The soft pitter-patter that had been running down the tilted roof into the wide eaves had steadily begun turning into abundant snowfall. Snowflakes were swirling about in the distant sky as a great, cold fog encompassed all.

A man, whose face was weathered and no stranger to senile features, scurried towards the estate's entrance. His warm breaths crystalised in the wintry gale. His frail body was shivering and shaking; his fabrics offered ill protection against the biting cold that began taking root in inside of him. 

His wife, a black-haired beauty who had not aged a day since they met many, many years ago, greeted him kindly with a warm smile. Steam emerged from the cup of tea she held tightly in her grasp. She stepped closer, suddenly overtaken by an urgent arising worry, "My dear, my dear husband," said she, taking note of the grim onset of frost across his fingers.

"Fret not, Saya," replied the man dismissively.

Saya's heart was shackled in the tight grip of concern. 

She grabbed hold of her husband's hands, no warmth bled over upon touch.

"You're cold even to my touch, my dear. Please, we must find a healer to treat your hands, I beg of you with all my heart."

The man remained silent for a moment, gently removing Saya's cupped hands.

A freezing tear rolled down the loving wife's pearlescent skin, clinging onto her chin with equal desperation to her own. She knew well the onslaught of the blistering cold. All too well, in fact - she recalled her distant memories of a lifetime long since forgotten.

A bone-chilling sensation scattered through her body.

Yet she overcame the feeling, managing to suppress it for the time being. 

With the memory of old scars refreshed, her bright blue eyes narrowed down into a profound glare, barely shy of emanating a deep dread. 

The man noticed the change in his wife's demeanour, reluctantly acknowledging her state of mind, "Saya, I just need a moment to regain my strength. My hands are fine, you need not worry."

Saya pleaded once more, "At least, warm up  in the tub, or something of the s-"

"Enough," snarled the husband, frowning. "Your hands are freezing all the time, yet never have I ever complained, forced you to act upon it." The frown, by this point, had turned into an anger-fuelled glare. The man's usually calm and kind tone had distorted into a howl. "Have I? Have I not, Saya?!" reiterated the man, face flushed with anger.

Saya remained silent.

Her husband did not take the lack of response well.

Teeming with a resentful fury, "Mayhap you ought to work out all day in the snow - feel the cold settle in your bones. Maybe then you would hold me in higher regard, you wretch." He snarled, flailing his fist around and sending her cup flying across the homestead.

Saya's thoughts went haywire - her loving husband would never... would he?

"Don't, please. Ah. D-Dear, y-you're hurting my wrist," murmured Saya weakly, eyes flinching as the man's tight grip intensified. 

However, her desperate plea fell on deaf ears.

"Let go, let go, let go!" Saya demanded, yanking her arm back and forth in a last ditch effort to break free.

Yet it was to no avail.

Before long, Saya's life had fallen tragically apart; the home she had grown to love became nought but a distant memory, fleeting away along with the snow come spring. However, the cold of winter held no grip over her, no, it appeared to have been quite the other way around. 

Anchored in guilt, her husband set out to reconcile - yet his search ill harboured results, for within the great wilderness, no trace of Saya  to came to light.

The man had returned home and built a small shrine to honour his wife, whom he believed to be buried somewhere beneath layers upon layers of snowfall. 

Decades came to pass, and the horrid memory of their last moment together remained etched into the man's memory, the first snowflakes of the year fell.

On that night, trails of snow had crossed through the homestead; and his life was forfeit forever. Some speculated foul play, others believed the man a fool for keeping his door open in the midst of winter. Yet, some hold true to the rumour of spotting a pair of bright, glowing blue eyes roaming around in the dark.