Cold lips melt like snowflakes on a warm window pane.

Cheeks are tinted blue with want as desires formed of 318 years of loneliness are sated.

The snow's counterpart: the ashen Darkness, smelling of metal and fire and something deeper buried under grey skin and lodged under ribs, grasps and intertwines his long fingers like vines in snow-white hair.

Winter laughs, a cold, hollow sound light as the year's first flurries, as flesh cool and smooth and white as marble is marred in the colors of twilight by nails and teeth—the colors that signal the approach of Night…

And approach he does, with a less than gentle vengeance and a need to mark what is his. The night hisses as steam rises in the fusion of two souls. Frost bites at grey flesh, fingertips and lips; alabaster throats and pale, throbbing jugulars are exposed, and blue and purple flowers blossom accordingly. Dark, grey flesh sings for the branches of frost that grace its surface, and likewise, untouched, untainted white flesh calls for the corruption of the darkness. They complete each other.

When the two finally pull away, gasping for chilly air that stings lungs, there is nothing more to say.

The fusion of Cold and Dark is not a happy one; it is not a reunion between two friends, two enemies, or even lovers. It is a raw, biting need to touch, taste and smell that only the most lonely, desolate souls can understand. Cerulean eyes meet amber ones, and there is understanding in the look that they share; an epiphany. Two things are clear: a cold reality and a dark truth.

A cold reality: the fusion of Winter and Night, Cold and Dark, must never be spoken of.

A teasing smile plays on pale blue lips; the boy knows this. It is taboo, it is exciting, and he is reckless and full of desire. The Dark knows this.

A dark truth: nothing has ever been more beautiful, more raw, more powerful than the fusion of Cold and Dark; but you'd never know.

The two gather belongings and composure, exchange sidelong glances. The Dark nods curtly, and two spirits part ways, for there are still places in need of winter, and there are always places in need of the dark.