– "Daddy, daddy! Tell us about Mirra, and Lady Spring!" The girls voice rang like tiny golden bells.

– "Again?" A gentle laughter. "You never grow tired of that story, are you? Are you gonna bake more cookies after I did?"

– "Yeeees!"

A woman's voice chimes in. "You always egg her on to make more cookies! Where are we gonna put them?"

– "But moooom! I need to be prepared when Lady Spring comes!"

– "So, it sounds like you already know the story and what to do! Why do I need to tell you?"

– "It's for research! Like the mages in the Eye! They also do magic all day even though they already know all there is about it!" 

~ * ~

Once upon a time, the lands were green and flourishing. The spring flowers lavishly decorated the world, making it an entirely different magical world every few days. The Elderflowers came first, in their wisdom knowing when the best time to sprout was, covering the fields, stones and old trees with their delicate, white bloom. The buttercups followed, brightening the ground, together with the dwarf holly-hedges, who seemed to weep gold and sunshine from their hedges. Soon, the moose peach trees would open their flowers as well, like tiny orange suns floating on the golden sea, heralding the color explosion to follow.

Delicate red dots of roses, bolts of purple and violet lupins, blue scatterings of wildberry bushes would start appearing, while the yellow seas would slowly recede, making way for the fresh greens and all other shades of flowers. When the moose peach faltered, white apple and plum trees, gentle pink cherries, the deep purpled baobab, and the vibrant blue cursed ash trees would take over, feeding the heart with colors and joy until it overflew, and then some more.

The summers were warm and sunny, with just the right amount of rain, and gentle winds to keep you cool. The harvests were bountiful, another explosion of colors and tastes. Golden expanses of grains, pink and red tomatoes, blue and purple plums, green and red apples, bright red and blood red cherries, green and blue wineberries shone brightly and begged to be enjoyed or preserved for the winter to come.

The winters themselves were gentle, compared to what we know now. The snow came alright, to remind everyone of the good things they enjoyed and how everything has to come to an end, but it never came to oppress. And still, the frostberries came as well. Translucent, blueish-white berries with a sweet, tangy taste, revitalizing everyone who tasted them. The nights were long, but filled with warmth and coziness of family and hearth fires, and the lingering taste of all that spring, summer and fall had blessed us with. It was a time for remembrance and stories to be exchanged. The people who left us were remembered and sometimes came to bless their loved ones for an evening or two. And preparations were made for the coming season. Tools were repaired, pottery was made, and wool was spun, to be dyed in the colors of spring.

~ * ~

It was a good time. But us humans wouldn't be who we are if we didn't manage to destroy our paradises. We got used to all the gifts and blessings of the seasons, we grew lazy and forgot to be thankful. The season of plenty became the season of normal, and if the weather wasn't as splendid as usual, people began to complain and to suspect sinister doings. Wise women were accused of cursing people or the land, and dreadful things were done to them once people believed they had found "evidence". 

~ * ~

– "What kind of dreadful things, daddy?" A young boy this time.

– "Unspeakable things. Like having to chalk their teeth five times a day..."

– "Ewwww!" The boy again.

– "Yuck!" His sister agreed.

– "...or making them drink bitter liqueur every day!"

– "Oh no!"

A deep sigh from a child. "Why do grown-ups have to be so mean?!"

– "I don't know. Want to hear more about Lady Spring?"

– "Yees!" 

~ * ~

Lady Spring had always taken great pleasure in making humans happy. She loved nothing more than putting a smile on our faces and seeing how grateful we were for the blessings she gave us. But year after year, it became harder for her to please us and make us happy, and if she did, it didn't last long anymore. With time, she became more and more sad and exhausted, and started harboring feelings of anger and resentment. When people finally started crediting themselves and their "agricultural advances" and completely forgot about her, exhaustion finally caught up to her and she started feeling hopeless. Like a woman whose lover had forgotten all about her while still eating the food she made and enjoyed the house she kept for him. In despair, she found an old tree where she could curl up between the branches, and she slept. The tree was heartbroken to see her like that, and he gently wrapped his branches around her to protect her from the elements and time. And together with the tree, all the plants were sad.

That spring, there were little flowers. The summer was rainy, and the animals scarce. They, too, were sad with Lady Spring, and kept everything they did to a minimum. Everyone blamed humans, and nature as a whole did her best to hide her bounty from humans. What flowers and berries they were, they bloomed and ripened in hidden places, revealing themselves only to animals to keep them alive. When human hunters crept up on their prey, sticks broke to alert them. And whenever an animal found a young, old or weak human on their own, they would attack them.

Suddenly, the world had become a hostile place for us. The harvest failed, the bounty of nature was hidden behind leaves, thorns and unusually aggressive animals of all kinds, even the docile ones. The weather was cold and unkind, and fall brought violent storms that tugged at the houses and stables.

~ * ~

Mirra was a young girl of maybe eight years. She was as good-hearted as you can imagine - kind to everyone and always saw the good in everyone and everything. The beauty of the flowers in spring often made her cry for joy, and she would regularly make small flower wreaths and left them scattered in the lands around her house, for anyone to come across them to find joy in them.

Her kindness and attention had been what kept Lady Spring going in the last dark months before she went to sleep, and the tree that protected her was close to Mirra's house. Mirra had always loved that tree and often went there to find herbs for the kitchen. She was a great cook and was able to give everything she made a personal touch thanks to her knowledge of herbs and their taste. She also knew about what herbs could heal or calm an upset stomach or lifted the spirits of people. No one taught her; she just knew when she saw a herb what its talents were, and she appreciated them all greatly.

Her father Maksim, though, was different. He was a proud and haughty man and had been among the first to credit the bountiful harvest to his achievement. Maksim disapproved of Mirra wasting her time with making the wreaths or tending to beautiful flowers that didn't benefit him, and whenever she had done her chores in the house, Mirra quickly vanished into the woods - to seek firewood, or to harvest herbs for dinner. She even had a small, well-hidden cave close to the old tree where she often spent her time, drying herbs or working on salves for injured animals she had come across. Though her father often went hunting in the forest, he never found her hiding-place, for the plants and animals loved Mirra dearly and protected her as well.

~ * ~

– "Parents!" You could almost hear the girl's eyes rolling. "They NEVER get you!"

– "Right?!" The boy chimed in.

– "Wow, what about me? And mom? Are we really that bad?"

A brief, insecure pause, then the girl replied, with determination: "Well, you're not like Maksim, so you're not that bad."

The father chuckled. "Why, thank you very much!"

The boy tried to distract his father: "Who cares for Maksim, he's an idiot. Tell us about Mirra!"

~ * ~

When the animals grew aggressive, Maksim was quick to forbid her leaving the house, even beating her when she snuck out nevertheless. It was a lonely season for Mirra, and it added insult to injury for the plants and animals around her. Things got even worse when a bear attacked her mother Cyrene and injured her gravely. Mirra was a skilled healer, and even her father couldn't deny that, but soon her supplies ran out, and she still wasn't allowed to go out to go collect new herbs. Helplessly, Mirra watched her mother wilt away and eventually succumb to her wounds.

Despite his arrogance, Maksim had loved Cyrene dearly, and her demise almost drove him mad. At first, he blamed nature and grew hateful towards all plants and animals, but when Mirra's healing abilities became stumped due to a lack of supplies, he started berating her, calling her useless. Cyrene was too weak to intervene, but she saw the pain in Mirra's eyes when her father went off on her again, and Mirra saw Cyrene's heart breaking a little more every time it happened.

~ * ~

– "See? He's an idiot! How can he do that and hurt her, if he really loves her?" The little boy was upset.

Condescendingly, his sister enlightened him: "That's because men are stupid, little brother." 

– "How am I an idiot when I can see it clear as day?!" The boy protested.

– "Well, maybe you're not right now, but when you get older, you'll be an idiot, too!"

Insulted mumbling. "I'll never be an idiot like that! So stupid!"

~ * ~

After Cyrene's death, Maksim locked Mirra into the basement and left her to watch their resources dwindle each day. At night, for dinner, he would allow her to come up and cook for him, her brother Jarek and herself. Despite this being her only respite from the dark, cold and damp cellar, Mirra still dreaded the evening, as Maksim would never be happy with what she cooked and always complained about how he was still hungry or it never tasted as good as back when Cyrene was still alive. Nevertheless, Mirra did her best to stretch the meager supplies they still had and make it as delicious as possible.

One night, though, something was wrong. She heard the door go, she heard heavy steps, but something was off. It fell silent quickly, and this night, she wasn't let out. The next day, she didn't hear the men leave the house. Occasionally, there would be movement, but worryingly little. Mirra had no idea how long she had spent in the cellar. Without anything to help her tell the time of the day, she had no idea if it was the next evening or the evening after, when finally the trapdoor moved a little, albeit with great trouble. At first, Mirra was scared, hiding in a corner of the cellar, but when she heard nothing after a while, she carefully approached the ladder and pushed the trapdoor.

Her brother's fist almost hit her in the face, when his arm slid off the door, and she fell backward off the ladder in a moment of panic. She almost immediately caught herself though and rushed back up the ladder. Jarek was badly wounded and had crawled over from his bed to open the trapdoor for her. Maksim was lying lifelessly on his bed - he must have had succumbed to his wounds shortly after arriving home. Mirra rushed out to gather the things she needed, finally free to do what was necessary. She took care of her brother's wounds and made him a makeshift bed on the floor where he had collapsed.

~ * ~

– "See? Jarek isn't an idiot, either!"

– "He's not grown-up, either, d'oh!"

~ * ~

The seemingly endless winter and nature's scarcity, however, made it hard to take care of Jarek properly, and one day, after a day of fruitlessly scouring the woods for the herbs she needed, Mirra rested underneath the old tree, the only place the snow could barely reach. Her desperation finally allowed the tears she had held back until then to flow. Mirra sat there for a long time, crying for her mother, crying for the time of emptiness, crying out of fear for her brother, and crying about the sadness that seemed to linger about the world as a whole. After a long time of crying, she found that her fingers had busied herself making another wreath out of evergreens and poison berries. She gently caressed the wreath, then carefully fixed it onto the trunk of the tree, before leaving to fetch fresh water to clean her brother's wounds.

Back at home, she started baking cookies out of the few grains and herbs she found. It was not a traditional recipe by any means, but she knew they would taste like something, and she hoped she could at least lift her brother's spirits with something resembling a traditional winter treat. When the cookies were almost done, she heard a knock on the door. A haggard old woman, her face gaunt, her eyes tired, her bony fingers shivering from the cold going straight through her tattered clothes, asked for something to eat, her voice flat with desperation and hopelessness.

~ * ~

– "Awww, poor Lady Spring! And all because humans were idiots!"

– "You're human too, idiot." The boy still sounded annoyed.

– "Well, yeah, but today we know better! So today it's only the men who become idiots."

– "That's not fair! Why can only the women learn?!"

– "I don't know! I'm not a man!"

– "Well, I don't really feel like an idiot, I have to say. And I think Mom agrees," the father comments, drawing chuckles from the mother.

– "That's because there's always exceptions to the rule. And if you're not an idiot, you know that!"

Mirra invited her in and stoked the fire a little higher, to help the poor lady warm up. She made a thin tea from her last dried herbs and then offered her her share from the cookies. Mirra was still better off than any of the others, so she figured she would suffer a hungry night better than the old woman or Jarek.

Soon, life seemed to return to the strange woman's eyes, and she seemed to take in her surroundings for the first time. She began to ask Mirra about what happened to her family and surprisingly seemed to know much about her father and mother. She wept with Mirra when she learned of Cyrene's death.

~ * ~

– "See? Lady Spring wouldn't weep for Cyrene if she had been an idiot, too! She didn't weep for Maksim!"

– "Yeah, yeah, whatever..."

~ * ~

Finally, Mirra gathered her courage and asked the old woman how she knew them all. The old woman smiled a sad smile.

"I knew everyone and anyone. What's more, I loved everyone and anyone, but they forgot about me..."

~ * ~

Mirra's sobs had woken up Lady Spring, and slowly she came back to reality from her dreamless slumber. When Mirra left the Lady started stretching on her comfortable bed of branches and peeked down to the ground. To her astonishment, she saw Frostberries growing there!

– "How can that be, old tree?" she asked her host. "I did not plant them!"

– "They grew from Mirra's tears, my lady," the old tree answered. "No matter what happened, she always cared for us and was thankful for our gifts. We just couldn't hide our gifts from her, as we did from the others. Her father had to trap her inside to stop her from showing us her thanks!"

– "I remember her. She always left wreaths for me," replied Lady Spring.

– "Yes, and she does it again, now that she's free again. We can't let her starve like the others!"

Deep in thought, Lady Spring nodded in agreement. Then she jumped off the tree and made her way to Mirra's house.

~ * ~

The old lady seemed lost in thought for a second, then pulled herself together. "Ah, with age comes memories, and some of them poisonous... Let's not dwell on the past. I think your brother could do with some frostberries. I believe I saw some growing underneath the big old oak tree in the forest when I passed by, but I didn't dare to believe my eyes. You're young, you should go check!"

Mirra's eyes widened in surprise. "Frostberries? No one has seen them this winter! And I just sat by the tree a few hours ago!"

– "Well, maybe my eyes deceived me then... I still think you should go and look, just to be sure. I'll look after your brother in the meantime!"

Mirra nodded and quickly left the house. It was a clear, moonlit night, and when she reached the old tree, the moonbeams fell through the branches on the frostberries and made them glitter like the stars above.

It was a breathtaking sight, and Mirra stopped to take it in, knowing full well that those berries meant Jarek was saved. She gently harvested enough berries for Jarek, the old woman and herself, when she noticed her wreath had gone missing from the tree trunk. She gently touched the spot and whispered, "I'm sorry. I'll make you a new one tomorrow!"

~ * ~

– "We need to make a fresh wreath, too. Mommy, can I go make a wreath later?"

– "You dummy! You can't make a wreath for Lady Spring, there's no poisonberries anymore in spring!"

– "Mirra made her wreaths all through the year as well, idiot! I'm sure Lady Spring likes wreaths with flowers, too!"

~ * ~

Mirra hurried home.

Jarek was asleep, and some of the color had already returned to his cheeks. The old woman was nowhere to be seen, but in her place laid the wreath Mirra had put on the tree. Mirra was confused, but she knew something important had happened.

She put the wreath over the door, gently woke Jarek and gave him the frostberries she picked for him. With the surplus, she made some puree for the morning, put it in a closed jar and left it outside to be preserved by the cold.

That night, when she went to bed with a full belly for the first time in weeks, a beautiful woman appeared in the snowy fields of her dreams. She had the full hips and curves of a sensual mother, her skin was made out of leaves, and flowers covered her body like delicate clothes. "Mirra!" she called, and when Mirra sat up in her dream and the woman smiled at her, she recognized the old woman.

– "Mirra. You who never forgot me. You have saved both me and yourself. You have reminded me that not every human is the same. And even if they all forgot about me, you never did. The old tree and the frostberries are right. I can't let you suffer for the sins of others of your kind."

With a grand gesture, she waved the snowy fields away, and the sun came up, kissing the flowers in the fields awake.

– "But if they want to credit themselves for their blessings, so be it. From now on, they will have to work hard for the fruits and berries, and for the grain that makes their bread. No more lavish luxuries, no more frostberries. You, however, Mirra," the woman smiled again.

– "You have always appreciated me. To you, I grant my blessing. Nature will not hide her bounty from you if you keep thanking her. You will continue to gain knowledge and blessings from nature. Fare thee well, Mirra, and go ahead and be bountiful yourself!"

~ * ~

When Mirra woke up, the snow had melted. The air was warm with the freshness of spring, and the first greens had begun to bud on the trees. Behind her, Jarek stretched and sat up on the bed. She turned around and smiled at him, remembering her dream, and she knew things would be well from now.