remained silent.
Ganz smiled faintly at the snowfall.
"When I'm by a fire," he murmured, "I call winter beautiful."
"When I'm stranded in it…"
He rubbed frost from his beard.
"I call it a grave."
He nodded toward Kel.
"You see both. That's rare."
Kel looked toward the road.
"I have walked from warmth," he said.
A breath.
"And beneath sky."
Ganz did not pry.
Only nodded.
Closing
Snow fell harder.
The caravan slowed to preserve the horses.
Inside, cold seeped through canvas and joined the silence.
But the cold felt different now.
Not the enemy.
Not the comfort.
Simply present.
Kel watched it still.
And for a brief second, his eyes—those calm, cold-grey eyes—held something almost like memory.
Or perhaps warning.
He closed them.
Spoke one last time.
Soft.
Slow.
"When a man watches snow from shelter… he speaks of how quiet the world has become."
Wind pressed against canvas.
Kel opened his eyes.
"But when he walks into it…"
His gaze deepened.
"He remembers that silence can also kill."
Ganz inhaled sharply.
Reina's eyes did not move.
Landon's fingers tightened.
The caravan passed under a grove of frost-laden trees.
Snow fell harder, obscuring the road ahead.
No one spoke after that.
They simply watched the snow fall.
Quietly.
Without excuses.