Brick fireplace was alive and glowing, the kindling crackling quietly, the flames stirring lazily and the heat making the walls of the stonekeep happy.

Sitting on his lap, she was reciting to him a dream. But it was his dream she was telling. He didn't mind that, yet he did. That dream burned her mouth like a hot coal, but shaking her head, she didn't spit it out, insisting on finishing the dream he already knew how it'd end. He didn't like that, yet he did.

She continued to tell him about what was familiar to him. The dream was barren and so was his backyard. It was still snowing, in the flurries of the snow, she was there too, unlike everything else put there covered in snow.

She unfolded all for him, rough brambles, the wilted butterfly bushes that were sad and bitter, the trees far away from the fence, the branches lonely, the leaves gone and the weather mirthless. She was different there inside his dream, she felt different. Then she started to become familiar like when new music sets in and you feel like you know it, yet there was still something off about her, she seemed unaltered. She was still discontent.

She seemed colder than his dream and his dream was already cold, felt colder still.

In retelling his dream, she was changing what he knew about her, she was changing her texture in his mind. She went on reimagining so out in the backyard in the cold, the elements were changing her to be sure, but she was doing something to the elements too.

She was getting warmer by the second, while the rest of the world was getting colder, colder, and colder still. That dream almost done having them, almost sated by now.

He adjusted her on his lap, as she adjusted his dream for him. She had always reminded him of warmth of all the suns in winter.

But in the dream she was giving him that was once his, and yet he kept looking for her in the snowflakes.