Trip Down Memory Lane 4 Winter Wonderland

"Are you sure you want to continue, Valera? Knowing of what you've been through in that forest, I a.s.sume that we'll surely encounter those kinds of memories again in our travels.

Isn't his name enough?" Spirit felt worried about her wellbeing. He also feared that there will be a time where he cannot help her when in need.

"Knowing his name is good and all, but I know that it is not enough. I need to know more about him.

But it's not just that.

During our journeys, I slowly realized that I...

I actually don't belong in this place."

The boat suddenly goes fast a little, but hardly unnoticeable for Valera. He calms himself down and continues to hear what she's going to say.

"The world around me is just too unreal, but that also goes the same as my memories. Right now, I'm starting to feel confounded between what's real and what's not.

But all I know is that I will know the answer at the edge of our journey."

Somehow, Spirit felt the same.

He's starting to question himself 'What if I'm not actually real and I'm just Valera's fragment of her imagination?'

He now feels the same curiosity she has and builds his resolve to also know about her memories.

And at last, they have reached the island.

Valera got out of the boat and walked towards the center to enter the portal.

What she have found is not a well nor an entrance of a portal.

Rather, it's a snowman.

It doesn't show any signs of melting and the area around the snowman is not wet at all. The snowman also emits a light like a lightbulb. Out of all oddities that she saw, this snowman is truly out of place.

As interesting as it looks, Valera gently touches it to inspect it further.

Just as her finger interacted the snowman's nose...

The snowman glows violently, making her and Spirit temporally blind. All she can see is pure white and nothing else.

She adjusts her eyes to see the outcome of that light.

She could see the skies, but the whiteness remained. But soon after, that whiteness is not the light.

It was snow.

The snowflake that has fallen from the clouds is stacking the snow into the ground and also the leafless trees. There are some evergreens planted randomly around the place. The lake around them also turned frozen solid in respect of the season of winter.

Valera has entered a place of winter wonderland.

Suddenly, a gust of cold wind hits her neck, making her flinch followed by a loud shriek.

After that, she started to feel cold. She crossed her arms to make her warm a bit.

Spirit notices her and gives her another silent treatment.

"...Alright. Stay still, Valera." He casts his spell once again.

Valera's body glowed a bit and eventually retracted itself into her body.

Suddenly, she feels warm, like she's inside a hot, but kind flame, the kind of flame that doesn't hurt when touched.

She closes her eyes, taking deep breaths and holds both of her hands to make herself feel the heat inside of her. And with that, she felt cozy.

"...Thanks, Spirit." She gives him a heartwarming smile.

"... Don't mention it." He can't help but to respond in her appreciation.

Valera then walks to the forest by crossing the frozen lake. With a warm sensation that she has, she feels at ease and continues on her journey.

"!" And just like that, she loses her focus on a slippery ice and slipped.

"... I'm not going to heal you from that." Spirit said to her bluntly. She stands up and continued walking, embarra.s.sed of her actions.

...

As they entered through the woods, they walked around to find her memories.

While they're walking, Valera looked back to see her tracks in the snow. She then looked around and she still sees the flakes of snow falling in front of them. Of all the seasons she experienced, this season has to be her least favorite of the bunch. But because of the snow and the cold atmosphere, she takes it as an exception and enjoys it anyway.

"Valera?"

"?"

"Are you sure you're ok? You don't seem to enjoy this as much as before." Spirit said this because she looks as if she didn't gave an expression in this world like earlier.

"It's nothing. It's just that... This place doesn't feel amusing as I was before. Everything I see here is just white, and nothing else."

"Well, I guess you have some opinions regarding in these types of topics."

"It's not like I love every view. Although all of them are pleasing in a way, I usually sort them on how beautiful those sceneries are."

"Let me guess. In order, from top to bottom, the views from the spring, the fall, and, lastly, winter."

Valera flabbergasted on his guess.

"How did you know?!"

"Your face, Valera. Your face."

Hearing his answer, she turned away from Spirit and pouted like a kid.

As they're walking, they saw some children playing ahead of them. Seeing an opportunity to regain her memories, she walked a bit faster and looked closely at the children.

There are at least 7 kids playing in the snow. Some of them are building a snowman and most of them are throwing s...o...b..a.l.l.s with each other.

Two of the kids, Valera and her best friend, Maple, are kids that are building a snowman. The snowman they're building is the same as the snowman in the island.

She expected that Phillip would be one of the kids but...

She looks around to find him but none of them looked like him. Due to this, Valera is starting to feel puzzled.

As she looks around the forest, she saw a kid hiding in one of the trees.

"Phillip!" The kid Valera runs towards Phillip.

"You finally came!"

"Um... Yeah." Phillip is feeling anxious around the playing children.

"C'mon, we're building a snowman. So join us, okay?!" She pulls Phillip to the snowman. "Okay, okay. I'm going. You don't have to pull me, you know." To his perspective, seeing her joyful att.i.tude makes him a bit better and tries his best to enjoy with the rest of the kids.

However, the kids saw him while they're playing a s...o...b..ll fight.

Almost all of them are approaching him.

"Hey! I didn't see you around here. You the new kid?"

They asked Phillip like they wanted to fight him.

"Um..." Phillip fl.u.s.tered as he tries to make up an answer.

Valera saw him and the kids approaching him. She backs him up and talks to them while trying to be friendly to avoid fighting.

"He's just from the other street. I invited him here to play with us."

"Oh, really! You should've told me earlier!"

He isn't actually trying to do badly to them. He's just trying to converse Phillip into joining their group. Although, his tone is a bit violent than it should be that it makes those two think of a misconception.

"C'mon, Phillip! Let's play over there! We should build the biggest snow fort we can ever imagine!" He points on his back on his other friends waiting for them.

"Wait! I asked him fir-"

"It's fine, but I really don't want to for now." Phillip interrupts her but looks at the other kid.

"Huh?"

"I think it would be better to play with her first. She invited me, anyway."

The other kid puts his mind into thought, trying to process on what's going on with them.

An eventually, he come up with a conclusion.

"Ah! You're in love with her, aren't you?!" He pointed at Valera.

"N-No it's no-"

"Woah! You had a Boyfriend, Valera?!" The other kids also asked her.

"What?! I-"

All the kids heard what he said and they started wooing at them. Both Valera and Phillip doesn't have a chance to tell them that they're misleading about their relationship.

"Then we should be going! I swear we won't disturb you two!"

"C'mon! Let's go somewhere!"

"Woo!!"

The kids are starting to get noisy and ran to the opposite direction.

The two of them are just standing, blushing in red.

"you... have great friends."

She can't help but nods at him. She hides her face due to her embarra.s.sment.

"So... should we build a snowman?" Phillip asked.

Valera actually forgot the reason why he brought him here in the first place. She looks at him while trying to hide her reddened face.

"Oh! ...um, Yeah. Maple should be helping with us so it'll be finished at

...any...

...moment."

As she looked at the snowman, she realized that Maple isn't here anymore. She also ran like the other kids.

"..." Valera has no words to express this situation.

While she's standing there with a blank expression, Phillip draws near the snowman.

"The snowman is actually almost done. Just the head, some rocks and sticks and it's done."

Valera got out of her fazed state and listened at him.

"I'll go find something to make his face and arms and you should make a head." He then walks to the forest.

Valera saw his natural face and began of thinking doubts about him.

'Doe's he actually has feelings for me?' is what she's thinking right now.

"We should hurry up, y'know. We should catch up to them and play. Just as you said earlier, it's better to play with everyone." Phillip rephrases what she said to him yesterday.

Right now, she has abandoned that thought...

And just enjoy the time with him.

Valera, who is on the farthest side of them, looked closely at the two. She also started to feel like blushing on what she saw in that memory.

"So that's Phillip, huh?" Spirit said this out of the blue, due to the fact that he didn't see his face before.

Valera, on the other hand, recoiled at his response because she didn't realize that he was there.

Spirit then looks at her for good measure.

"You're blushing, you know?" Valera reacts with a blush.

"Red as a rose..." She looks on the ground and started to get irritated at his taunts.

"Shut it!" Valera throws a s...o...b..ll at him. She uses her anger to hide her fl.u.s.tered sensation.

But since he's just a ball of flame, he dodged it without moving. After that, she throws another s...o...b..ll at him, and relentlessly throws as many s...o...b..ll as she can get.

Having so many s...o...b..a.l.l.s coming at him, he dodges all of them without a sweat.

"Would you please stop? You're wasting your own energy."

... She didn't listen at him.

Annoyed, he uses his magic on the tree near her. He violently shakes the tree and eventually...

A pile of snow falls into her.

She tried to struggle in the snow to get out but sooner or later, she stopped and has finally calmed down.

Spirit sighed out of pity.

After that, they walked again to find another memory or a portal.

"So, have you finally calmed down?"

"yeah... sorry."

Spirit heaves a sigh. "As long as you don't repeat that, it's fine."

"By the way, Spirit. Do you have a body before you became a spirit?"

Spirit felt perplexed at her question. "... Why are you asking me that?"

"I heard that every human has a soul inside of them. Technically, your appearance kinda resembles a human soul, so I got curious."

Spirit tries to think about this.

"Surprisingly, I don't know.

I only existed because my thoughts tell me that I need to be with you and act as your guardian. As I told you before, no one ordered me to be your guardian.

I just had to be one, out of my own free will."

"..." With his statement, Valera went silent.

"...Maybe, the answer should be one of my memories."

"?" He deemed baffled at her answer.

"If everything in this world correlates with my memories, there may be a hint of the cause of your existence. I don't know if I could find it or not but...

If I actually found something, I'll let you know." She makes a smile in her face to rea.s.sure him. As an ent.i.ty whose role is to protect her, he didn't expect to join a voyage to also know about his past.

Hearing this as a promise, Spirit is pleased at her resolve.

"I thank you for that. It... It is rea.s.suring of you."

She responded with a chuckle.

Eventually, the two stopped walking.

Ahead of them is an intense blizzard just a few meters away. Valera can feel the coldness of the blizzard just by standing here. It hinted her that it is dangerous to go on.

"I don't think this is safe, Valera. Let's go to the other side and-"

"Wait..." She told Spirit to stop while standing still.

"After I escaped from my dark memories, I immediately at the place near the portal. If I'm correct..."

Valera knew she has to go there to continue. But the feeling of having those memories implanted in her head shook her.

Her legs are shivering like there's no tomorrow and her breathing is incorrect.

Spirit detects her sign of anxiety and goes to comfort her.

"You're right. You've come this far, so it is best to go forward. Even if there are obstacles on the way,

You can, and you will, overcome that fear."

He draws closer to her.

"Don't worry. As long as I'm here, you will be safe.

So let's go, Valera."

She never knew Spirit can be so supportive at her goal. But she realized that he's right.

Valera has gone far and escaping would mean her journey worthless.

Filled with determination, she agrees to him by nodding him.

After their confrontation, Valera and Spirit goes into the blizzard together.

Seeing Spirit with her side, she feels protected and now has the ambition to move forward, even if it means remembering those sad memories once again.