Have you ever had something

taken from you?

       Over the whipping wind and piercing cold of this otherwise normal winter morning; Through the soft sprinkling of snow, I could still only see, hear, and feel what little left of my word shatter in two.

        Suddenly, in spite of the rush that chaos caused, the world around me seemed to grow still. I felt my eyes grow wide, as if that would somehow allow me to better grasp the situation. I could feel my heart stop as i witnessed the cold ground of barren white snow burn a deep red as it had been tarnished by her blood.

       Through my shock and with my vision, blurry as it were, I could still clearly and sharply see the very moment in which her enduring pure silver locks were dyed a burning red.

       With what little was left of my senses I heard the last harrowing cries that enclosed the bitter most ardor of her vitality.

       "Run, please…" She mourned as her voice withered toward cessation.

       I complied with her last wish and ran as far as I could until I could feel no longer.

The last words she cried

embedded in my mind

Forever...

That cold winter morning I had woke up to the blinding rays of the sun pouring into my eyes. Though in a daze, I rose quickly to sit on up right my bed. Just as happened every morning, my long silver locks, though glistening gorgeously, had become a tangled mess through the night.

       After coming to and sitting for roughly a few moments, I heard something, something familiar.

       I slowly rose from my small and humble bed, ensuring that I crept carefully and quietly. As I approached the common room the volume of the noise increased, till I could clearly hear what it was; The guzheng.

       My mother had been playing the guzheng for many years her playing had always been light and elegant. After realizing that the noise I had been hearing was my mothers playing, I crept closer to the common room, hiding behind a pillar clutched in my hands.

       The melody seemed to had been made to carry you aloft on a cloud. Her long and silver floor length hair sprawling several meters away from her on the ground. Her soft and delicate, yet piercing blue eyes seemed to be in a daze focusing on nothing and everything all at once. Her porcelain white skin was accented only by the soft and sparing peach pink on her cheeks, nose, and gradient lips.

        She was wearing a dress dyed light sky blue on the top in a gradient down to a dark ocean blue. Her hair was flowing freely down her shoulders and back. She had always been a modest woman wearing not single accessory unless the occasion called for it, even so wearing them sparingly. I had not much difference in my appearance when compared to my mother. The only notable difference in fact being that my eyes had become a soft lavender to accommodate my father's dark and imposing gaze.

       After listening to her play for over a minute, she stops dead in her tracks and looks over to me. She definitely saw me.

       "Come over here I have a surprise for you."

       Still in my night clothes and unkempt hair I slowly walk over to the middle of the room and sit on my knees. I stretched my hand over to the table to grab my comb and quickly sift through my hair.

       "Here! have it, happy 12th birthday!" she said with a soft smile and voice as sweet as honey.

       It's a small and soft spherical object wrapped in thin red wrapping paper, tied shut with bell hair strings.

       "I guess I got two presents in one, huh?"

       I remove the bells and tie them into my hair. The paper wrapping the present now unfolds without restriction. Inside the package was a dessert bun, small and round with a softly pink center. The homemade bun had red bean paste filling. My mother had always made the best buns for my birthday.

       "After you finish your bun we should go to the garden and play with your favorite koi fish." She says as I take a small bite of the soft and sweet dessert.

       I finish my bun and we begin to prepare our venture out into the Tian Xue garden.

       I go to change, after which I return to my mother to further prepare to go to the garden. I robed myself in a simple blue gradient dress with small and sparing gold accents. I try to fix the bells in my hair to better help show that they roughly match the color of my dress. I then run over into the common room to see my mother, she still fastening her belt.

       After securing her own coat she turns to me and drapes a long and warm silk and fur coat, her favorite coat and fastened it over my shoulders. She then corrected my botched attempt at tieing the bells she gifted me into my hair. Taking them and creating two large buns like the one she gave me for breakfast. She then turns for a moment looking for something.

She spent many moments rummaging through a small box of trinkets, she stops for a moment as if she's found what she was looking for. When she turns back to face me she has a small, heavy looking, lavender pouch in her hands coupled with a concerned look on her face.

       "Don't lose this, promise me!" Whist saying this she secures the pouch tight around the belt of my dress.

       "Uh, yes. I promise?" I say, though slightly confused.

       "Good, now let's hurry on before the pond freezes" She says this with a smile, but her eyes look disconcerted.

       We head out into the cold of the Tian Xue courtyard on the way to the garden. The soft, cold, yet comforting breeze kissing my face as we walk. Both the garden and the palace have been named after my mother Tian Xue (주 턴). My father had loved my mother so dearly, though this was years before I was born, I wonder what happened.

       On the way to the garden my mother seemed quite aloof. Even though she was physically there, She though, was clearly not.

       As we walked into the garden I could hear the soft crunch of the snow under my feet. My cheeks were made red by the sprinkling of snow that had been sifted onto my face and the palm of my open hands.

       I walk over to the pond, the gentle wind wisping my silver locks off of the cold ground. I squat down clutching my knees to my chest. Slowly inserting my warm hand into the cold water. I can feel the soft waves made by the wind and small ripples created by the fallen snowflakes resting into the ponds surface.

       The koi fish catches my attention with its shiny and glistening scales seeming to dance in the water. Shifting in ranges of red to yellow or purple to blue. Mesmerized by the beautiful fish I hardly notice that my mother had come to sit next to me. My gaze was broken by her tap on my shoulder, she passes me a piece of stale bread that she made 3 days ago.

        After taking the bread that she handed me I break off a piece and feed it to the fish. Dipping my hand in the pond once more I begin to take note of how clear and blue the pond is and how beautiful the koi looks when dancing in it. What if koi fish didn't such colorful scales? How beautiful could they be in a much clearer pond? Why have they always been in the pond?

        My train of thoughts were interrupted by the sudden thunder of several pairs of footsteps. They had somehow become more familiar when they grew closer. I couldn't be sure of who they belonged to. Before I could turn to fully look over, my mother had stood up and hid me behind her back. I'm sure of who this is now.

        "Hey Tian Xue, I wouldn't have guessed you'd be out here so early."