Several years ago

The sun never shines quite so brightly there. The Benari of the summerlands call it the blue twin, an imitation, like it doesn't belong on that side of the world. Unlike this land, where it shone a brilliant golden hue that created little dancing lights that sparkled between the gaps of treetops and the foliage.

It always shimmers here, Ari thought, as her sun-kissed light brown and golden legs swung precariously over the edge of the giant rift between one land and another, the branch beneath her creaking slightly at her and her cousin's weight. Amma wouldn't like them being so close to the edge, neither would uncle Benny, but nothing they didn't know would hurt them.

'We should make a swing from the lianas, one that travels between the rift,' Millie mused, as she twiddled her thumbs in a thumb war.

'We can't, you know we can't.' Ari mumbled, sending a brief prayer to God to save Millie from these pointless thoughts that could endanger herself.

The rift is what they called it, the fringe between the summerlands and that of the winter beyond. It would have been a bridge if her ancestors and that of the winter lands hadn't torn away what was left of it. Ari glimpsed at it, although she was only eleven, even then, she knew that that in itself was impossible. Amma and abba and the village and those beyond had warn all the children of Benar that even crossing the rift was a death sentence. If you didn't lose your life, you'd lose your mind.

Ari often asked, like any child of her age, why. Why were the valleys beyond white as the meadows of Benar were green. Why did the ferrets turn ashen as they flittered in the cold and brown again when they were back home many months later? Why were they not allowed to cross? The same, repetitive answer droned back in her mind, like a liturgy sent down through the generations, 'It is not our way.' Perhaps it wasn't.

Ari shivered at the thought. But even then, her mind wondered as the warm sun began to congeal against the sky, leaving trails of red, the fireflies emerged with a spark and flittered around the rift, some weaving fast between the low hanging branches and bravely near the waterfall and zipping into the cold winter lands covered with snow. Snow, that's another thing she never felt, tasted or lay in, and Ari lay upon the grass as often as she could. But then her eyes caught a flash. She gasped, and it was gone, and before she could look for it again Millie stirred besides her, the branch creaking more heavily now.

'What was that?' Millie huffed in surprised, 'did you see it? Someone is there, near the large snow trees, you see? There!'

Ari's eyes followed to where Millie extatically pointed, only to see nothing again. Until the branch gave way, and they fell hurtling on down to the water below. They didn't even have time to scream before the water engulfed them.

The icy water stole Ari's breath, a shock so profound it momentarily erased the panic. She thrashed, her limbs heavy and disoriented, the golden sunlight now a distant, fractured glimmer above. The current, stronger than she'd anticipated, pulled her relentlessly. She could hear Millie's panicked cries, a muffled, gurgling sound that spurred her into action.

Ari fought to orient herself, her eyes stinging in the murky depths. She remembered Amma's warnings about the currents near the rift, how they could drag you down and spit you out miles away, into places where the sun never truly warmed the skin.

She reached out, her fingers brushing against something slick and cold - a rock, perhaps? She clung to it, pulling herself against the relentless flow, searching for Millie. But it wasn't a rock. It was a hand, pale and slender, that closed around her wrist with surprising strength. Before Ari could react, she was yanked upwards, propelled through the churning water with an unnatural force. She gasped, sputtering, as the hand, now joined by another, hauled her and then Millie onto the warm, sun-kissed riverbed.

Disoriented and coughing, their eyes burning from the murky water, Ari and Millie lay sprawled on the grass, their bodies trembling. They were too stunned to comprehend what had just happened. They had been dragged out of the deadly current, but by what? Or by whom?

As her vision began to clear, Ari caught a fleeting glimpse. A flash of snow-white hair, a small, lithe figure, and then a swift, silent movement as it vanished into the dense, snow-laden trees of the winter woods. The figure was gone, swallowed by the shadows, leaving only the lingering impression of icy pallor and an unsettling silence that fell over the roar of the waterfall. They both were too busy trying to breath to say a word.