The Century Storm Chapter 2: Knocking on the recently closed door, Archer called out, "Phoenix, are you in there?" He waited for a reply but got none. "Phoenix, I know you're in there." He tried again, knocking louder on the door, "I brought you clothes." The door opened a crack, revealing her fair face and bright green eyes. "Where'd you hear that story?" She whispered, pulling him into the room. "The story I told Robbie? My father told me it long ago, before he died, why?" He asked, setting the clothes on her bed. He mindlessly sorted through them, sorting them into the ones that would fit her and ones that wouldn't, slimming the pile down by quite a few items, he left her with a few tee shirts, a dress and some jeans. "My mother used to tell me a story something like that." He looked at her inquisitively. "It started the same way, the little boy and girl, always finding each other, but then the little girl got sick. Then the story differed. It became a tale of hatred and sorrow, as the little girl grew sick and she couldn't find the boy. He'd left her, he'd left her alone to die." A bitterness filled her voice, the same as it did her mothers when she told the story. The story of a sick girl who was to die with nobody. The story of the sick girl who never had anyone, because the only person she did have, wasn't anyone in the end anyway. "It's just an old warm world tale anyway." He sighed, helping the misses, who had made her way up, pull in the bathing tub. "What's just a warm world tale? There's not many circulating through here anymore, did you find something?" She asked Archer. She'd always been nosy, curious about the warm world, she was one of the many who had never stepped foot outside. "Something I read in the library." He lied, "when I lived in the west wing." He helped her move the tub closer to the fire, trying to keep the water as warm as possible. "Ah." She sighed, thinking fondly of all the books there must be. It had grown so cold the rest of the castle had basically frozen over, sending Archer and his father to look for a warmer part of the castle, both families had been unaware of the other for the longest time. "You'll have to bring me back some when you do those morning rounds of yours, the book selection here has grown boring. "Yes ma'am." He agreed, laying out the clothes on the wooden dresser and turned to Phoenix. "You're bath is ready. I would say to go to bed after because it is night, but six year of sleep should cover you for a while." She thanked him and shooed them out of her room, not wanting the water to get any colder. They two had left and nothing sounded better to Phoenix than a warm bath. She dipped her toe in the water, warming the water to her touch. She sank down in the water, rolling the water over her shoulders and through her hair. She hadn't had a bath in over six years, if the dip in the icy moat was counted. Before that, who knew how long she'd been away, wandering the snowy roads from France to Australia, crossing the ocean somewhere in between. It had only seemed like days wandering, looking for her mother. She could remember so vividly the green grass of the summer before that, the electric lights shining upon the Eiffel Tower, tourists crowding the old streets, everything had been so normal. Sitting on the windowsill looking out at the beautiful warm world, the butterflies dancing from flower to flower, the colors of the trees, the bright blue sky, she missed it. She missed the beauty, washed out by the pristine white snow, the species wiped out by the cold, the blue sky turned grey with the ever present, storming clouds. Soon the water had grown too cold for even her to stay warm in and she found herself wrapping herself I a robe Archer had left, humming her dreary song. She couldn't sleep, couldn't even think of sleeping, so she threw on a night gown and wandered downstairs, looking for none the other.