This chapter is an entry for December's Just Write Bits challenge.

"Welcome to Forbudt."

The hooded visitor's abundant footsteps froze at my greeting from the racks' spines. His scent brought grilled smoke and the dampness of snow, mixed with the lingering pine-cone odor all over my place.

He must've passed Old Gin's Barbecue and Barbarian Bar; self-explanatory.

His eyes are now visible under the turquoise hood. They're threatening, with barely white space left to act as the sclera. Swirling turquoise glows have consumed them.

"Where are you?" His growls resembled a venomous viper's hiss. "Reveal yourself, Miss . . . " He picked a bottle containing 60 milliliters of a little shrikethrush's secretion, looking for my identity on the label.

"Dagmar." I poked my face to the bottle's original place, smirking as he staggered back. "And intruding my shop is considered as violence, Mr. Ditlev."

The advantage of having part of mom's abilities—I'm able to hear even the smallest particles. With Old Gin's voice amplifying his name, it managed to pierce through my silent walls.

He planked his back on the wreathed door, still aiming the bottle at me. He doesn't even know how its threat is considered average among other products I sell.

"I . . . the blizzard is coming."

His rigid existence and mobilizing eyeballs belonged to the exiled kind—Forbudt.  

He took a hesitant step forward. Wary of his surroundings, like an eagle expecting another challenger. However, replacing his shock now is a distant awe, after sighting the seven-stories-tall racks which lengthened into ten columns each, with garlands drawling over the edges.

"What's the best you have?"

I gave him a tight smile. My eyes blurred at the sight of his dangerous eyes. They're like a blue-ringed octopus. Captivating, yet possible to be deadly.

My shadow wafted across the decks, approaching the desk on the front door's right. The slender fingers opened the topmost drawer with a creak, fishing a candy-cane from within, and made its way back to me.

"Is that a candy cane?" Is his softer way to say, "That belongs to the dirty creations!"

"I'm a culture appreciative. Therefore, mortals' culture fascinates me. More than our rotten society's." I took the chance to quip him as well.

If it wasn't for his kind's chaotic behaviors, my kind's stubbornness, and my mom's kind's pride, there will be no mortals nowadays.

"This is my wand. Adaptable." I flicked and directed it to the leftmost rack from the door; rightmost from my view. On the topmost shelf is my collection of bestsellers.

The containers came to live as my transparent magic beckoned them to approach me. They moved in a spiral pattern, swirling lower until they've leveled with my elbows.

"This is a giftpil froskens gift—poison arrow frog's venom." I lifted the vial with a gray-colored—like trampled snow—content. "Two micrograms or less than a pipette's drop is enough to kill."

"Interesting assassin. Price?" Wrinkles appeared on his eyelids as he narrowed them, getting a better glimpse of the full vial.

"Seventy gold, thirty silver, and ten bronze."

I showed him my five bestseller items. And after I finished my presentation, he asked me to pack all of them in a carton box, as the mortals do. "To avoid casualties."

Silently shrieking for my huge unexpected victory tonight, I headed to another desk on the middle-rear part of the installment. It's where the central corridor leads to. Within its ancient drawers are mortal belongings and methods, which were once collected by dad.

Opening them are too heavy for my shadow. Either because of the memories it detained or the things buried within the depths.

"Mr. Ditlev, what will you do with my collections?"

"Anticipations."

There's dad's side in him. His rigid yet appealing features, non-formality remarks . . .

I should test him. If it results in his flaring fireworks, then I consider myself unlucky. But if he acknowledges dad's existence . . .

One won't know if one's guts aren't courageous.

"Anyone referenced my workplace to you before?"

"Someone close enough."

"Your father?" I almost missed his nod by several milliseconds. "Is he also a Forbudt?"

I offered him the fakest smile as I handed the wrapped packet to him. But his eyes never found the packet. They're consistently daggered on me. It brought scorching heat to my senses.

"Who are you—besides Dagmar?"

"Your dad must've known better than myself."

He took a step back at his balance's turmoil. "Do you know who you are talking about? My dad is—"

"Aidan Forbudt, the fifth generation of Forbudt." A sinister smile crept to my lips at his faltering defense. "Does the name sound familiar to you? Ditlev Forbudt, the sixth generation of Forbudt."

"How could you know?" He rasped as quick as quicksand. "You're not a Forbudt. You're a Valgt—the chosen kind. The righteous, selfish, peace-lust roamers . . . "

See, my gambling strategy works for me.

"And you're a Forbudt. Destructive, provocative, unaccepted, short-fused, and shallow-headed. Have it ever crossed your mind at how I know everything I've said so far?"

He was taken aback but spoke nothing. Only smiling in contemplation. So I took it as a cue for my shot.

I ransacked the stuffy drawer, searching. My fingers hesitated every time they caressed a surface. They're always either gooey, dusty, sharp, or bent.

But when I reached the rearmost corner, something snatched my warmth away by circling my fingers.

I pulled the item out by the handle. A slapping sound was heard when I revealed it wholly to the visitor, who looks as clueless as dementia.

"A whip?"

As the fall kept slashing and hurling itself to the decks, homesick flooded over me.

The glimpses of an old forgotten past. Fragments of events. When dad let me experiment with this whip to create chasms—dividing the Earth—when I was two.

I patted my internal self and grabbed it by the handle, which is cold to the core. Engraved on the handle are snowflakes, covering another inscription beneath. Ditlev watched me with confusion and eagerness.

"Your dad was a Whipcracker. One of the three strongest magicians the Earth had rejoiced. And here was his weapon."

"How could you possess it? How . . . Why?" His voice cracked, and the tough shell which masked his internal battles broke down. "On a certain date when snowflakes clashed with the earth, expect something as warm as the hearth." He quoted. 

"Do you mean that—"

He nods, with crisp crystals lightening his charred expression. "Dad sent me to Old Gin's bar, and there was a blizzard."

His eyes have switched emotions. There's a gentle warmth of turquoise, swirling like an eel within his eyes.

No, it must be the softness of his gaze, and the innocent smile twitching on the corners of his eyes.

His palm is scarred against my wet face, where saltwater has trickled down recently. He puts a soft pressure on my back and circles his arms around me, sending a forbidden calmness towards my insides.

"All these winters, I only found clues. But today, winter blessed me with you, my half-sister, who's only a myth in Forbudt. Who I've been seeking to prove all my life. Who will help me . . . avenge The Whipcracker's destructions."