A Winter Interlude

WITHOUT WINGS: A WINTER INTERLUDE.

(A Limited Seasonal Piece — Outside Canon)

Lucien speaks.

Winter is when humans pretend endings can be wrapped.They hang lights over grief. They bake memory into sugar and call it comfort.They insist the dark is temporary.

They are wrong.

This night thins the world. I feel it like a fault line beneath my feet—the old rules loosening, the veil forgetting its job. Children sense it first. They always do.

Wilona stands at the window, breath fogging the glass, watching the snow fall as if it knows her name.

I do not like this season. Hope makes people reckless.

She asks me why the cold hurts more when it’s quiet. I tell her the truth: silence has edges. It cuts only when you lean into it. She leans anyway. Brave, that one. Or foolish. The difference is seasonal.

Somewhere, bells ring. Not the holy kind—just metal on metal, time announcing itself. Wishes scatter like birds startled from a wire. Most won’t land where they’re thrown. Humans never learn that wanting is a kind of prayer, and prayers draw attention.

Wilona turns, eyes bright with that awareness she carries like a secret ember.

“Does it matter,” she asks, “what people ask for?”

I watch the snow erase footprints before they can cool.“It matters who’s listening,” I say.

She nods, satisfied. Children accept answers adults would argue into ruin. She presses her palm to the glass. For a moment—just a moment—the dark presses back, curious.

I will not interfere tonight. Let the world believe it can be gentle. Let the lights burn a little longer. Let the dead be remembered without asking to return. Tomorrow, gravity resumes.

But for now, the night holds its breath.And even I—who know better—stand still enough to feel it.

—Lucien