Darkness had long since crept in, enveloping the sleepy Romanian village in pitch where light did not reach, and dimming the winding house-lined paths. Draped in a furred blanket, watching the crackling of the fireplace, Lea sat alone. She had expected, of course, for the winter months to bring coldness beyond the physical - to bring a near-unbearable stab of freezing isolation - but she had not been prepared. She never truly was, no matter how hard she tried.
Lea had spent the time - just over a month, if her mind still knew time as it once did - watching the flames dance across the logs of the fireplace. She watched, and she dreamed, and she thought of summer. She imagined the sun, bearing down on the little village, brightening the world, bringing colour and vibrancy. She imagined the warmth, the people. She imagined her.
But it was only a dream, and Lea knew that too well. She could not come - not in the winter. Not in the cold.
So Lea tried to think of something else. Her name - as it was the easiest thing for her to remember - and her opinion that it was a little on the nose. The name had been intended with the meaning of 'delicate' due to Lea's fragility when she was born - at least, according to her mother, who had long since passed.
So Lea thought of her mother now instead. The way time had stolen her youth, yet left her a unexplainable, all-emcompassing beauty in the form of her smile. Her mother had been lined with wrinkles by the time she passed - a fate not often seen in the village, but guaranteed by Lea's attachment to-
And again, she was thinking of her. She pursed her lips in a frown, considering the fire intently. Oh how Lea wished for nothing more in this moment than her.
As if by some semblance of destiny, or by the pull of love, Lea heard a buzzing sound outside her door, and then she knew. She had come, despite the cold. She had found a way.
"Dragă," The woman - much older than Lea, though she appeared not a day over 25 - materialised in front of Lea, blocking the fireplace, perhaps to absorb some of the warmth.
Lea thought she looked smaller. Perhaps, some part of her - of the buzzing flurry that was her being - had been lost in the treacherous cold outside, crystallised by the freezing winds of winter. Perhaps it had simply been so long that Lea had forgotten how she looked. But no. It had been no longer than any other time, so the former of the possibilities must have been the truth. It brought a stab of pain to Lea's heart to imagine the hurt the woman had gone through just to be by her side. It brought a tear to her eye. Lea hated winter.
"You came." Lea did not - could not - move to properly great the woman. She smiled, albeit weakly. "I was not sure you would come, in the winter."
"I would always come for you, Dragă."
The promise held a weight of something deeper - it held the whispered undertones of words that could not yet be said - the reality of a situation the woman was not yet truly ready to face. From the very beginning, she had known she would lose Lea. She had known she would live on, tied to an ageless life, unable to depart from it simply by the manner of her position - of her responsibility. The eldest of three, and a Lady at that, she could not - no matter how much she wanted to - depart this world with her love.
Lea smiled, gently, understandingly, as if she knew the thoughts that turned over and over in the head of the blonde standing in front of her. And, in part, she did. By nature of her situation - by her experience, rich in years upon years with this woman - she knew her better than most.
"Bela," voice barely above a whisper as weakness creaked her bones, Lea attempted to shift - to stand - but found herself unable to move. "I am so cold..."
And so, without a word, Bela settled beside Lea - the woman she had loved for a good 70 years. Lea's face was faded, changed by time and life, wrinkles and scars a plenty - but her eyes had never changed. The same calming blue Bela had seen when the first met - when Lea was 20, not 90, and full of life. The very same calming blue that had carried Bela through 70 years with this woman, that had kindled a love that brought her back to the village every spring, every summer, and every autumn, until it grew too cold to venture out.
She had received word from a maiden about half an hour prior. It had taken time to travel through the village and to the ears of someone who could even approach the castle, let along the eldest daughter of the countess herself. And when it had came, Bela had not hesitated. Despite the cold, and the pain it brought, she had wrapped herself in the warmest clothes she could find, and opened the door, racing the the village as her heart pounded in her ears.
She would not let Lea be alone now.
"I am not ready to die," Lea let out a wry chuckle, which sputtered into a cough, leaving her wheezing. Bela rubbed circles on her back until she could breathe again. "But, I suppose," her voice returned hoarse, "I have had a good life, here, with you."
When Lea had first come to the village, she had come to be alone. She had found herself wanting solitude, and had hunted the mountain sides, selling game for lei. She had enjoyed the isolation - the freedom it brought - until she had met Bela.
It was hard to pinpoint when they shifted from marketplace acquaintances to friends, and even lovers, but Lea had excepted that trying to track the change was a fools game. It had happened, and that was all that mattered. It had brought her the greatest love of her life.
Bela did not speak. She was not sure words would come if she tried, and so she let the silence speak for her, leaning her head against Lea's chest. She listened - listened to the laboured breathes and stuttering heartbeat of her lover - and she held on tight, as if she could keep Lea bound to this world as long as she didn't let go. For quite some time, they sat in silence.
"I love you, Bela Dimitrescu." Lea leaned her head down against the blonde's, breathing in. "For 70 years I have loved you, and I will continue to do so from wherever I go next."
"I love you too." Bela felt the words in her throat - rough and big and threatening to choke her on a sob she struggled to hold in - but she was determined to remain strong for Lea. "I always will."
A few more minutes, as the clock ticked over into the witching hour, and Bela heard Lea's heartbeat slow. Her breathing stuttered, and stopped, and as her heartbeat decreased into nothingness, her body went limp. And finally, finally, Bela allowed herself to cry.
Sobs ripped through her chest as she clutch Lea's limp form close to her, praying desperately to gods she did not believe in for Lea's heart to beat again. But no sound came, other than her ragged breathes and raging screams. And so she continued to cry, to howl and wail into the night, not caring who may hear, screaming to the world 'I am not yet ready to lose you'.
Hours passed, and when daybreak came, Bela knew Lea would never come back to her. She knew she had to go - the fireplace burnt low and the cold would come for her soon. She could not be seen, crying, clutching the body of a village girl, regardless of their 70 years of love.
She forced herself to her feet, some selfish part of her wishing to remain, to let death take her to see her love again, consequences be damned. But, she knew she could not listen to the whispers of a broken heart. So she kissed Lea's forehead one final time, then stepped back to look at her lover for the last time - her lover, now lost to an eternal, peaceful sleep.
Then she left, out into the cold, and back towards the castle, racing against the crystallisation of her flies. It had been reckless to go to Lea, but Bela had refused to let her die alone. She had needed to say goodbye.
She made a vow to herself, as she returned through the castle doors, that she would never love again. No one would ever fill the whole that Lea would leave, and though she knew the pain would lessen, she also knew it would never truly pass. She would not fall again, she could not.
She would never again take anything more loving than winters ice-cold kiss.