The messenger arrived breathlessly as Reisa was leaving her cottage. A sorceress, she said, demanding to speak to—no, to hire—the best tracker in the village. The story went that the sorceress had become separated from her friend as they travelled the wood; a sudden snowstorm had blown in, and they had somehow not kept together.

Arrogant fools not just sheltering, Reisa thought, but a rescue, and promise of pay, put wings to her feet, sending her swiftly to the village inn where the visitor was waiting.

It was mid-afternoon, too late for lunch, too early for supper. There were three people in the dining room, two familiar, sitting in the corner talking quietly, and one sitting near the fire in a purple cloak, with purple hair to match.

A royal colour—maybe more to the point, an expensive colour. Reisa brushed fresh-fallen snow from her shoulders. The presumed sorceress turned.

"You the one lookin' f'ra friend?"

"I am, yes." The witch stood and turned to face Reisa.

Gods, stupid damned magickers. Keepin' warm with a spell I bet. As the stranger turned, Reisa could see that she wore nothing at all beneath her cloak.

"It was this morning, in the woods," the spellcaster continued. "An unusual wind came up, and a blizzard blew in, and my travelling companion and went in different directions. I worry she is lost."

Reisa took a hissing breath. "Level with ya, 'fwe leave now, might have half a chance, but once night falls 'sna likely we ca find anythin' livin', tracked down or not. But yeah I can work wi' ya to find 'er."

"We need not worry about her health, at least not from the weather. I am more concerned that she might have a fall or be stalked by wild animals."

"Hm. She another magic sort, then, like you?" In another fuckin' stupid overpriced cloak with nothin' underneath?

The stranger seemed amused. "Oh, has word got around? Yes, she too is a practitioner."

"Right. She needs rescuin', then, an'na longer we let the wind blow in the tracks the less'll be there f'rus to find. Should get goin'."

"Of course." The sorceress drifted towards the tracker, her cloak drifting around her in what seemed to be a practised method to hide her body. "I will reward you greatly if we find her unharmed."

Damn straight ya will. "Jes' doin' what I do." Reisa turned on her heel and led the witch towards the door. "Can't 'magine ye'll be near warm 'nough in that flimsy cloak."

The stranger just snorted in reply.

The weather wasn't terrible, by midwinter standards. It was just after noon, the sky was mostly clear and the sun high, and the light breeze coming down the mountain barely moved much snow at all. Reisa could tell, though, by the chill in the air and the patterns of the wisps of cloud that did exist that the night would likely carry a killing cold. Not of true concern to a prepared mountain girl, and apparently not of true concern to a sorceress either.

"Where'd you come from then?" Reisa asked.

The sorceress indicated the west with a sweep of her hand. "I used a spell to find my way from the forest to the village, but I wasn't able to do the same for my friend, which is why I need someone with more mundane talents than I have available to me."

Reisa wasn't sure what exactly the sorceress meant by 'mundane,' but she felt vaguely offended. Still, there was pay involved. "'Course, well, the forest's better f'ra tracker," Reisa offered, starting to walk in that direction, "the wind don't blow in the snow near as much an' there are some clear trails to—"

"She won't be travelling clear trails," the sorceress cut in.

"Right, well, that c'n make things een easier, since she'll be breakin' branches and trompin' plants 'n' such, yeah?"

Reisa's client took a breath. "I'm sorry, it takes a moment for me to parse all that. You talk very quickly."

"Yeah, well, you try holdin' a conversation when the wind'll freeze a lake over in a half an hour, ya learn to talk fast an' listen faster."

The sorceress chuckled. "That does make sense."

"The ones of us that don't move, act, or talk fast wind up missin' bits of themselfs." Reisa took her large mitt off her left hand and showed the stranger her amputated little finger. "Got a bit of an ear hadda be took off too. Hardly anyone 'round here works outside don't end up incomplete. An' look, I get that you got magic to keep you warm 'n' safe 'n' such, but I gotta say that havin' just those small sandals on your feet seems like a good way to lose toes. 'Syer name?"

"Hm?"

"Yer name? What should I call you?"

"Oh." The stranger paused. "Prill."

"That's—"

"Close enough to my name for you."

"Sure, well, I'm Reisa."

"Excellent." Her tone suggested that it was not particularly noteworthy.

The two women walked in silence for a moment, the crunching of their footwear in the snow the only sound apart from the light breeze.

"Ya worried 'bout her?"

"What?"

"Yer friend. Ya worried?"

"Oh. Yes."

The forest overtook them, the bare trees providing no cover from the sun, and little from the wind. Reisa could still see the evidence of Prill's steps in the morning's snowfall.

"C'n see where ya came this morn," Reisa said, pointing. "We follow this back, we should get to where you an' your friend got separated, yeah?"

"You're the tracker, not me." The sorceress seemed mildly amused.

Reisa just nodded, pressing on, keeping her eyes on the ground, noting all the signs she could, making sure she was going the right way. People who are lost often wind around or move in circles, but Prill seemed to have gone in as straight a line as she could while avoiding the trees. Reisa reminded herself that Prill hadn't claimed to have been lost, only to have lost someone else, and that—

"Prill?"

"Hm?"

"Why could use magic ta find us at the village b'nocher friend?"

The sorceress chuckled. "It is easier to find a group of people than a single individual."

Reisa thought about that in her head. "Sure, well, it the same e'en if y'know the person yer lookin' for good?"

"You know something of magic?"

Reisa shook her head. "Just what I heard of the old tales 'n' such, 'sno one to teach it in the village. Seems a bit..." Reisa trailed off, not wanting to offend her client.

"A bit what, exactly?" Prill asked.

"Ah, sure, well..." Reisa felt a little trapped. "A bit..."

Prill laughed. "Dear Reisa, I do believe you're having trouble telling me that you find my art something of an unfortunate one."

"'fby that ya mean n'body in'na village trusts magic, yeah I guess you could say 'unfortunate,' sure." Saying it felt good, even if it was rude to a guest.

"You will understand if I don't share that view," the sorceress replied pleasantly. "But those of us who practice are used to superstitions from some of the more isolated parts of the world."

"Y'sure don' get much more isolated than us, far as I know, 'sabout a day's walk down to the highway 'n' another half up the road to somewhere important."

"Have you ever been?"

Reisa shrugged. "Coupl'a times when I was little, my family went, my da was a trapper, 's'how I learned to track, 'n' he had pelts 'n' such ta sell, so we all went, me 'n' my mom 'n' him. They're gone now, been a while, an' never had no sibs at all so it's just me trackin' and keepin' watch 'n' such, but I don't do the sellin', I don' wanna go all that way with a load so I sell through a friend in the village who takes my catch in four or five times a year."

"Hm." Prill left space in the air that Reisa didn't feel she should fill. "What did you think of it?"

Reisa noted where a goat's trail crossed Prill's, a sign of good luck. "Not much? Different wilderness I guess, streets 'steada paths, buildings 'steada trees, people 'steada animals, don' really miss it I don' think, but I haven't been in twenty years, you kinda get use't'it after a while." She brushed ice, born from her warm breath hitting the cold air, off her scarf, and envied the practically-nude wizardess two steps behind her. "How 'bout you, ya live there?"

Prill laughed prettily. "Gods, no, I can't stand more than a day or two there. I have a garden, further south. My..." Prill paused, "My friend and I came up to the mountain to look for a rare herb that I hope to transplant. Alas, now I've lost her, instead of finding my bounty."

A pang of sympathy ran through Reisa's chest. Everyone in the village knew someone who'd been lost in the cold, or had been someone lost in the cold. Thanks to Reisa and a small handful of others, most of those people made it home, but the mountain had claimed more than one. "Sounds nice," she said, to distract herself from those memories. "A li'l cottage and a buncha plants?"

"It is a place of research," Prill replied a bit coldly. Then she softened. "And... it is nice. Maybe you'd like to see it sometime."

Reisa shook her head. "Believe 'r not, I don' really wanna go anywhere other'n up the mountain an' 'round the village. Don' really think I need to see much else."

"Hm, you never know," Prill said. Her voice grew wistful. "There, I raise plants and trees from all over the continent. I teach students, a very few, gifted students, how to take care of those plants. I learn and write about their qualities and properties. It is a place of great magic."

Reisa nodded, distracted by following the trail, but the image of a lush, warm, sunny, green garden filled her mind. And the Birds. She'd always loved birds.

"Oh, we have birds," Prill said, a smile in her voice.

Reisa froze. Had she spoken aloud?

"When you bring plants," the sorceress continued, "you need to bring the animals that care for them. Birds and insects, contained to the garden by magic, and such creatures as climb and wander and crawl. Nothing large, nothing dangerous, but a menagerie to rival the richest colonial lord nonetheless, and all of them wild and free in their own habitat, not caged and defenceless."

If Reisa were to have dreamed of travel, it would have been to see other wildernesses, other forests and animals and...

Birds.

Birds had always fascinated her. They weren't unheard-of in the mountains, but they were rare, especially in the winter. The mountain was high, high as clouds, but birds could soar even higher. Reisa's imagination made her feel briefly as if she were flying. She closed her eyes and felt her feet, in her boots, on the ground, but her head was in the clouds.

"Everything alright, Reisa?"

She had a job to do.

"Perfec'ly." Reisa opened her eyes. She smiled. The cold felt... oddly uncomfortable. Still familiar, but there was a strange tinge to it. Maybe it was time for a change, and this sorceress seemed like she had an interesting place. A visit might be in order. "This way." It seemed like Prill was still muttering behind her as she led, but between following the trail and dreaming of warmth and greenery and especially birds, Reisa wasn't paying that much attention.

The sun was low when Prill put a hand on Reisa's shoulder. The tracker looked up. There, in a small clearing, sitting cross-legged on the ground, in a white robe similar to the style of her employer, was a small light-skinned woman. Her eyes were closed, she seemed to be meditating, and she didn't react to their approach.

Prill almost gently pushed Reisa to the side. "Merketha," she said.

The white-robed woman's eyes opened. Merketha, Reisa presumed, didn't seem surprised, only a little sad, as she got to her feet. "Pathrilla. I was seeking a way to avoid this."

"There is no avoiding me." Prill's hands came up to her shoulder height.

Merketha mirrored her stance. "I am rested. I am ready, teacher." The way the sorceress in white said the word—spat the word, really—made Reisa very nervous.

The wind picked up, and immediately the tracker knew that it wasn't natural. It blew aside both women's robes, revealing their wiry, muscular nakedess. Strange silver symbols, previous unnoticed, glowed on Prill's purple robe; silvery tattoos in similarly odd images glowed on Merketha's body. For a long, tense moment, the two of them stared. Reisa couldn't see anything happening, but could feel the magic in the air. There were no sparks, no flames, nothing but the soft glowing of Prill's robe and Merketha's skin and the unusual wind. She couldn't bear to say anything, didn't want to draw the attention of the two witches. Her instincts told her to run, but something bound her to Prill, to her employer.

There was a reward promised. A woman with enough power to walk through the winter woods without clothing, to have a tower and a garden and wild animals and birds must be able to give a great reward.

Prill took a step forward, slow, strong, as though moving against a strong force. The wind picked up. Merketha held her ground. The two of them stared at one another.

Prill took another step. And another.

And another.

The winds were whipping around the clearing enough to obscure Reisa's view with a veil of loose snow. Hesitantly, eager to see what was happening and yet fearing what might happen to her if she approached, she took a step herself.

The wind died, suddenly. The snow fluttered back to the ground.

Prill and Merketha stood in the middle of the clearing, wrapped in an embrace, their lips locked together, their hands exploring under each other's robes.

Reisa flushed, watching the display.

The two soreceresses separated. Merketha fell to her knees. Reisa couldn't hear her, but she could read the word on the white-robed sorceress' lips.

Mistress.

A cold fear burned in Reisa's stomach as Prill turned to face her.

"You have served well."

The silver threads in Prill's robe continued to glow. The silver tattoos on Merketha's skin did not. Reisa, her mind racing, thought of birds.

And seeing Prill's glowing eyes, she could only think of birds.

"You deserve a reward," Prill said, and Reisa nodded, thinking of birds.

"Come to me."

Reisa, thinking of birds, lifted a mittened hand to Prill and walked into the clearing.

Prill took the mitten, and Reisa thought of birds. Merketha's hand brushed Reisa's, and she felt no cold.

"I need my student to use her magical energy," Prill said, "so that she doesn't have the strength to resist my control again."

Reisa nodded, and thought of birds as Merketha removed her other mitten.

"She has the power to keep the two of you warm, together."

Reisa's hands found themselves tracing the strange runic tattoos on Merketha's body as the white-robed witch continued to strip the tracker bare.

Naked, now, in the clearing, Reisa thought of birds. She wasn't distracted by the cold she didn't feel. Merketha's hands gripped to her ass were notable. The witch's tongue on the inside of her thigh started to draw her attention away from the imagined aviary. Prill's soft chuckle sounded like the distant call of a songbird, and the sorceress' hand in her hair felt like a sparrow rooting for nesting material,

and suddenly she was on her knees, alongside Merketha, mirroring the witch's actions, licking up the inner thigh of her erstwhile employer just as Merketha had been adoring hers a moment ago. The white-robed sorceress favoured Reisa with a deep, passionate kiss before pushing her back into the warm snow, leaving her to play with herself as she watched Merketha bury herself between Prill's legs. Her gaze scanned upwards; Prill's upper body was still, curiously, covered by her purple-and-silver robe, but the look on her face was one of purest ecstasy, with purple hair spilling carelessly over her shoulders framing the image in the fading sunlight. Reisa arched her body upward into her fingers, desperately clutching for sexual release that seemed to be waiting for something, no matter how hard she tried to press herself over the edge, she couldn't seem to manage it.

Until Prill came.

The sorceress' howl no longer resembled anything birdlike. It was primal, predatory, more like a wolf. The sound seemed to run through Reisa's body like a shockwave, focusing incredibly on her crotch and her fingertips and radiating outward in the most powerful orgasm she had ever experienced, that left her echoing Prill's cries and writhing helplessly in the now-stained snow.

There was a deep, impossible silence. A darkness so dark Reisa wasn't certain that she hadn't gone blind.

There was a parchment in her hand.

A reward.

She couldn't read it in the dark.

Night had fallen, a deep, heavily-clouded night, which in the forest meant a darkness like pitch, and a deadly cold.

Reisa slowly got to her feet, naked, and warm.

She didn't know what it said, but she was very careful about the parchment. It was about the length of her forearm, rolled tightly, bound with a ribbon.

She had no trouble navigating the pure darkness. She had no trouble finding her way home, and in the hours of walking she did, completely naked, she never felt the first hint of the cold.

She dreamed of birds the whole way.

In her small cottage, Reisa drew close to the iron stove, put several logs inside, and lit it by a touch of her hand, without use of flint and steel. She glanced at the table, where she knew an unlit candle sat in its holder. The candle burst into flame.

Only then did the sorceress' blessing leave her feeling the first chill. The fire warmed the room soon enough. Reisa didn't bother with clothing.

Instead, by the dim light of the candle, she undid the purple ribbon and unrolled the parchment.

It was a map.

Clear, concise, nothing extra, nothing fancy, just a route to follow.

A route Reisa knew would end in a fabulous garden. Animals. Flowers. Birds.

Birds.

The winter was not a time for travel. People who travelled that part of the world arrived late, or arrived injured, or simply... did not arrive.

Reisa only paused in her packing to marvel at her left hand, and its five perfect fingers, and to wonder at what other astonishing things she might find in front of her.

She was on the road before the first morning light, hearing birdsong with every step.