“Basil! Basil! Look!” Fresh runs down the street, staring in wide-eyed wonder as flakes of white snow find their way down to the roads, landing and collecting on the roofs of the many warm houses, on the bark of the giant tree that sits in the center of the city, as if coating it with streaks of white paint.

She isn’t the only excited person running around. Other adventurers run along the street as well, one of them slipping and sliding, flailing with his arms as he spins haphazardly in a circle over a patch of ice, colliding into his friends. All of them tumble over at once, falling down onto the street. But they seem to take it lightly and laugh in the same childish enjoyment that Fresh has of the situation.

Bending down, she picks up a handful of cold powder in her cupped hands and then blows on it, sending puffs of it flying away like dandelion-fluff on a spring breeze. “Snow!” she exclaims, turning back towards Basil, just in time to see the snowball flying her way.

Fresh yelps, having been betrayed in broad daylight. The snowball strikes her right on the nose and breaks apart and by the time she wipes it off of herself, all she can see and hear is Jubilee laughing at her.

She wipes the snow off of her face and looks just in time as Jubilee is then buried beneath a mountain of it. Shamrock might have overdone it with his attack.

Jubilee pops out of the heap of snow. “Shamrock! You fuck!” they swear. “Just you fucking wait until I-” Jubilee grumbles, trying to pull themselves out of the snow. This time Fresh laughs, even if she feels a little mean for doing so and Basil does so too, at least until she gets her well-deserved snowball to the side of the head.

“Aaah! That’s what you get!” laughs Jubilee smugly, seeing the priestess wipe her face and hair off to get rid of the marks of Fresh’s revenge attack.

“Why is it snowing, guys?” asks Fresh, walking back to her friends. People run around all around them. It seems that most of the adventurers here had managed to keep a childlike, light spirit and they find great, shameless enjoyment in something as simple and clean as fresh winter’s snow.

“Because it’s winter, goo-brain. It fucking snows everywhere,” sighs Jubilee, letting out an annoyed bark as Shamrock lifts them up out of the snow that they’re still buried in. With a rough hand, he wipes the remaining powder off of them.

“Fuck’s sake, Shamrock!” snaps Jubilee, coughing after Shamrock brushed a little too hard against them. “I’m not an old rug.”

“Be gentle, Shamrock,” says Basil, sounding rather smug. “You know how delicate Jubilee is.”

“Fuck off, Basil,” sighs Jubilee, crossing their arms as Shamrock sets them back down. “If anyone is sensitive here, it’s you. Crying and flailing in your sleep every fucking night, like some kind of banshee.”

“I have bad dreams,” replies Basil, crossing her arms and lifting her nose.

“Toughen up, buttercup,” says Jubilee, shaking their head.

“I’m going to cuddle with you tonight then,” says Basil. “Being next to your weird, pointy face for hours will toughen anyone up,” she quips.

Fresh laughs, glad to see them back to bantering as always. She looks up towards the sky, wondering where the snow is coming from. The shield is still in place and there’s nothing coming through it.

She narrows her eyes, staring upwards. “AH!” she exclaims, grabbing Shamrock’s arm as she points upward. “Look!”

The others look up towards the towering mountain of a tree. High, high up on the lowest rung of branches, tiny silhouettes can be seen, walking around. People. Casters. Magical glows release from their hands and then, moments later, a new wave of snow and ice falls down from above. “They’re making snow!” she exclaims excitedly.

“Yup,” says Jubilee. “This is where the ice-casters all go in summer, when it gets hot as fuck,” they explain. “Remember?”

“Mm!” nods Fresh, thinking back to the brutal summer they had undergone, back in the north.

“They usually tend to stay afterwards.”

“Really?” asks Fresh. “Don’t they have to do a dungeon too?”

Jubilee shakes their head. “Turns out that being useful will open a lot of doors for you. Ice-magic is pretty rare, so they get taken in quickly. Hell, most of them have a full-time job by the time they’re ten,” explains Jubilee.

“Huh…” Fresh leans her head against Shamrock’s arm, as she stares up at the casters above the city, showering them with a little inkling of winter. In an odd way, she’s kind of jealous for no real reason. It’s just that in some fleeting thought, she imagines that they must have very fun and exciting lives. But then she remembers that she does too and that note of jealousy subsides. She rubs her cheek against Shamrock.

“They’re probably trying to lighten the mood,” says Basil, catching a flake of snow with her hand.

“It’s working,” beams Fresh, looking around at the many excited faces all around them. A child, some young elf squishes its face against a window and looks at them and waves excitedly. She waves back. “So what’s the plan for today, guys?” asks Fresh.

“Well…” Jubilee starts. “I wish I could say ‘the same thing as every day’, but I don’t think we’re going to be opening today,” they say.

“Not until we find a place to set-up shop,” agrees Basil.

“Is it even worth it?” asks Fresh, looking at her friends. “Finding a home seems like a big investment, if we’re just staying here until the shield goes away,” she ponders. “What’re we going to do with it when we go back?”

Basil and Jubilee look at each other for a moment and then nod. “Ah!” exclaims Fresh. “You’re doing the thing again! Don’t do that!” she protests.

“Don’t do what?” asks Basil.

“Don’t make up agreements in front of me without telling me about it!” demands Fresh. “I get confused easily and then you guys do that kind of stuff and I get double-confused and then I end up lying awake at night because of how confused I am!”

Jubilee plants their hands on their hips, raising an eyebrow behind their mask. “Sometimes I wonder how hard it is to be you,” they say.

Fresh exhales, letting her shoulders drop. “It depends on the phase of the moon.”

“I don’t know what that means and I don’t want to,” says Jubilee. “Look…” they start, before sighing again, rubbing the forehead of their mask. They shake their head. “Basil, you tell her.”

“Me?” asks Basil.

“Tell me what?” asks Fresh.

“You tell her,” says Basil. “I don’t always want to be the bad guy.”

“We had a deal,” says Jubilee. “You handle the chicken-questions and I handle the day-to-day stuff,” they say.

“Helloooo?” asks Fresh, still waiting on an answer.

A strong, gruff voice moves through their discussion. “We’re not leaving,” says Shamrock. The others look at him, as he seems to have ripped the bandage off.

“What?” asks Fresh. “What do you mean?”

He shakes his head, pointing at the sky. “We live here now,” he explains, pointing at the barrier. “Months or years,” he says, lowering his arm again.

“Last time the shield was up,” says Basil. “It was up for a full year, before the central-authority decided it was okay to drop again,” she explains somberly, looking off towards some falling snow. But perhaps also, so that she has somewhere else to look, rather than at Fresh’s face.

“It could be a week, it could be a month, it could be a year or hell, maybe we’re just going to be living here forever,” says Jubilee. “But we have to assume the worst. We’re not going back anytime soon,” they say.

“Huh?!” Fresh looks around, shocked. “But what about our house? What about the ice-cream? Your plants, Basil! The lantern! Jubilee! Your bear!”

“There’s nothing we can do about any of that,” says Basil. “We’re used to moving overnight. Just pretend we did it again, okay?” asks the priestess. “Please?” asks the priestess, grabbing her shoulder. “The bear can find us again and if he can, so can the lantern. It’s the best we can hope for.”

Fresh wants to have a fit, obviously, at this most unfortunate turn of events that her friends had known about, but were only letting her in on now. But as she scans the circle, listening to the happy voices all around them, enjoying the snow, enjoying the world, enjoying life, Fresh realizes that she has to make a choice now as the party-leader and as a friend. Her friends are counting on her to be an adult, to not have to be dragged along kicking and crying like a spoiled child.

The winter is here and they have done a lot to prepare, giving them strong footing during its very sudden arrival, together with this overnight shift in their lives. They have stuck together through spring, summer and autumn and she isn’t about to let the bad-thing take her once again, now that the cold that she had always tried to punish herself with surrounds her on all sides. She isn’t fazed by the cold anymore, she doesn’t use it as a tool of self-harm, rather, she wants to look at the snow and the ice with the same child-like wonder as the faces all around them and she wants her cherished friends to carry the same expressions on their faces and in their hearts.

But that requires her example. She’s setting the tone, the mood.

Fresh smiles and nods, placing her hand on top of Basil’s on her shoulder. “Okay, guys!” she says. “I understand. We need a plan. Let’s get breakfast and then sit down and make one together,” she instructs.

The others nod, agreeing with her.

Shamrock rattles, a strong shiver running down his metal armor, as Jubilee slips a handful of snow into a slit in his waist and starts laughing. “That’s what you get, shit-head!” barks Jubilee, watching the man try to compose himself as the ice touches his slimy body.

A snowball flies Jubilee’s way and they duck, avoiding it as it flies over their head. “Aaah! Fuck you, Basil!” taunts Jubilee, having dodged the priestess’ attack.

“I’m gonna get you!” threatens Basil, picking up another handful of snow.

“Like hell!”

Shamrock bends down and scoops up a large armful of snow.

“Fuck off, Shamrock!” snaps Jubilee, sounding very worried.

Basil yelps in terror, trying to run away. Fresh meanwhile stands there and laughs. Today, she has chosen a lighter path to walk and the only price she has to pay is this one to come.

Her laugh nervously continues, as the haphazardly thrown pile of snow leaves Shamrock’s arms and flies towards the three of them, its shadow coming to loom over their heads.

‘It could be worse’ is the last thing that Fresh thinks, before it hits them.