Rhang looked out through the window into the snowfall. Huge, soft flakes were falling from above, then rested on the branches of bare trees and dressed the pines in white. The silence was deep enough to hear the flakes rustle.

Rhang sighed. Although he planned to stay home the charming sight was a great temptation. Reya was still asleep in her room while Rhang got dressed and sneaked out of the house.

He saddled and mounted his horse, smiling wryly as he recalled his old age and his once-thought dream, with which he used to torture himself. As a youngster he used to believe that people as old as he was now walk on all fours because of old age, arthritis and gnarled joints, they toothlessly chew on soft bread, their eyesight and mindset was blunt, and since memories bother them no more they just sat in a corner with emptiness eating away their brain.

And here he was, a living negation of his early theories, mounting his horse swiftly, his joints unaching, and his mind as fresh and clear as the snow around.

Since he was on the back of a horse, he asked himself the crucial question - now where to? And there came the easy answer - it matters none, he just wanted to be part of the quiet and peaceful landscape.

His mare slid on the snow with incredibly muffled strides, neighing quietly and joyfully, with steam pouring from its nostrils.

Rhang sighed again, chewing on the thought that old age made him such a feeler - or more to say a sentimental. Well, it mattered little now, since the end was so near, and before all was over he would have to admit that life was indeed kind to him, though he had long since had the trail of sadness slugging behind.

His hands were frozen to the tips of his nails, so he hid his hands under the mare's neckhairs, seeking some friendly horse-heat. He had been raising his mare since it was born, they were longtime acquaintances. Adular could have understood him without saddle and all, or even without moving a hand, a thigh or a heel - miraculously the horse always knew what was on his mind, sometimes sooner than the thought had actually materialized in his head.

This time he let the horse decide where to go - this was not the first time he did so.

He was always keeping wonderful horses. As a warrior he could not let any beast carry him, since it should have been obedient and attentive in order to help each other in a battle. Rhang revisited his long-gone horses in his mind, and, though none was as perfect as the chocolate-mare Adular, all were individual personalities to love.

He was riding slowly below the mountainous pine trees, which gave year-round cover for his steps as in the summer their carpet of pines muffled all sounds as well. Rhang liked this forest. When the sun was up and shining the path and the trees were of bottle green, and when gray and cloudy, pine branches stuck out surrealistically green from the cover of the snow. The deep green and the snow-white together played tricks to the eye and, strange enough, gave aches to the heart with their fragile sight.

This path did not lead to Aria. Rhang recalled the last time when he visited Aria. He was sorry that they broke up. He was not all over it yet, and was still unsure whether to see his selfishness justified or to cradle the blame for it.

Aria was a couple of years younger than he, and they met at the right and ripe age - good for both of them. She was recently widowed and he just recently broke up with Xera and desperately wanted to get out from the pit.

Aria accepted him with all his pride, wounds and restlessness. She did not ask where and when he came and go, she let him be and free. At the beginning they used to be bound together by the need of the other, but with time they grew into friends and lovers.

On those rare occasions when Rhang woke up in her bed, he admired the beauty of Aria's face, her silken-blond eyelashes, her tiny nose and her full lips. He also enjoyed the delicate wrinkles webbing from the corner of her eyes and the smile-lines around her lips - he enjoyed ageing together with her. Her body was beyond being flawlessly tight, her abdomen was more of a mature woman than of a maiden's flat one, and her forehead also had some deeper wrinkles - but with the fading of her youth she got no less beautiful, but more mature, her wounds did not make her bitter, since the good in her came from within, radiating facial beauty. As only few could age this way, Rhang considered her as a human masterpiece.

Though he took to love her he never fell for her - he expected none other, since the everlasting, breathtaking and sensual love for Xera did neither cease nor fade, but was only put behind bars in his heart.

Every time he looked into the mirror and inventoried his silver-turned ponytail, his wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes - including the double canyons originating by the nose and ending around his lips, his white stubs, his sinewy muscles and lean body, he felt sure that the ever-juvenile eyes of Xera would see his features horrible, hideous and repulsive.

Aria knew all about the sensual relationship that was terminated by Rhang - so did everyone in the neighbourhood. She wanted to raise the subject many times, but Rhang never let it go. He talked to nobody about Xera, not even with Reya, whom he believed to have gotten from life as a consolation price.

After the separation he felt that he could no longer go on without his love and rode around the country all day long. He had long put down his sword and other weapons, since he was no longer interested in fighting, and the more he became pensive and moody the more he took pleasure in farming, particularly in grapes and wine. By sending away Xera all these interests lost meaning as well - he was quite careless about losing everything, about becoming a beggar or a tramp.

He just wanted to be alone with his pain. He moved into the woods, away from his castle with its servants and its buzz. Though he took no interest in it, luckily enough his lieutenant, whom he left in charge of all his affairs was true to him and did not rob him of his possessions. Provided that he was a boaster by accident, Rhang could proudly have announced that he himself had robbed himself of all his possessions - but this was a fact he kept well hidden even from his own soul.

Seeing his aimless and moody wandering all his acquaintances gave up on him, believing that one day he would cease to eat and drink and with the freezing nightfall would rest out in the cold forever - a likely scene that almost came true.

He was prowling home through the woods at a freezing and misty dawn, tired of life, tired of everything, dirty and battered and ready to slip off of the back of his horse, when he heard strange whining from the bushes along the path. At first he thought he was just imagining the voice, and decided to ignore the sound even if it was real - but the squeaking noise churned his heart, asking for attention, crying out for help. Completely opposite to his current mindset, the owner of the voice wanted anything but having been left alone, so it cried out the pain inside - Rhang got so frustrated that he collected himself and began to search for the source of the squeak to reprimand the creature because of its weakness.

Turning the pages of leaves it took some time for him to absorb the sight - but when he finally managed to put together the pieces into a complete picture, his anger cleared his vision and gave a sudden determination to his otherwise crumpled posture.

The million-wrinkled tiny face hosted a pair of tearful blue eyes, the tiny purple lips cried of shame and pain. The infant, which was tucked into a ragtag sack was just born to the world and then thrashed by its mother, maybe not more than an hour ago. Rhang took the baby into the warmth of his cloak and took up to follow the footprints left by the uncaring mother with a set mind to give her an occasional strangling. He moved along with his horse deliberately slowly, leaning ahead to see the telltale signs on the path and on the bushes.

Then the baby stopped crying.

Hearing the ominous silence Rhang peered under his cloak, staring straight into the gaze of the violet eyes. The infant was chewing on its fist, relaxed in the body heat, with its facial color more reassuring now. Rhang suspected that he had encountered a little lady. By peeking into the sack-like underpants he made sure that he was right.

He than remembered how much they longed for a child with Xera, and he also remembered other things as well - then he chewed on the fate of the destiny child. When the trails of the newly labored woman disappeared in front of a dilapidated hut he just kept on galloping without a pause.

He took the child home and fed her with horse milk - a milk brother to Adular, the other infant. He named her Reya. Rhang than took a bath, ate and pulled himself together mentally as well, since he understood that there was a sudden need of him. The girl and the grownup man explored the maiden territories of trust and care together.

Soon after Rhang found the girl he met the alcohol-permeated mother, who actually looked a great deal older than her true age. They looked at each other and knew instantly that the other was aware - Rhang dropped the idea of strangling, then soon after the fake face of forgiving, while the mother did not bother to lie or excuse herself either. They both averted their gazes and strode on. Rhang was more than sure that the mother would never come and ask for her baby.

Reya started to grow and kept on calling Rhang 'father', even after the stray kids in the neighborhood enlightened her that she actually was an orphan. She asked Rhang about the truth and he confessed about the frosty dawn, which used to begin as the end of both of their lives.

At nightfall Rhang sat by the fire, put his feet on the dog and wrote parts of his novel book.

Stories and tales were swirling in his head, at first cascading like the snow. At one point he could no longer bear the swirling of the snow and the emptiness inside - he understood that not even the love of Aria and Reya was enough to fill the void, so he let the kaleidoscope in his soul free and dutifully scribbled all parts of it down. When finished, he threw all the sheets into the fire - until one day Reya, growing into a slim female figure, stormed on him with some hesitation and fidgeting, ordering him never to destroy the tales again.

She confessed to be a long-time, though secret reader of him, admiring him for what he wrote.

Rhang thought that he should be ashamed of himself, since he could not forgive life, however nicely it treated him - he could not say 'it hurts no more.' Because it did hurt, sometimes only mildly, sometimes with ripping pain. In his wounded moods he tended to avoid company, he did not visit Aria, since he did not want her to raise the subject of his pain, let alone talk about it, so it healed. He neither wanted to hear again the people whispering ill about their illicit relationship , suggesting that after so many years, especially at their age it was time to get married.

He did not want to live together with Aria. Her omnipresence would have ruined their friendship - but it went stale anyway. The woman waited futilely for him to accept their relationship for good afore others.

This was the reason why they finally broke up, and he left without a word in the passionate stream of her curses. This was hardly the reaction that Aria had been expecting from him, though this was a fact he realized only later on. He could have gone to her any time, could have taken her into his arms, and the woman would have been willing to engage in their customary, consolation lovemaking.

But Adular did not take him to Aria's house, and neither to his abandoned castle, in which long since lived his lieutenant, increasingly undisturbed by the fact that he enjoyed the amenities of the castle, while his master lived as a hermit out in the woods in a log cabin - the master himself wanted it that way.

Rumour had other news to dwell on - for example the return of Xera. For indeed she did return, after so many years - as it was announced by the biggest rumour-matron of the village.

She was riding on a silken-black haired and tailed, but otherwise swan-coloured horse, clad in exquisite armour and with a kingly sword dangling at her side - and she looked younger and green-eyed as ever. She immediately ordered musicians to her house, she invited her close and distant neighbours, old friends and even her servants. They were dancing and singing for two days and two nights, and ate and drank tremendous amounts.

Rhang went numb at the news of Xera's return. This was what he had been waiting for and dreaded at the same time.

Once, long ago, they used to take assignments together, but from time to time they also went their separate ways on separate errands, so they lacked each other for long. At the twilight of their relationship Xera used to tread on her path alone, as he was no longer attracted by fighting and dug deeper into his fears of getting older and rotten. He turned a deaf ear to the woman's words that what she felt for him was not fading at all.

Why would she have lied at all? She had her own rules, her soul was free and she never did anything against her own will - if their relationship was a burden to her she would not have kept it hidden out of mercy from him.

Rhang pulled his hands from below the horse's hair and stopped his mare on its way to the woman's house.

It came as a revelation to him that Xera, out of her pure self, would only have lived with him as long as she enjoyed living together. Then she would have bid farewell and be gone. If he had not turned her away they could have had a couple of pleasant years together. Their lovemaking would not have been friendly and relaxed, but sensually-beautiful ones.

The pines rustled some, snow puffed from one of the branches. Since the wind died down something else was moving the branches.

Adular pointed its ears and neighed deeply.

Rhang suspected that another rider was approaching and made the noise, probably on purpose, to be heard. To warn.

He sighed and closed his eyes.

He pictured the woman of his life, appearing in the round of the bend, and expected to see the skin somewhat looser on her long and thin face, with her full lips surrounded by smile-wrinkles, and her huge, fluorescent, long-lashed eyes bracketed by delicate lines as well, her shoulders a bit sagged and her slim figure a bit less lean and a bit more mature - more mature than it used to be at the time they separated, seemingly ages ago. And yet all the bells told were true: she was more beautiful than ever, since her beauty only matured.

All of a sudden it happened: the girl appeared from the woods.

She looked exactly the same as the last time he had seen her, and the way she would remain forever, unless a miracle relieved her.

She was riding a noble horse with a gently curved neck, whose hair fell down in log waves. She was wearing white fur on her shoulders, her jet-black hair covered with white snowflakes.

Rhang felt like bursting into tears.

'I came to see you', she said.

She looked at the man, gazing longingly at the one she used to love, and she began to tremble as she was deeply moved.

Rhang gave her exactly the same pang of lust as he had done when they first saw each other. He lost none of his attractiveness, though his long hair now had a silver touch to it, his forehead was lined, his predator eyes became narrower, his iris turned into a deeper shade of gold and his face became wizened.

She just wanted to make love to him on his cloak right there, on the snow.

'Me?' he exclaimed.

Adular took a step forward, a heartbeat earlier than Rhang thought about touching Xera's cheek. Thanks to the mare he could taste the sweet smell of her from the intimate distance - a unique fragrance raising high hopes. He found his penultimate though also surprising: he wanted to hug her and kiss her. Right there in the deepening snow.

'I came home to say farewell and wanted to see you for the last time. I will never again return. It hurts me greatly. If I am away from you while so close it hurts me more than any pain. I heard you were all right.'

'I am trying to' nodded Rhang.

He could not stand not staring at the woman. If he raised his arm he could have stroke her hair, her face and he could have felt the contours of her lips with his fingertips. He could have wiped the teardrop trembling in the corner of her eye.

He did not make a single move. His loss made him immobile.

Xera smiled at him.

'I was told that you wrote some fairy tale book, none the less beautiful.'

'Thanks to you. You did not only introduce me to pain, but also made my eyes open to the wonders of life. So good that you came to bid farewell! Without it my heart could have been crumpled considerably slower.'

'Mine is also broken, but sad enough, I will survive or die alive of it. I came to tell you that you will reborn in time. I will search for you and will surely find you. I will never again let you throw me away, just because of some wrinkles.'

'I know it is late now, but I have learned the lesson for life: you shall love with all the pain of love, or it does not worth a damned thing. When I am reborn, I will be in no state to search for you, for I will not remember you. Should I to know perfectly well that I shall go first, I will never again shy away from love. I made the death leap but fell. I cannot forgive myself, so you shall forgive me. I love you.'

Adular took a further step forward. Rhang touched her face.

They arched forward, their foreheads touching. They considered crying for a moment, but they quickly ditched the idea, since they did it many times alone.

Xera unhooked her cloak and threw it down. The white fur fell on the snow and they laid on it, entangled into each other.

Their farewell lovemaking was as gentle, miraculous and tender as the fairy snowfall.