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From the time that I was young, I knew that my mother was wise and brave.
Not everyone agreed. Some said that she bargained too dearly, or took too many risks, or that the way she was always prepared for what came was due to a magical gift of foresight. That was unkind; foresight was a kind of mortal magic, not Staryk, and so by attributing it to my mother they implied that she had some human ancestry, which was an insult. At least, it was then. Things are changing now.
There were always those who thought ill of my mother, for raising me improperly all on her own. They did not understand that she was wise and brave, because they were determined to think her a fool. I knew, though. I think the only foolish thing my mother has ever done was choose my father, and of the two of them he was certainly the more foolish anyway. Mistakenly trusting a bad person cannot possibly be counted the same as being one.
She never wanted him back once he left us, although it could have made things easier for her. She was wise, though, and knew that someday he might try to return. She taught me the words to refuse him as soon as I could speak them, the same way she taught me how to tell an adult which room in the mountain was ours if I got lost, and how to bow to the king if I ever saw him.
“And what if he says he’ll give you your name?” she quizzed me every night.
“I say, I have nothing with which to repay you, and I do not wish to be in your debt,” I replied dutifully.
“And if he says you don’t need to repay him?”
“I do not want any name that he values so cheaply.”
“Good. And what if he says you can repay him by living up to the name?”
“Then I say, my life already fulfills a debt, and I cannot promise it twice.”
“And no matter what he says…?”
“I come get you as fast as I can,” I promised. She kissed my forehead.
“That’s my clever little snowflake.”
“But mama, I don’t understand,” I said. “Why can’t you just give me my name? I know you would pick a nice one.”
“No, no,” she said. “I don’t want you to owe me for something as big as a name.”
“Don’t I already owe you?”
“Not a bit, my love. I bore you and raised you, so that is one side of the scale, and for that you repay me by living and growing, do you see? But if I gave you your name then that would be another debt, and one that would take a very long time to pay.”
“Because I can’t promise my life twice,” I guessed, remembering the script she’d taught me.
“Exactly.”
“But I wouldn’t mind,” I said. “Being in debt to you. I’m sure you’d only use it for good things.” I was very young when we had this conversation, and all I understood about debt was that I would have to listen to my mother and do as she told me, which wasn’t very different from my life already.
“Well, I’m glad that’s what you think of me,” she said, “but I still don’t want you to owe me that much. Don’t worry, we’ll find someone very special who will give you a wonderful name.”
As I got older she began a list of people with whom it might be advantageous to enter such a contract. I brought her candidates sometimes too, adults I particularly liked, and she considered each of them seriously. She was wise, though, and not foolhardy the way some people said, and so the years passed and still I had no name while she waited for just the right person. I think even then she hoped to make me bondswoman to someone who might raise my fortunes.
Then the Open-Handed came.
We didn’t call her that at first, of course. At first she was just the queen, and most of us avoided calling her that, too, when we could. We followed our king and our laws, and there was no doubting her power, but a deep sense of unease pervaded the mountain even so. Perhaps she could help us- even we children knew of the patched breach in the mountain where we were forbidden to go- but she was ignorant and crude, and there would surely be a price.
On the first day my mother came home with all her buttons turned to gold. I had seen gold at her coronation, of course, everyone had, but this was different than a mere glimpse from the back of a cavern crowded with all of our people. My mother let me see the tunic and I touched each button reverently. The gold didn’t heat my fingers, as I’d half-expected, but it shone with a soft-edged brilliance like nothing I’d ever seen. Was the whole of the sunlit world like this? I was much too young to take the king’s road myself, and had never been particularly interested in it before, but if this dazzling glow was everywhere there I could understand why one might wish to go.
I carefully handed the gold-studded garment back to my mother.
“What does it mean?” I asked her. She looked down at the buttons, but I thought from her eyes that she was seeing something more than just what was in front of her.
“It means that things will begin to change very quickly now, little snowflake,” she said, and made me recite the refusal for my father before I went to bed.
The first words that the Open-Handed spoke to me were to give me my name.
The great labor that my mother undertook was a dangerous risk, but no one could fault her for it when they saw the reward. Even my mother and her carefully considered lists could not have imagined such an outcome; there could be no one higher than the Queen to ally me with, and since we were already her bondswomen I would be burdened with no new debt. I already owed her my lifelong service, so what more could be added to that account?
Asking the Open-Handed to name me was wise in more ways than that, though. My mother, who loved me very much and always gambled the most bravely when she hoped to benefit me, did not tell Miryem quite all there was to know about Staryk names.
I am permitted to call her Miryem, our queen- we all are, but I am one of the very few who will do so. It is good practice, and also I like the way it makes her smile. We are friends, I think, which is not something I ever thought I’d say about a queen or a mortal, let alone someone who is somehow both. Miryem is special, though. Miryem saved us all, and then she stayed, and around her everything changes.
It was a long time before I told anyone my name. I had meant to tell my mother in the morning, of course- I never had any doubt that I would, although I didn’t mind thinking on it overnight as she advised- but the next day brought the demon, and fear and battle and death and great magic to end it all. It was a day that our poets will write about forever, I think. Even such a large thing as a name is small against such a day. When my mother finally found me, after it was all over, we were still weak and warm and content to merely be together while we recovered.
So it was several days before the moment finally felt right to tell her. It is no small thing, the telling of a name. The only true name I know other than my own is my mother’s- well, and Miryem’s, I suppose, but that is rather a different thing. I was proud of my name, though, and pleased with the way I could feel it frozen into the very core of me, and I was eager to share that with exactly one person.
When I told her, a strange look passed over my mother’s face, and she swallowed before hugging me and saying,
“That is a beautiful name, little snowflake, and it suits you very well. I’m afraid, though, that I don’t know what it means.”
“You don’t?” I echoed, surprised. It would be like my mother to withhold her opinion or her knowledge if she thought I would benefit from forming my own, but I was not at all used to hearing her admit simple ignorance.
“No,” she said. “No, this time you must ask someone else.”
Many days passed again before I worked up the courage to ask the queen for an audience, and yet more before she had the time to grant it to me. I was nervous as I approached her chamber. It was the second time we spoke.
“Come in, little one,” she said when she caught sight of me hesitating on the threshold. “What did you want to speak to me about?”
The chamber was the largest I’d ever seen, so large that it must have taken up the full length of the mountain, hung with tapestries of gold and silver thread and looking out over the forest from a higher vantage point than I’d ever seen. I bowed, feeling slightly awed.
“It’s about my name,” I said when I straightened. “It is a wonderful name, but I hoped you could tell me a little about what it means.”
“I...can certainly try,” she said with a small frown. “I hope I have a good enough explanation.”
Our queen was clever, my mother had said, in tones that wavered between proper respect and a parental sort of pride. I could see that Miryem immediately grasped that there was a significance to my question, something she did not understand but was now alert to.
“We’d better make very sure that no one can hear us for this conversation,” she continued. “Do you think we should ride out a ways? I’m never sure just who is listening in on me here.”
My mother had also warned me that sometimes the queen would say something shocking, or display ignorance that would be unthinkable even from a child. I was to remember that things were very different in the sunlit world, and that even though she was our queen we were her teachers.
“No one here would spy on you, my lady,” I told her, trying to keep my voice even and clear of the affront to my people.
She seemed to weigh my words for a moment.
“Very well, then, we’ll stay in. I wouldn’t mind a few minutes of sitting still in one place.”
She went to the door and said to one of the servants stationed there, “Please see that we aren’t disturbed, and that no one listens in on our conversation. Oh, and arrange for something for my guest to eat.” She looked back at me with a smile. “What do you like?”
I gaped at her, and then tried very hard not to gape at her, since that probably wasn’t good etiquette. I'd never met a queen besides Miryem, but I was very certain that this wasn’t how they usually behaved.
“An assortment, then,” she said to the servant when I hesitated too long. He bowed and departed. He’d bowed to me when I’d arrived, as well, even though only days ago I’d been just an unnamed child who belonged to the same rank that he did. My mother had been right about things changing quickly.
With the door closed behind the servant, Miryem gestured me to a small couch where I perched cautiously. Changes in station happen much faster than changes in furniture, and the small chamber I shared with my mother didn’t have anything so delicate or so beautiful.
“Here’s my proposal,” said my queen. “I’ll tell you what your name means, to the best of my ability, and you tell me why it’s important for you to know. It’s not just idle curiosity, I take it?”
“Oh, no,” I said, and then winced, “I mean, yes. I mean, no, it’s curiosity, but yes, of course I’ll tell you.”
She smiled at me again. It was a nice smile, amused but not cruel.
“It’s all right,” she said gently. “I’m sure I’ll get more of the protocol of a queenly conversation wrong than you will. It’s probably better if we don’t try to be too formal- I won’t tell if you won’t.”
That seemed like a strange bargain to arrange, but harmless enough. Of course I intended to tell my mother about our conversation, but I could easily give her whatever information I learned without mentioning that it had been conducted informally.
“I agree to your terms,” I said. A strange look crossed her face.
“I- oh, never mind,” she said, sounding amused again, though I wasn’t sure why. She took a chair near the sofa and regarded me for a moment.
“I’ll begin,” she said. “I wish your mother had told me a bit more about naming before she asked me to do it, but I suppose she had her reasons.”
“She always does,” I agreed.
“Well, that’s the easiest part, to start with- bat Flek. That simply means you are the daughter of Flek. Perhaps you already guessed that much, even.”
I nodded.
“I suppose...” she said slowly, and trailed off for a moment to think. “I don’t know how much meaning you need, but I suppose, to a human, it would also mean that you don’t know who your father is, or that you don’t acknowledge him for some reason, or that he doesn’t acknowledge you. That isn’t what the words mean- bat Flek just means daughter of Flek, no more, no less- but that is a meaning that humans would take from hearing such a name, even so. It is traditional for a child to use their father’s name, so using a mother’s instead...well, indicates that there’s a reason to do that. But since I don’t imagine you’ll be telling any other humans your name, I doubt that meaning will ever be relevant.”
“It’s good to know all the things a name might mean, even so,” I assured her. “And I am glad to have my mother be part of my name.”
“Well, good. The next part is a bit more complicated.”
“Rebekah?” I asked. It gave me a little thrill to say it out loud; I had only done so once before, to my mother, although I had whispered it in my head over and over.
“Rebekah,” she said, nodding gravely. Somewhere inside me my name gave a tiny jolt, as if by saying it she had tugged ever so slightly at the very core of my being. It wasn’t a bad feeling, exactly, but still I was glad when the servant knocked politely at the door and brought in a tray of food for us, which meant no one would say my name aloud again for a minute.
The food served to the queen was wonderful, of course. There were delicate thin slices of several kinds of game- though none from the sunlit world, as the king’s road hadn’t yet opened again- and morsels of fish on little beds of lakeweed, an assortment of the freshest fruit, jelly preserves, plates decorated with nuts and seeds laid out in precise patterns, and a small bowl filled to the brim with my favorite berries, although they were only just coming into season and still difficult to find near the mountain. I wondered if that was happenstance, or if the servant had made a point of knowing- or quickly finding out- the preferences of the queen’s youngest bondswoman.
“Thank you,” said Miryem when he set the tray down, and then winced and visibly caught herself just short of apologizing. The servant stiffened, but didn’t say anything, just bowed without meeting either of our eyes and closed the door behind him as he went out. She sighed.
“I expect your mother warned him that his new queen would be uncouth once in a while. Where were we?”
“The meaning of the other part of my name,” I said, carefully scooping berries into my hand. They had a tendency to stain one’s fingers green, which probably wasn’t very polite, but there wasn’t a spoon or anything and anyway, I’d agreed to be informal.
“Right,” said Miryem. “This part will be harder to explain. I assume Staryk usually don’t name anyone after anyone else?”
I blinked at her, trying to make sense of this.
“You mean...naming someone else after you named me? Or I was the second person you gave a true name to? We have no law about how many people you can give names to, although it would be unusual to have the chance more than a few times. Though perhaps not so unusual for a queen?”
I felt a little sad at the notion that she had given somebody else a name too, but only because it made me not quite so special. It was certainly allowed.
“Ah, no,” she said. “I meant, do Staryk ever give their children the same names that other Staryk have had in the past?”
“I...have never heard of such a thing,” I said, bewildered.
“I thought not. Well, my people often give their children the same names as other humans who have died, and since no one saw fit to explain your naming customs to me, I’m afraid that’s the kind of name I gave you. I’m not sure what Flek expected, if not a human name- she had to know that I’ve never heard a true Staryk name in my life, and I have no notion what they’re usually like, other than secret.”
“My mother is very wise,” I told her. “I’m sure that she thought you would give me the best name that anyone could, or else she wouldn’t have asked you to do it. And if no other Staryk has a name anything like it, then isn’t it the best name?”
“I certainly doubt that anyone will be able to guess it,” she said.
“But will you explain to me what it means to be named...after...a human who has died? Why do you reuse names that way?”
Miryem ate one of the delicate pieces of fish while she considered this, and then ate the lakeweed it had rested on, a little more hesitantly.
“We do it for different reasons, I suppose. To remember or honor the person who died. Maybe to say that we hope the child will grow up to be something like them. And some names, like the one I gave you, come from the...well, let’s say, the stories of my people, so they also show that a child belongs to our community. Not all of us in the sunlit world name our children the same way, you know.”
I hadn’t known that, and I was curious about it, but not so curious that it distracted me from my purpose.
“So my name comes from a story?” I asked. We Staryk have stories, too, but I’ve since come to learn that they’re very different from human ones.
“Yes,” said Miryem. “I’m probably not the best one to tell it to you- my father would have done a better job, but I suppose I’m all you have.”
She took another small plate from the tray of food and picked slowly at one of the nut and seed designs, perhaps trying to fit her tale into something that would make sense to a just-named Staryk girl. I tried not to fidget with impatience.
“This is a story that took place a long time ago,” she began finally. “It’s about the ancestors of my people. One of our forefathers was a great man called Abraham, who wanted to find a wife for his son, Isaac. Abraham sent his servant to find the perfect bride. The servant stopped at a well-” she paused, and then added quickly, “a well is a way for humans to get water when there isn’t any nearby. We dig deep holes in the earth and then lower buckets down into them, fill them up with water from underground, and then pull them up again.”
This made no sense to me at all, but I nodded as if I understood anyway. I could ask more about wells later; for now, I was eager to get to the part of the story that had to do with me.
“At the well, the servant met a young girl-- Rebekah.” Hearing the name didn’t tug at me at all this time. Could that be because Miryem was talking about some other person named Rebekah, not about me at all? There was no one to ask; no Staryk had ever shared a name before.
“Rebekah drew water from the well for the servant and all his camels- those are like horses- even though he was a stranger and it was hard work. That’s how he knew that she was a good person and would be a good bride for Isaac.”
That made even less sense than the description of the well, and Miryem made a face like she knew it.
“When he decided that she was the right girl, the servant gave Rebekah gold jewelry that Abraham had sent, which was beautiful and precious,” she added. “You have that in common, at least.”
I touched the newly-gold necklace around my throat. I hadn’t taken it off since Miryem had changed it, not even to sleep; my mother had laughed at that but allowed it.
“Rebekah left her family and went to Abraham’s land, where she married Isaac and became one of the matriarchs of our people,” Miryem said. “Is this helping at all? It must seem like a very strange story to you.”
“I’m sure it’s a very nice story for humans,” I said, trying to be polite. She laughed.
“It does help, though,” I hastened to assure her. “Even if it doesn’t all make sense. Can you tell me...I know things are very different in the sunlit world, but can you try to explain why it was good for Rebekah to get the water for a servant? Unless...was she an even lower rank than him?” I had assumed that the people Miryem told me about were important, high-ranking, but she’d never actually said so. Would humans be proud of their low-ranking ancestors? I had no idea.
“No, it’s not about that,” said Miryem. “For humans, helping someone without asking for anything in return is seen as a good thing. People who do that are kind, or generous, and other people like them.”
“But why?” I demanded, before I could stop myself. It came out sounding more childish than I would have liked. I made myself sit up straight, clasping my berry-stained fingers in my lap. I had a name of my own, now, however unusual it was; I was grown-up enough to listen to her strange explanation and try to see what humans saw.
“You know, I tried to explain this to your mother, too. I don’t think she understood either.” Miryem stood up and began to pace the room slowly, frowning in thought. “I suppose the difference is that humans have no magical mountain like you have here. No king who controls the land. Most of us have no magic at all, and no way or hope of getting any. So we always live in danger- of freezing or starving or getting ill, of being attacked by animals in the woods, or just by other humans who don’t like us. Or by Staryk knights running rampant from their winter road,” she added, her mouth twisting.
I nodded solemnly, not wanting to interrupt her. It was true, I knew, that humans had good reason to fear us. Before Miryem, before our new, proud, ignorant queen had come to us, I had barely thought about it. Humans hadn’t seemed any different than the other prey in the forests of the sunlit world. They had lives of their own, presumably, but not ones a hunter would think twice about interfering with for sport or profit. Nothing that I, an unnamed child too young for the king’s road, had even taken a moment to consider.
I felt sick thinking about it now.
“In order to survive, sometimes we need people to help us without asking for anything in return,” Miryem was saying. “Sometimes humans need food, or water, or shelter, or protection, or extra hands to bring the harvest in before the snow, and don’t have anything to give in return. Most people will try to repay such a debt later if they can, but when you’re in such dire straits, the best kind of person to know is someone who will help you without requiring repayment. That’s why we value generous people, and praise them, and try to be like them. The more humans are willing to help each other, the more likely all of us are to survive.”
“So the servant would have died without the water that Rebekah gave him?”
“Well- no, but the fact that she gave him water showed that she was a generous person, and so he knew that she would be a good bride to bring back to his master’s people.”
“Because...humans think that generous people are good, not weak?” I said, trying out the idea. I wasn’t sure I could ever believe such a thing myself, but I was at least beginning to understand why a human might. I hadn’t realized how fragile their lives really were.
“Exactly,” said Miryem.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll have to think about that some more, but it was a good explanation.”
She laughed. “You’re welcome. Now, will you tell me what it is that I don’t know about names?”
“Oh! Well, it’s not very complicated. You can’t be a real person until you have a true name. It’s the core of your being. That’s why you must never let anyone know your name, because your name is your self, so whoever has one has both. That’s why it’s important to know what your name means, too, because your name is who you are- and who you will be, too. It’s kind of like...your fate?”
She stared at me, horrified.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me? Flek must have known that I wouldn’t have any idea how Staryk names work. What will having such a human name do to you? Is there any way to change it?”
“No, no!” I cried. “It’s my name! You can’t take it away!”
Miryem shot to her feet, holding out a placating hand toward me. “It’s all right, I’m sorry,” she said. “I won’t take it away.”
“Promise,” I demanded. I realized that I was hugging my arms over my chest, shrinking away from her on the couch without even knowing I’d moved. How could she suggest such a thing?
“I swear it,” she said. She crossed the space between us with slow, careful steps, the way you might approach a wild animal on the mountainside, and crouched down beside me. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. Of course you can keep your name. I’m just sorry I didn’t know enough to give you a better one.”
“It’s a perfect name,” I said, a little defensive. It was strange to look down at her from my seat. Her hair was the only dark thing in the entire beautiful chamber of silver and ice and the rich glimmer of gold she had changed. It struck me suddenly that she wasn’t wearing her golden crown- the first time I had seen her without it. Bareheaded, she looked stranger, more fragile, more like the humans I had seen occasionally in the background of our great murals. I was pleased that she trusted me to see her that way.
“Well, I’m glad you like it,” she said. “I hope your mother is equally pleased. I still don’t know what she was thinking, asking me to give you your name without explaining what it meant.”
“I have a guess about what she was thinking,” I volunteered. It had been slowly coming together throughout the afternoon, and now I felt sure of it. “It’s something she said to me, the very first night that she served you. She said that things would change now- and she was right, for even when you go back to the sunlit world the Staryk knights will never again trouble humans for gold or for sport. And even when you are gone we will still know you and love you, and we will think better of your people because of you. My mother has always been wise and brave, and always wanted to give me every advantage. I think that maybe in the time to come, it will not be such a bad thing to be a Staryk whose name connects her to the sunlit world. Perhaps we will need such people.”
“That...may be true,” said Miryem thoughtfully.
“And besides,” I said, feeling more confident now, “I like the stories you’ve told me, even if I don’t understand everything yet. I think you humans are very interesting.”
“Well, thank you,” she said, settling back on her heels. I made a face and she laughed.
“That’s one thing you’ll have to get used to, if you want to have anything to do with humans. The proper response is ‘you’re welcome’. Go ahead, give it a try.”
I hesitated, thinking it through. If ‘thank you’ was for getting something for nothing, then ‘you’re welcome’ must mean that the speaker was agreeing to that transaction, confirming that they weren’t going to get anything in direct exchange. Miryem had said ‘thank you’ for my telling her that humans were interesting. I didn’t expect any particular repayment for that, especially not from a queen, so surely it would be all right to absolve her of it.
“You’re welcome,” I hazarded. She patted my knee.
“There you go. What do you think, little snowflake? Could you handle all the strange human customs like that to be an ambassador to the sunlit world?”
She smiled when she said little snowflake, and something in her eyes made me sure that when she used those words she was really saying Rebekah inside her head. I liked that.
“I think I can,” I told her.
In the end, of course, Miryem didn’t leave us. I watched carefully at her second wedding, the human one, trying to memorize everything- although by then I knew that Miryem’s people did such things differently from other humans. She was endlessly patient with my questions, and I thought I knew quite a lot about the sunlit world by then. While the king’s road remained open I visited her family in the witch’s house and realized that I knew very little after all, but they were patient and...and generous, teaching me without any expectation of repayment.
“That’s just the way they are,” said Miryem, with a strange bitter edge to her smile that I didn't understand. “Sometimes even humans can be too generous. That’s a lesson for another day, though.”
I did not venture out into the rest of the sunlit world that year. The humans who dwelt in the witch’s house were strange enough, and they knew something of magic and Staryk ways and they never feared me, even when we did not understand each other. None of them ever asked me my name.
The next year, though, I grew brave enough to let the king’s road take me where it would. I walked through a dense forest, new snow beneath my feet and falling hushed through the air, the sun a perfect soft silver glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It was beautiful. It would have been exciting just for its newness even if it was ugly- I loved our mountain, but I had seen it every day of my life- but I was utterly enchanted with it. I didn’t even notice the human girl until she spoke.
“Watch out,” she said, “there’s a snare set there, under the snow.” She nodded to the ground a few steps ahead of me. I stopped carefully, considering her. If she had been Staryk I would have thought her just a bit younger than me, the age where she might be named or unnamed yet, but I hadn’t met enough humans to be sure. She was pale and red-cheeked, a look I had come to associate with humans who went about in winter, and she wore boots and a long coat and was using cold-clumsy fingers to do something complicated with a length of rope.
“You shouldn’t set your snares so close to the Staryk road,” I told her.
“I know that,” she said. “I won’t take any of the white animals. If I find them, I’ll let them go free. Or maybe the Staryk will take them from the traps themselves and be glad that I spared them the effort.”
I shook my head. “No, they’d be angry. They want the joy of the hunt, not easy prey held still for them.”
“How would you know?” asked the girl. She’d given up on her rope and was blowing warmer air on her fingers, watching me over them.
“I’m Staryk,” I said, taken aback.
“You don’t look Staryk.”
I looked down at myself, surprised, but I looked exactly the way I always had.
“Staryk are big men with swords who ride white stags,” said the girl, with a tone of voice that said everybody knows that. I remembered something my mother had said, after I’d told her about that first conversation with Miryem. She’d looked a little frightened for a moment, but when I presented my theory on why she’d wanted me to have a human name she’d smiled and told me I was clever. And then she said that since humans were used to Staryk knights on their hunting raids- used to them and terrified of them- perhaps it would be best if the first Staryk to come to them after everything had changed was someone very different. A young girl, for example. Someone they might not be so afraid of.
“Those are just Staryk knights,” I told the human girl. “There are all kinds of Staryk, though, just like there are all kinds of humans. See?” I held up my hand and tilted it back and forth, so that she could see the way the light glinted differently off ice.
“Oh,” she said, uncertainly. “Have you come to punish me for setting the snares, then?”
“No, no, not at all,” I assured her. “I didn’t even know you were here. I was just walking along and thinking about how pretty your winter is, here in the woods. But you really should move the snares somewhere else. The knights aren’t supposed to attack humans anymore, but they won’t like it if you catch some of the pure white animals.”
The girl shrugged unhappily.
“This is the only land we have,” she said. “If I could trap somewhere else I would, but it’s either here or starve. I’ll just make sure to come out and let the white ones go as often as I can.”
I looked her over again. She was thin in a way that went beyond just the growing-human look that Stepon had, and shivering a little even in her coat.
“You’re...hungry?” I guessed. She nodded. I thought about what Miryem had said, about how even the sunlit world was dangerous for humans. After the great battle food had been scarce in the mountain, but mostly that meant we had to give up our favorites and content ourselves with whatever could be grown or caught, even if it was plain fare or always the same. No one in the mountain had ever starved.
I thought about the story of my name, Rebekah drawing water at the well for a stranger just because he needed it, the way that humans believed generosity was a great strength, and I thought that perhaps I understood just a little more about why that name had come to me.
“Here,” I said, untying a pouch from my belt and holding it out. It was strangely easy to do, for something that should have been so foreign. “We can share.”
It contained what would have been my dinner: a packet of finely-sliced venison and a double handful of my favorite berries, which were now in season and plentiful everywhere around the mountain. When the girl looked dubious I took a few to show her they were safe, and soon both of us had stained our fingers and lips green with eager eating.
“Thank you,” she said, and then before I had a chance to try out my well-rehearsed response she added, “I’m Ania. What’s your name?”
I knew enough not to be shocked by the question. Miryem had told me to expect it, from just about any human other than the Staryk-accustomed family at the witch’s house. We’d talked at length about the human practices of naming, and how I might give a name other than my true name that would still satisfy whoever I met. I’d asked her for a name like she’d given my mother, but she demurred, saying naming me once was enough. Perhaps she was becoming Staryk enough to be conscious of the debt I already owed her.
I looked out at the quiet white forest, wondering if there had ever been another Staryk who had given herself a name. I had never heard of one. It seemed that I was to be the first Staryk to do many things, though.
“Well?” said Ania.
“I’m sorry, I was thinking,” I said. “But you may call me Snowflake.”