Seasonal Love

Autumn liked Spring; they met many times during Winter or Summer's shifts and talked. Mostly they spoke about plants and birds, and admired each other's artistry or nicely chosen color schemes. Autumn would laugh and say, "But my colors have been the same since the dawn of time." Spring would reply, "That doesn't make them any less beautiful."


They would get to talking about Summer's warm starry nights and sunny beach-days. Autumn was fond of Summer. He he liked her energy; it amused him. Spring loved Summer very much and was always happy to talk about her.


"Winter," interjected Autumn slyly, smiling as a pink blush spread across Spring's gentle face, "is another matter entirely." He put a slender finger to his chin and said thoughtfully, "His art may be the most intricate out of ours, but he is so relentless with his frost sometimes. It seems like he just doesn't know when to stop!"


Spring would try to defend Winter, although she had to admit that her beloved flowers had suffered from his cold hand so many times that it almost irked her. But she protested Autumn's harsh judgement of Winter's character (a cold-blooded killer without any moral sense whatsoever) and told him again and again about the tree in the grove.


Autumn laughed, a soft sound that reminded Spring of wind blowing through a forest. He asked, "What do you think the tree means?"
Her rosy blush would deepen and she would remind him that Winter had put his heart in that tree, long ago. "Why do you think it still blooms, when his heart should be as cold as the ice that has frozen his brain?" asked Autumn, a playful glint in his amber eyes.


Spring would fidget and mumble, unwilling to give an answer, but Autumn never expected one. He just laughed again and changed the subject back to birds. As Spring chatted with relieved exuberance about robins, Autumn wondered at how such a strong young woman could become so defenseless when faced with matters of the heart.




Winter, although he refused to admit it to anyone (especially not to himself) was in love with Spring, and could do nothing to stop his treacherous heart from displaying its colors on that accursed tree in the grove. The best he could do was surround it with snowbanks so high and thick that it would take Spring at least half a season to thaw them out.


But every few years she would arrive early, or he would tire himself out sooner, and there it would stand, pink blossoms perpetually waving in the frozen air. Spring would laugh sometimes (he didn't know if she was mocking him, or if the sight made her happy), but sometimes she would just look at it with a funny expression on her bright, round face.


Winter had only ever spoken to her briefly, even before his heart began to change. He had seen her before as a weak, desperate sort of person who took pleasure in melting his artwork to feed her obnoxiously bright plants. He couldn't even remember the last thing he had said to her.


But this didn't seem to bother her, because whenever they did see each other she would give him a warm smile and a white flower. He took care to always accept these gifts coldly and indifferently, but he froze the flowers and kept every single one, and her smiles kept his cold heart in bloom year after year.


There came a time when he felt he should give her something in return, but any ice art would melt as soon as she touched it, and he knew that snow in May, although it was pretty, hindered her in her work. He thought of giving her the white flowers he sometimes found in snow later on in his season, but that seemed redundant. Holly was nice, but it was spiky and he didn't like the thought of hurting her.


He sat beneath his tree for many years, thinking. He began to believe that there was nothing meaningful that he could possibly give her.


At long last, after he had utterly frustrated himself, he leaned his head back against the bark of the tree behind him and gazed into the soft pink mass overhead.

A petal drifted down and landed on his nose. It froze and he flicked it away irritably.

And then he realized what he could give her.

The only thing he could give her.

He groaned and slapped a hand over his face.