A/N This is supposed to be a Christmas fic but turned out pretty dark and angsty so please don't read if you don't want your mood to be ruined.

She turned away; and he knew, as he watched her walk away and close the door behind herself, there was no sadness in her, no remorse. He didn't feel them either. Time had come to accept his fate would be entwined to this silver chair, cold and unforgiving against his back, for a long time.

He could do it, accept it, face the monster hidden within himself.

Those children and that odd, greenish creature meant nothing. Anyone but his Lady meant nothing, had ever meant—

His mind faltered.

—nothing to him.

Nothing.

Nothing.

.

.

(He remembers that day now. It's surprising how clear memories can be in these painful moments.)

It started with one snowflake silently falling on his wrist, the black, cold metal of his gauntlet preventing it from melting upon contact.

It was followed by many others, the next ones overlaying and covering the previous ones until they were neither detectable nor recognizable, and a white expanse hid the ground.

Watching the snow falling, layer after layer, he wondered if that was what a second chance felt, if his soul would ever be that white and pure again.

(Rilan doesn't understand this question nor does he get his answer until—and unless—he awakes tied to the silver chair, like now, in a place where neither snow nor sun can reach.)

He kept his eyes on his Lady, almost transparent amongst the snowflakes, her cheeks a little reddened.

The snow was soft and muffled under the hooves of his horse, and he enjoyed that special noise the still untouched snow did whenever his steed trampled on it.

(It's beautiful, that noise. It's like the soft wrapping paper rustling when you're opening your presents.

Now he knows he's always liked that noise. When he was a child, his parents always had to keep an eye on him to prevent him from going out undressed and catching some illness whenever it started snowing.

Running away and being later wrapped in a warm cover and put beside the big fireplace was actually the only reason he kept sneaking out in winter.

It's been his little secret until now even if he suspects his mother knew. She was always the first one there to catch him, her steps light and quick despite the snow, his father being right at her heels.

He is sorry he'll never get the chance to tell anyone now.)

His and his Lady's horses' steps had been growing slower and heavier as the snow level increased.

That was when he saw it; a figure somewhere in the snow, as white as it—perhaps even created by the snowflakes themselves as they were dancing in the cold breeze.

(He wishes his hands were free to wipe away his own tears.

"Don't leave me, don't go," he would have whispered to the figure, but he couldn't. He had felt the urge to speak a name, that name so powerful that every knee should bow at it.

He couldn't.

He wouldn't.

Names hold a summoning authority that he had first-hand experienced. With his name, he has gifted her with his freedom too.

Not that it really matters. He isn't worth speaking that name anyway.)

Coldness.

He had started feeling it then, but it had nothing or very little to do with the freezing wind and the snowflakes that kept falling on his face and armor, coldening the already cold metal even more.

It came from inside him.

(He missed the chance to lick some snowflake from his lips, he thinks. Yet he's always wanted to know what snow tastes like.

When he wandered and questioned everyone about it as a child, they would only smile and say he'd hurt himself were he to try it. Then, he was too busy playing with it, rather than eating it. He always forgot.

So he doesn't know what snow tasted like when he was a child, what the Narnian snow tastes like. He can't remember. But now, now he's sure this one would have tasted like loss, nostalgia, pain.)

The snow had kept falling, silently. It was the only thing he could recall falling yet being unheard when hitting the ground.

(I was wrong, he thinks now. Souls, too, are silent when they fall.)

.

.

The hour was up, and the door opened.

Everything hurt; his limbs were sore and heavy, his tongue was dry, and something bitter was stuck in his throat as she spoke, her words as soft and sweet as melted honey whose goal was to blind together the teeth of its victim.

"Very good, my Prince. That's it. You can relax now. The torture's ended. You are free."

(It starts with one snowflake and a thousand whispers in his head. It ends with millions and millions of snowflakes and one voice, almost a hiss: hers.)

Fortunately, we all know what the real end is. :)

Written for the Holiday Prompt Contest. Prompt: snowfall.