Colder watched his daughter focus all her attention on the tablet in front of her. It was dinner and there should be a limit where when enough was enough. Surely she could spare a half hour for dinner, engaging in social conversations with her siblings and her parents. No matter how much his wife tried to draw her into the conversation Diamond resorted to one word comments that were often clipped and straightforward.
"Daughter, why do you bury your head in those books? Surely there is enough conversation about to gain your interest."
Diamond raised her head from the tablet she had been focused on and picked up a red apple from the centerpiece bowl in the middle of the table. "One who reads will gain knowledge over one who does not. I’d rather be knowledgeable than a conversationalist."
"Oh dear sister," her eldest and only sister pouted. "It is you who seems to lack the knowledge of words to have a conversation and not the other way around."
"Penitent, that was uncalled for!”
Her sister turned her wry expression towards their father and innocently replied, “I was only stating the truth."
Not preferring to deal with confrontation, Diamond took the apple and shined it on her shirt as she stood. “I think the voices have tired me today and I am going to take my little non-conversationalist body-” she glared at her sister. “-to my room. If any of you want to seek me out for any other reason be my guest, but for now, I'll be there.” then she bit into the red fruit and picked up her black tablet and started to leave.
“Come now,” her mother soothed, catching a hold of Diamonds arm before she ran off. “Let's not act like children. You two are over seventeen hundred years old now. You should act as such.”
Even though her mother’s voice was soft, it held an edge that Diamond believed she shouldn't ignore. “Sit down, child of mine. Put down the tablet for a moment and finish your food.”
Pursing her lips, Diamond sat down hard into her chair and turned and glared at her sister across the way. “I hope you're happy,” she stated as she tucked her tablet between her thigh and the chair. It was the only place she could set it without it being a temptation.
When everyone settled down and the conversation started to flow once more, Diamond kept quiet. If she wasn't able to read and they wanted her to join in the conversation, then she would just keep quiet. There's nothing she had to say and if she did, it was often about her books that she immersed herself into. And none of them were interested in tales of a wild woman who was stolen by a hunk and rode off into the sunset. Her books were full of nonsense but they were also full of love, compassion, and heat.
Her whole life had become so consumed with books that she neglected to go outside causing her blue skin to become dull. Her father thought she possibly was melting and said that her books would be the death of her.
Diamond just laughed and kept reading. No one's ever died of over-reading. Diamond was sure of that. Even times like these, where her parents and her sibling demanded her attention, she was conscious of the urge to read more. To escape her reality that she seemed to be uncomfortable in.
No one wanted a winter fairie that dreamed about heat. Dreamed about Arizona on horseback or the sensation of hot sand between her fingers and the sizzling of the sun above her head.
It was true. You often wanted what you shouldn't have. One might say she was obsessed. She had sunsets posters in her room, unlike like the bright silver moon that shone every day and the twinkling stars that filled the night.
No, Diamond dreamed about what she shouldn't have. What she could never visit. She dreamed about a romance so hot and blazing that the summers of Arizona would sweat with envy.
“...mond? Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?”
Diamond glanced up to see her father's brows casted downward as well as his lips. Her lips tilted up in a forgiving smile. “I'm sorry Father, what was it that you were saying?”
He glared at his youngest. “You need to visit Glacier Temple tomorrow. I want you to do so without your tablet.”
“Without my tablet?” She asked horrified at the thought. “Why? I can navigate those tunnels and passages just as easily with a book as without.”
“Because it’s not about navigating your way,” her mother answered. “it's about seeing what your books can’t show you. The burn within the ice. And you should take a zen class.”
Diamond scoffed, “A zen class? Mother, please. And ice doesn't burn, not really.”
Everyone fell silent until her father spoke, his face had turned pale with a tinge of pink.
“You will go to Glacier Temple tomorrow and by blizzard, you will not be taking your tablet! Is that clear?” Shocked at the display her father expressed, all Diamond did was nod. Her father relaxed, his face spread back to the same deep blue it had been before. “Good. Let's eat.”
***
After dinner and not sure what to think about what her father said, Diamond continued to her bedroom. Why couldn't they understand? Books were her life. When the dark thoughts of herself arose, the sensation of being unpretty, unworthy, she immersed herself in a book to find that heat, the spark everyone talks about when they meet their snowflake.
Plain was how she’d describe herself, not pretty like her sister. Where Penitent was curvy in all the right places, Diamond was skinny and awkward. Tumbling silver curls ran down her sisters back whereas her own was hung straight without an ounce of zest. Followed by eyes that were a deep unnatural green to match her pale blue features with the slight brush of frostbite along her cheekbones. She lacked luster.
Wings too short, only peeking up slightly over her shoulder blades whereas her sisters were long and stopped short just past her head.
Even though her wings were small, Diamond’s were unique. Each wing had an intricate design that flowed into loose swirls, giving them a whimsical look with the tinted color of raspberries.
Her father also thought the color in her wings had changed due to the lack of cold that her body desperately needed. She did have to admit that she seemed tired often but chalked it up to the lack of sleep from staying up to read.
She threw herself on the bed, tablet in hand, and looked up at the crystallized ceiling. It would be hard to leave her tablet behind. The one true thing that understood her- and her it- was the tablet.
What did her father want her to do in Glacier Temple? Walk through the many paths she already knew? Zen class. Find her inner-self which he has been asking her to do ever since she admitted not getting the winter shifts? She craved that sensation, but craved the latter too. It was a necessary evil that cold couldn't be connected with-heat. Not like she connected within books.
She sighed and dropped her tablet beside her on the bed and reached for her most favorite book. It was the one about a misunderstood fairie. How she tried to be different and in the end realized that being different wasn't all that bad. That her individuality and talents were misguided. It was similar to studying a piece of art one way then studying it at another only to see a totally different image.
Diamond was sure she was misunderstood by her father. He just needed to see the other picture, and if going to Glacier Temple and trying to connect to Winter was what he wanted her to do, then she would connect with Winter. But she would connect with Winter in a way that only she would connect. She’d make him happy and herself as well. After it was all said and done, her father would have to be content that she tried and she would come home, do her work, read, and read some more.
She curled herself into a ball on the bed and thought about all the heroines and the heroes in her books; the lovers and the breakers. It wasn't that she didn't want to go out and socialize and have conversations. She was quiet. But there were times where she had a dream about a certain someone instead of who was in those books. Who was tall, with short cropped hair and those muscles on his tinged blue skin that made a heart race for days. His brown eyes held a hint of darkness and mystery and that smile... His smile melted her into a puddle, and that's saying something.
Crumbling inside, she drew circles on the top glass screen of her tablet; if only he would notice her.
Rich, plain, pale, troublesome Diamond.