My Winter

A/N Thank you so much to Isilwen, my new beta reader.
A/N This chapter is dedicated to all of us who have loved and lost, then found ourselves again.
A/N PLEASE READ THE POEM IN THE BEGINNNING! It sets the tone for the story.
Ch. 3...Through Winning and Losing…
The Fire That Filled My Heart of Old by James B.V Thomson
The fire that filled my heart of old
Gave luster while it burned;
Now only ashes gray and cold
Are in its silence urned.
Ah! better was the furious flame,
The splendor with the smart;
I never cared for the singer's fame
But, oh! for the singer's heart
Once more--
The burning fulgent heart!

No love, no hate, no hope, no fear,
No anguish and no mirth;
Thus life extends from year to year,
A flat of sullen dearth.
Ah! life's blood creepeth cold and tame,
Life's thought plays no new part;
I never cared for the singer's fame,
But, oh! for the singer's heart
Once more--
The bleeding passionate heart!

When we are in love, there is a fire that blazes within our very soulflamflame that burns to the touch but it is one we cannot escape. Nor is it one we want to run from. It gives warmth in the darkness when the one we love isn’t e bye by and it rages like a storm when the one you love is near. It’s desire and passion in its purest form; but when it goes out, we’re left with nothing but cold memories and bittersweet feelings.
Viktor was my flame; my fire. He scotched me with his touch and burned me to the depths of my soul. I was alive when I was with him; when we skated, when we made love, when we kissed. After his death, that fire in my heart went out and all that remains are ashes.
I suppose that’s why ice-skating is some kind of release for me. Gliding across the soft ice and dancing under the canopy of darkness, it almost feels like that fire within me will flicker again. If only for a moment, a light will shine where my heart has grown cold and quiet. It’s in those moments that I truly feel alive again.
And so I find myself skating the following night after my encounter with the man of my dreams, Estel. I am afraid to sleep, afraid to come face-to-face with what lurks beneath my subconscious. I don’t want to know what it is I have been keeping behind my icy walls; I don’t want to run the risk of letting that fire out.
I am skating at one end of the lake while Tori is teaching Anya how to do a spiral spin at the other end. We came up to my mother’s old house in Vancouver, Canada three days ago after my first dream about Estel. Tori was convinced that I needed to get away for awhile. If that was the case, I don’t know why she insisted that we come up to my old house; I haven’t been here since I left twelve years ago after my mother’s death.
My old house is right on a lake and every winter, I used to skate here when it froze over. I would spend hours upon hours pretending I was an Olympic figure skater as I practiced jumps and spins under the light of the moon. Back then, I was filled with dreams and hopes like any other young girl. Back then, there was a passion that burned inside of my soul, making me the spirited girl Viktor fell in love with. But that flame is gone, replaced by ice.
I pull my body into a double-axel and for a minute, I am flying beneath the stars’ fading twilight. I land with the grace of a seasoned skater and then glide across the ice, my arms outstretched under the pale morning sky. For these minutes, I am that young girl again; alive and burning with a fire to be the best.
Coming to a stop, I zip my white jacket up as the winter wind picks up across the barren trees. As I turn around to skate back to Anya and Tori, an uneasy chill runs up my spine. The hair on my back begins to stand up as my eyes dart around to find the cause of my sudden discomfort. Finding nothing, I start to skate away when I hear his voice.
In your life, there are some things you never forget; your first kiss, the first time you break-up with someone, the first time you have sex. And, the voice of the one you love. For me, that voice was a low baritone with a slight Russian accent. Before I even turned around, I knew who I would see; Viktor.
He looks the same way he did on the night he died. His unruly blonde hair falls in front of his icy blue eyes while his lips curl into a smirk. Tight jeans hug his legs while he wears a white, button-up shirt under a tan duster. He has on his favorite hiking boots, the ones I bought him for Christmas one year.
I am in a state of shock. There had been times in the months immediately following Viktor’s death that I thought I would see him; at the rink, in our room. But never had he seemed this real. He always appeared like he was made out of the wind and the slightest breeze would blow him away. But the man that stood in front of me looked as real as my daughter or me.
Anya. I look behind the ghostly apparition and see that she is skating with Tori at the other end of the lake. I hear a soft chuckle and turn my attention back to the figure in front of me. With a smile, he says in a voice that will haunt my dreams, “She can’t see me, spitfire. Neither can Tori. Only you can.”
Spitfire. The pet name Viktor used to for for me. The name he used to call me when we fought and I was too stubborn to know I’d lost. Or when someone said something to anger me and I’d let them have it. His little spitfire, that’s what I was.
Finally finding my voice, I manage to ask, “Is this a dream?”
He lets out a low laugh and walks a few steps closer to me. Unconsciously, my right hand find its way to his face. I softly stroke his high cheekbones, the errant hair that falls across his forehead and his full lips. It all feels so surreal, me in the arms of my dead lover.
When I feel his hot breath blow across my cheek, I nearly come undone. It is amazing how such a small gesture can drive one to near madness. But then again, that is love; a drug that intoxicates and enervates us.
“Does a dream make you feel this way? Does a dream make you burn all over, alive with emotion,” he whispers, his tongue wrapping around the words in an almost sinful manner.
“Why have you come back? To torture me? To drive me insane with want,” I ask softly, my hands never leaving his face in fear that he will fade away if I do.
He brings his own hand up to trace the weather-worn skin on my face. It feels like ages since I have been treated like a woman, and I relish the touch. In a voice thick with emotion, Viktor answers, “I’ve come back to let you know it’s time to live again. It’s time to let go of the fire that you‘ve kept locked away for so long.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing for the past five years?” I ask as I begin to run my hands through his hair.
Viktor startles me by pulling me to his chest with a bruising grip. With barely any constraint on the anger evident in his voice, he says, “What you have been doing these past few years is not living, but merely existing. You have simply been trying to get through each day without getting hurt, waiting until you can find me again. Your body is alive, but your soul is buried somewhere within you and I’m afraid one day you won’t be able to find it again.”
For the first time in five years, I feel a brief spark of the old fire that used to enflame my soul. With a growl, I push him away. Seething with anger, I whisper in a deadly low voice, “You speak as if living without you is the easiest thing in the world. The only reason I hold onto this life is because of our daughter. I used to be wild and spirited, a flame only you could tame. But when you died, that part of me died with you. I may have become distant and cold, but it’s the only way I can bring myself to get up in the morning.”
I vaguely feel my hot tears fall down my face. With a defeated sigh, I turn away from Viktor and wrap my arms around my chest; it had suddenly become too cold again. Faintly, I hear Viktor take a few steps toward me and then wrap his own arms around me.
Softly, he whispers into my ear, “That part of you didn’t die. If it had, you wouldn’t find the joy that you do in skating. You wouldn’t have smiled when our daughter learned to walk or when she began to skate. That flame is still in you, but it’s buried beneath layers of ice. You need to be ready to open yourself up again, to trust the world with your heart again.”
“Even if that world crushed my dreams and the hope I had in everything,” I ask softly.
Slowly, I turn around, half expecting him to be gone. But he was still there. I take his right hand and intertwine it with my own. I gently lean my head into his chest and breath in the minty way he smells.
“If we could live without passion, maybe we would know some kind of peace. But we’d be hollow. We’d be truly dead,” he says into my hair, “Don’t you miss the way your skin used to burn when I touched you? Or the way you’d come alive when we skated together during a show?”
“How am I suppose to feel that way again when the only person who ever made me feel that way is dead?” I ask as I pull my face away so I can watch his.
He places both his hands on either side of my head. Bringing my forehead to his, he says in a whisper, “By not running when you meet him. By letting his touch scorch you the way mine did. By seeing the flames of desire burn within you and not being afraid to embrace them.”
His words are puzzling to me, especially coming from someone who was known for his direct and blunt nature. Then, as my hazy mind shifts through their meaning, I finally realize what it is he is trying to tell me.
I shove Viktor away, eyes blazing. “You’re asking me to let someone else into my heart? To let someone else lme wme when my heart belongs to you,” I demand, my brown eyes coming alive in the shadows of dawn.
“You have a lot of time to live yet, Isabelle and there is room in your heart for another. If only you’d stop being so stubborn and look at what’s right in front of you, you’d see there is another who needs you as much as I did,” he yells as he come right up to me.
Suddenly, realization of who he was referring to dawned on my face. “Estel. He’s the one you talking about,” I said, my voice rising with each word, “He’s the one who needs me! Have you gone mad? He is a fictional character who, if memory serves, did end up with one he loved.”
“There is so much more here than you know and I don’t have the time to tell you. Suffice to say, he doesn’t have that woman anymore and it’s important that he get back on the path that was set for him. This isn‘t just about you; it‘s about a whole lot of people,” Viktor explains to me as calmly as he can manage.
“That’s not my problem. I am nobody’s hero, nobody’s savior. All I want is to go back to my life and live in the peace I’ve finally begun to find again,” I cry, the blood rushing to my face.
“What you are doing right now is not living, it’s hiding. You have trapped yourself so far beneath your walls and boundaries that you don’t know yourself anymore. This man can help you find that again. He will test your patience, push your resolve and try your limits. But he will make you feel again,” Viktor yells back at me.
“The person you are referring to is an imaginary character. He doesn’t exist,” I says, but a nagging feeling in my gut tells me otherwise.
“There was a time when you believed in everything and had faith in the unknown,” Viktor started to say, but I interrupt him.
“There was a time I believed in happy endings and fairy tale romance. There was a time I believed in the imagination, but that time is gone,” I say, my voice breaking, “I don’t have the luxury of that now. I have a daughter who depends on me and a broken heart that is just starting mend. Why can’t you leave me to myself?”
“Because this is not the way I wanted you to be,” Viktor says exasperated, “This is not how I wanted you to live. But I have a chance to change that and to see you become the person I know you were meant to be. Do you trust me enough to know that I wouldn’t let anything hurt you?”
“You know I t yot you,” I answer in a small voice. I feel his arms wrap around my body and slowly lift my head to meet his. As I close my eyes, I feel his lips find mine and for a moment, I am alive. There was no pain, no grief; simply love and passion. And it was a feeling I missed with every fiber of my being.
Suddenly, a white light shoots in front of my eyes. Faintly, I hViktViktor whisper into my ear, “Do not fear the White Tree. Don’t run from the fire. Let it melt your icy exterior and warm your soul. Let yourself be again.”
For what seemed like an eternity, I keep my eyes shut. When I finally managed to find the courage to open them, he’s gone. It is like waking up from a pleasant dream; all I want to do is feel his arms again. But a cold feeling runs through me as I realize that was our good-bye; the closure I never found.
With a feeling of finality settling across my heart, I turn around to find Tori and Anya. In my mind, I chalk up my experience to stress and fatigue. But a nagging feeling tells me it was much more than that. And what I see right behind Tori and Anya confirms my suspicions. I know now that nothing is ever going to be the same again.

 
A/N The quote in Viktor’s speech to Isabelle was a line from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.