Seconds with him had her dripping. The grip of his hands, warm and firm, on her upper arms sent droplets sliding down her skin, her wrists, across the sensitive expanse of her palm and down the individual spires of each slender finger and nail to pool clean and cool on the ground at their feet. His mouth on hers sent a flood of heat and moisture down her throat and between her breasts, gathering wet and warm at her belly.

But his touch was fleeting; scorching; so brief, so hurried and hasty that the thaw didn’t last. They parted—the heat of his skin, even the warmth of his eyes dimmed and she felt herself begin to harden. Her mouth sealed shut by passion gone frigid and icicles clung dagger-like to the ends of her fingers. An ice floe coated her breasts and covered her hips.

It hurt to move. Each step, each wrenching pull of ankle and toe tore tender flesh. Every moment of her journey made her crack; the delicate tinkle and snap of fault lines forming on her surface, the crackling sway of the blue and frozen wave of her hair. She feared the fall, the final wrong and unsteady step that would send her to the ground and shattering. So she paused, she stopped. She stopped moving.

She stopped moving her feet, to stop the tearing and pulling on her heels and toes, to stop the scrape and grate of her arms swinging at her sides, to stop the exertion that sucked in painfully frigid air that bit and stabbed inside her lungs.

Tears that fell just froze, lining ice-blue eyes with icy jagged teeth and growing her cheeks to sharp, unfriendly peaks. What breath escaped her lips blew cold and dry.

The ice at her feet grew thick, rooting her where she stood—a thick base like the ancient trunk of a tree all of ice. Her heart racing in too-late panic, she reached out, up, over—to the sun, to the sky, the air, to anything—and her arms froze there like dead, leafless branches. Icicles pierced downward from each finger, from the crook of her lifted elbow. Ice clung to her eyelashes, fastening them tight to each other and to the skin of her eyelids. The freezing transparent wave slowly crept over the moist surface of her eyes.

When sun caught her angles, she shone like crystal glimmering so bright that people squinted, marveled and kept their distance. When the moon hid her shine, she appeared like a dark and forbidding rock, all of sharp points and slicing turns, so people shuddered, marveled and kept their distance.

She saw the world as if through clouded glass. When the wind blew, nearby trees quaked and waved in the current, but not her. Muffled and far away from her ears, the howling only sounded haunted. She watched the sun rise blurry gold each morning, stood with the moon each night and felt nothing.

Then, crunching footsteps approached one day, slow and cracking across the frozen earth behind her, only pausing at the stab of bright light when others had retreated, only cautious of the sharp and twisting angles when others had fled. Her frozen eyes stared emptily forward; she didn’t have the care to wonder.

Soon, a wild thing appeared before her with dark eyes that peered through clouded glass. It was a hairy beast with a ferocious mane atop its head and unruly fur across its cheeks and lips. Dark, vicious eyes peered at her through clouded glass, but she felt no fear. The ice was thick, and she felt no fear.

After a moment, the creature backed away, its crunching footsteps growing further and further away. Alone again in the clear dark, she looked at the distant, distorted image of the moon and felt nothing.

Early next morning, the sun pushing blurry gold across the snow, the crunching steps came close again, pulling her from brittle thoughts. The beast peered again into her frozen-eyed stare. With chisel and hammer, it began at her shoulder. She felt the vibration of each powerful impact. It thumped dully against thick ice.

For days on end, the creature worked, departing again when the moon rose and returning with the sun. The creature worked with hammer and chisel all through the sunlight, pausing only minutes at a time for water, food, rest. When night came, it walked away, footsteps crunching in the snow. She looked at the moon through clouded glass and felt nothing—until the wind blew.

She felt a chill, the dropping temperature slipping near to her through the ice the beast had weakened. A shiver crept through her motionless body and she felt hatred.

She glared all the next day while the creature worked, a hardening of hard eyes that didn’t move. “Go away,” she tried to say in every way she could, with eyes that were frozen open and lips that were frozen shut. With the noonday sun, she felt breath and warmth against the thinning ice beneath her arm and the top of her shoulder. She felt the too-close heat of the sun and the strong-handed blows of the beast.

It barely paused, barely rested until evening when, as the sun gave way to the moon, she felt it—the wet peel of the last thin sheet of ice fell from the skin along the underside of her arm. Just the smallest space, no larger than the span of two fingers, but the creature halted and she heard its breath catch.

Dark, wild eyes glanced at hers through clouded ice and he pulled off thick work gloves. Two rough, skin-warm fingers pressed lightly against her cold, bare flesh, like hot water across a fresh burn. If they weren’t frozen open, she would have clamped her eyes shut in pain.

The beast exhaled, laughed a little in a rumbling, happy way, and pulled back on his gloves. But he could not see in the dark and the moon did not shine enough light for careful blows with hammer and chisel, so with a sigh that made her wince with its brush across bare skin, he gathered his gear and let his crunching footsteps take him away again.

Blood sped through her veins from the sudden pain, but she did not worry. The ice came back; it always did, even from the hottest touch. And when it came back, it was always thicker than before.

She stayed awake all night, waiting, longing for the comforting chill, the familiar prickle of the crystals forming across her skin, layering and growing until she was protected, encased, enclosed again.

But it did not come. The sun rose and warm morning winds blew across bared and tender skin. Her body shivered and trembled inside thick layers of ice. Her heart stumbled, then raced in fear. She watched the sun rise blurry gold through clouded glass and felt fear.

No, she thought, as she heard the creature’s footsteps coming near. No.

The beast looked longer in her eyes this time, his hairy face and wild hair blocking the blurry golden glare of the sun. He spoke and his voice was as distant as the wind; howling, haunted, far away and she could not understand.

Please stop, she thought, and her hardened eyes pleaded instead of glared. Please go away. But the creature could not understand her either, could not understand pleas from eyes that didn’t move and lips that did not speak. He took hammer and chisel from his satchel, pulled on sturdy gloves, and set to his work.

With the first sliver gone, the work went quickly. The ice snapped and tore away in great clumps. By noon, her raised arm was bare from shoulder to elbow. Eyelashes fluttered above eyes that could not blink; tears of pain slid wet down chilled cheeks but did not freeze.

The beast did not pause now, too taken by his task, by his success, by the reveal of ever more bare skin and the shatter and fall of ever more sturdy ice. His laughter puffed out of him from time to time, joy spilling out that he didn’t even seem to hear. As night fell, he pulled the last, long, dagger-like icicle from her smallest fingertip and she felt wind across the sensitive expanse of her palm.

He didn’t walk away that night, but slept instead at the large base of a nearby tree, close by where he could see her. Close by so he could start again at first light.

The freeze didn’t come, though she prayed for it, though she wished for it. The freeze didn’t come and with horror, she heard the crack and tinkle of fault lines forming on her surface. She blinked eyes no longer frozen fast, shut them tight against the moon, bright and distorted through cloudy, melting glass.

Droplets dripped down the individual spires of each slender finger and nail; moisture flooded down her throat and between her breasts, over her hips and down her thighs—despite the cold outside, despite the snow on the ground and the dark and freezing moon. Even in the cold, she could not stop the thaw.

By sunrise, she watched the sun grow clear and bright through ice-blue eyes that blinked and squinted and wept. She felt warm morning winds on cheeks that dried in the breeze. She looked down at the creature sleeping at the foot of a nearby tree and saw a kind, full face beneath the wild mane and unruly fur.

The cold had bitten and torn at his lips, his cheeks were red and breaking dry. He shivered even in his sleep.

No cold, she thought, watching the sun stretch across the ground to touch his feet. This creature should feel no cold. No cold.

Soon, the ice gave way at her knees, her shins, her ankles and she collapsed forward on her hands in the cold snow. Water streamed from her hair, falling about her head like dark and dripping vines; water dropped from her nose and the parted expanses of her lips. On her hands and knees, she looked over at the beast, at his cheeks ruddy in the morning sun and felt an ache.

She stood up slowly, bared and tender skin in the cold, bare feet silent on frozen ground and crept toward the dawn. She smelled the sun, the wind, the ice, the air. She breathed in deep.

Bare feet light on frozen ground, she walked away silently, alone, leaving melting footprints in the snow.