1

Shirayuki yawned enormously and rubbed at her tired throbbing eyes with the backs of her hands. It had been another long day at the Lyrias pharmacy—longer, in fact, due to last minute preparations for an impending snowstorm—and she was more than ready to settle in for the night. Slowly shuffling across her room, she plants herself on the edge of her bed, running a comb through her apple red hair, still damp from a bath. She was already dressed in her thick winter nightgown, and once she finished with her hair she could finally sleep.
She's halfway through braiding it when a sharp series of taps at the door interrupts her.

"Miss!" announces a familiar voice, "I brought the books you wanted!"

"Ah! Just a moment!" Shirayuki quickly secures the half-finished braid and wraps a heavy shawl around her shoulders.

"The snow's started," Obi informs her as she opens the door, the books securely wrapped against the elements and tucked beneath his arm. His nose and ears are pink from the cold and snowflakes dust his dark hair and coat, not yet melted by the warmth of the building.

"Has it?" Shirayuki glances over her left shoulder, toward the window. She hadn't noticed, but fluffy snowflakes flutter past, flashing in the lamplight of her room as they fall to the earth. Judging from the steep mound already crowding her windowsill, it must have started soon after she left the pharmacy building…

"Will you be all right going back to the fort, Obi?" It was a long walk from her room on Scholar's Street to the soldiers' quarters at the Checkpoint, even on a clear day.

Obi doesn't respond immediately with some witty quip or grinning reassurances that he can surely manage such a simple thing, goodness Miss, don't fret about me.
Which is odd, for him.

"Obi?" She turns back to face him, a question in her emerald eyes.

He stands in her doorway, silent and still as a statue, mouth ever so slightly agape, and stares at her, ocher eyes wide with surprise. No, with shock.

Obi's behavior puzzles her at first. Before she realizes exactly what he's staring at. Shirayuki claps her hand over the side of her face.

Too late.

Too late to conceal it.

The scar.

The long, thin scar that started near the corner of her right eye and carved a canyon through her pale cheek.

"Ah—This is—"

She knows it's stupid, even as she says it. He knows, what this is.

Obi blinks once, snapping himself away from the memories parading through his head. And then he turns, placing the parcel of books on a small table just inside the door.

"Obi, wait! I'll explain! Obi!" Shirayuki reaches for him with her left arm, right hand still clamped firmly over the scar.

But Obi walks away, without a word. Without a single sound at all.

She follows him out the door and into the hall, but he ignores her hushed calls. Obi finds the nearest window and leaps out into the street, vanishing into darkness and swirling snow.

Shirayuki stares after him, out into the frigid night, and curls her shaking hands into fists. Knocks them against her head. Once. Twice. Three times.

Stupid,
stupid,
stupid—!