Before, if there had ever been a before, her face had been quite soft and fleshy, he thought as his rough fingers ghosted touches over her prominent cheekbones.

The colour of her eyes was light, but she always managed to throw dark and deadly looks. She wasn't beautiful, by any standards. Sometime, before, a long time ago, in another world, where she'd have been born with elbows and knuckles and could have fretted over manicure, she could have been beautiful.

But not now, not here, not when her once-upon-a-time shiny hair has lost all its life and the only colour in her pale face was that of her dark circles. Not when everything turned bitter in her mouth and she was too dried up for tears.

But she was still all he'd ever want.

Years of malnourishment and dehydration had taken away the glow in her skin and every form of minuscule plumpness her figure had ever possessed. She was little more than a skeleton, now.

A skeleton full of soul and hate and wit. A wandering corpse, full of grace and sass. And she was the warmest corpse he'd ever held.

She laughed in his face when he'd told her that. Ming-Hua never wanted to be warm again. That was a foolish thought, she knew, but her mind toyed with it at the edge of her consciousness. She's had enough warmth for a thousand lifetimes, more warmth and heat and hell than anyone deserved to know.

And still, she didn't turn him down or spit in his face when he put the warm coat around her shoulders, his arms surrounding her with another kind of warmth, one she hasn't felt in ages. And he swallowed her up, because he was so sturdy and safe and he carried heat deep inside. He remained draped around her, burrowing his nose in the furs around her shoulder.

When standing straight and tall and intimidating, she didn't even reach his shoulders. It made her want to curl around him and never let go and feel, which scared her shitless, because she wasn't supposed to want to feel. She was disgusted with herself for the weakness she never displayed, yet he always came to her and made her think and feel and drown.

The irony never surprised her anymore. It was so easy to slip away and dance in the summer and sunlit ash he carried around in his scent. The scent she'd grown so accustomed to and wanted to choke on to death, so that she may carry a piece of him with her.

The North Pole is sweet and cold and solitary and she feels alive for what feels like the first time in her life. There's snow beneath her scantly-clad feet, and with it come water, then cold and then life. She feels like herself, and adrenaline courses through her veins and she wants to twirl around and make snow angels.

Ghazan sees this. It's not in the movement of her facial muscles, no, those have turned to metaphorical stone long ago. (If they had truly been stone, he would have bended them forever, just to keep her alive and smiling.)

It's in the cold fire that dances in her eyes, its flames hotter than the stars he calls his own. It's in that little exhale, the way she seems to shudder with the freezing, humid air curling deep, in her lungs, and he knows she feels like fireworks are exploding in her stomach. He'd felt that after letting that first, unsure and unsteady step touch the muddy ground. It was the most superb thing in the world.

And she comes alive beneath his gaze, and he wonders that he's the only one noticing the way her posture changes and she's no longer slumped and bowed, but proud as fuck. She has a good enough reason to be.

Some days later, when they are once again four and going strong, they manage to light a fire in the middle of the tundra. It looks so disturbing and wonderfully out of place, that he feels like laughing out loud. Ghazan finds her sitting as far away from the fire as she can, buried in snow. She doesn't object when he sits down next to her.

He picks her up from her make-shift igloo and lays her in his lap, hugging the hell out of her. She's so light, that he almost doesn't feel her weight. She's thrown away somewhere the coat he's given her a few days ago and the snow is clinging to her clothes and neck. Her hair is wet and plastered to her face and back. There's snow on her dark eyelashes, and it's almost like she's battling them at him.

Ming-Hua tries to become snow, and she wants to fly with the snow flakes and she almost lets out a laugh as Ghazan tries blowing the damn things out of his moustache. It comes out as a huff of warm air, actual proof that she still isn't as cold on the inside as she wants to seem.

He observes this, of course he does, he's always reading her like an open book. Then, he throws an all-knowing smirk her way, because he's managed to crack her façade and he's fucking proud of himself. And, before he has time to think anything other than "Shit.", she's twirled around in his arms, stripping him of his beloved coat and pushing him in the snow.

They spar like only children could, and they can't laugh, but she's stuffed snow in his mouth and he pulls at her hair and he's coughing snowflakes and she thinks he's beautiful, but she'd rather sew her mouth shut than admit it out loud.

But Ming-Hua's caught off guard, and he pushes her into the snow pile under him and he kisses her, although she's kicking him hard, he's still kissing her and his mouth is warm and she's no longer ice and if she'd have arms, she'd coil them around his neck and pull at his hair, but she can't and her resentment is forgotten as she feels his hands go up her back and knot deep into her now-ramrod-straight locks of frozen hair, radiating that kind of warmth she loves so much.

His hair is falling into her face, and her frozen heart grows in her throat and he takes it and melts it, and before she can think coherently, water finds her shoulders and then his and his hair is wet and matted to his skull and it's the next best thing to having arms, she thinks.

She's all curled around him and he's cold and wet, but she goes on kissing him, because he warms her up and it's like nothing else in this mad world and none of them mind being out in the cold for once. They've starved for it long enough.

A/N: Soooo. mingzan fluff. because this site needs it. and the world needs it, after that finale ...

hope you like it! :3