"The heart can get really cold if all you've known is winter." Benjamin Alire Sáenz

The limbs of the trees were stripped of their leafy crowns. Their bare limbs bending under the weight of the snow they adorned themselves with. Large teeth of ice hung from the rooftops of the houses. Their snarls glittered as the first rays of sunlight grazed them at angles. Frost veined the windows and tiny puffs of smoke drifted out the chimney of every house, defying the chilly air that blew through the streets. The ground was already blanketed with a thick layer of snow by the time he arrived. Gray clouds huddled together over the sleeping town, heavy with the promise of more.

Unlike the town's people, who sought an escape from the cold under layers of warmth, he stood at the entrance of the town with his chest and arms exposed. Few clothes adorned his person, except for a pair of ragged black pants and a black tattered cape. They were merely decorations, for he never felt the cold. As he walked through the town, the snow below his bare feet was left undisturbed. He could feel them in their houses, the families asleep in their beds. Their warmth radiated through the walls and touched his fingertips. And they could feel him there as well. They wrapped their blankets tighter around their persons, held the warmth of their partner closer, and dared an inch nearer to the roaring fires. Though they knew he was there and it had been a year since his last appearance, no soul came out to greet him.

It was like this every year. The birds disserted the skies. The animals burrowed deep underground. The humans kept to their shelters. They had felt him coming long before he arrived and prepared for it. They would lock themselves away and curl up around their embers of warmth. Few dared to venture out into the frozen world he brought. Only one thing could be found in the depths of the snow and ice. Everything slept when the world turned white, for a season or for an eternity.

He exited the town and entered the silent forest that surrounded it, continuing his long trek across the land. The sun was now fully blocked by the grey clouds above, melding the bleak colors of the earth with the ones of the sky. He looked back at the town, barely visible between the clusters of trees. Every year he would begin his march at the same place. No matter how many times he visited the town, for him it never changed. Looking ahead, the same scene stretched on. He knew what to expect when he walked his season. There was no life to be held. Everything was always silent, always sleeping, and always white.

Soon the town was swallowed up by the white world he created, lost to him for another year to come. But there were more towns to pass through, more forests to walk, more things to bury under the snow and ice. He could feel them scurrying in the distance, gathering against the cold like pockets of heat in his frozen land. He sighed as he continued on. His breath sent a gust of chilly wind through the forest. The grey clouds sighed in response, releasing another layer of snow upon the world. The snow fell heavier and the wind picked up, but he walked on unaffected. The white snow, the glittering ice, the chilly wind, the frost, and the freeze, were all his to command. His season had come again and the world froze under his reign, for now the Lord of Winter walked the land.