Wolf Winter

Wolf Winter,’ she said, her voice small. ‘I wanted to ask about it. You know, what it is.’ He was silent for a long time. ‘It's the kind of winter that will remind us we are mortal,’ he said. ‘Mortal and alone.

Late autumn this year had violence in her hair, angry crimson, orange, and yellow. The trees wrestled to free themselves of their cloaks, crumpled up their old leaves and threw them straight out into the string wind rather than just let them fall to the ground. Dry leaves ran across the ground with the crackle of fire.

Sometimes when you had a thought, it refused to leave. You rejected it, disowned it, sent it away, to find, moments later, that you were still spending time with it. It might have a different shape or use different words, but there was no mistaking: it was the same one.

She wasn't sad. Not sad, more like... empty.

There were candles in the windows. But here in the streets the black sky had fallen and was lying face down and flat-handed on the earth itself.

Pero en medio del desorden se encuentra la razón. Y si podéis aferraros a la razón, os mantendréis a salvo.

The circular wind is life. What was yesterday comes again tomorrow. It runs from place to place and returns. But in the midst of disorder is reason. And if you can hold to reason, you shall be safe.

When she was little, she had thought the stars were angels who had made holes in the sky to watch over her, and the light she saw was the glory of heaven. But now, after having called for help, after having reached up, she didn't think there was anyone there.

It was like Nils had said, about the little lake on the mountain that had been turned into marsh and the large one that had remained a lake. A being was either strong enough to hold their ground or they became small and bottomless and started feeding on themselves. They turned into something they never saw coming. Something they never intended.

A bouquet of hawthorn butterflies skipped and danced in the air like a handful of pale flowers thrown to the wind.

We are what we are,' he whispered to himself, 'and I am grateful.

You have this trait... of looking for the mysterious and letting yourself be overcome.

If you once thought you had the truth, could you ever leave it behind even if you rejected it, or would you carry it with you, that option of a different life?