Natural Order

Lady Winter awoke out of season.

Lord Spring’s shift had come and gone, making way for Queen Summer to make her grand entrance. There was usually a party. Lady Winter never attended the gathering crawling with sycophantic lesser nobles. None had been given the opportunity to get into the royal’s good graces.

Unlike herself, it was well known Lord Spring remained awake a few weeks until the queen’s court festivities for many things blossomed during the summer months. This year he too had awakened again for the end.

After six scorching months, the hottest season waned as the queen prepared to meet King Fall. All the world knew it for a nightly chill had began to follow the still hot days.

Lady Winter saw varied other courtiers as she exited the summer palace. She’d thought the world unbearably hot when she was not awake and now had solid proof of it as she walked where Queen Summer reigned supreme.

Maids ran about to and fro within the castle walls. Lady Winter ignored them all in favor of the back yard. An orchard stood there. Grooves upon grooves of trees bearing fruit.

The entity she sought stood with his back against a pear tree. He looked like many of the sprites and fairies carrying out the Summer Queen’s whims.

The fruit was a vibrant red color. Others bone loads of edibles in green and a shade of gold she saw more commonly on apples.

When he sat, she plucked a lone pear from the tree above them and joined him. Perhaps it was just her imagination but the heat seemed more bearable then for spring was warm and not blazing hot.

“What exactly do you wish to say to me?” she asked.

They were alone. It was unlikely anyone would come upon them here with most of the available hands preparing for the upcoming celebration.

Lady Winter wondered if the queen had ever made any demands of him. Nothing had ever been asked of herself from him until now.

“Are you always so cranky when the sun shines?” he asked.

She frowned. Today’s extreme heat was brought on through no fault of her own as she had little control over the sun.

“Do you always ask questions without regards to the consequences?” she asked.

It would take but one premature frost to kill the fruit above his head. Right now they were ripe enough for easy consumption. The king and queen’s servants had currently finished gathering all the needed fruit for the royal table. They’d be back at it tomorrow.

Every year Lady Winter received an invitation to the party as did all nobles and every year she declined, preferring sleep to company.

Lord Spring smiled. “Sometimes I forget how much you disdain polite society.”

“I assure you I’m not missing anything.”

When he posed no counter argument, she approached.

The pear tree provided shade against the sun’s direct rays but did little to combat the humidity accompanying the heat.

Silence carried on between them dissipating only when the commotion within the castle walls reached them in unsynchronized bursts.

Lord Spring wanted to see her. Not that he had what happened next? Lady Winter’s sleep-heavy thoughts would not allow her to continue processing the situation. She’d never wanted her bed in the deepest of snow so badly.

“There’s something I must tell you,” Lord Spring said when the flurry of servants’ activities quieted down and did not travel to them.

Already she did not like the sound of it. If he no longer wished to see her why would he have asked to do so in the first place?

They had just this day together. She’d barely awoken an hour and sleep threatened to overtake her once again. Winter lay dormant during summer. It was the way of things the natural order which kept the world turning.

“I’ve served my last season as Lord Spring,” he said.

She stared at him, shock evident on her face for he had been Lord Spring since time began just as she had been Lady Winter, the roles assigned to them by the spirit of the Earth itself.

“What does the Earth think of this? What will become of the third season? ” she had to ask. Madness was no trifling thing. She feared the worst for him. The thought alone unnerved her.

“They will decide as they always have.”