Blessings

CW: Emotional manipulation
 
It is a blessing, say the whispers of the family, to have a home at all.
 
Muse pulls their coat more tightly around their body. The slush crunches beneath their feet as they trudge down the pavement. The sky is slate-grey, and the wind bites at the seams between their joints, and for the first time in what feels like a very long time, Muse acknowledges they are beginning to shiver.
 
Has the wind always been this cold? Surely it hasn’t. After all, Muse has lived through any number of winters. They have slept through snowstorms, curled up in thickets that bowed and groaned with the weight of the white powder crushing them. They have walked across snow-covered fields that felt half as chilly as the ground beneath their feet now. They have watched snow gather on their shoulders, shaken icicles free of their antlers, wiped feathers of frost from their own arms and hands. They have seen small creatures dig dens, seen larger ones find caves to shelter in, have copied both when needed. And never once, they are sure, have they felt this cold.
 
"Absolutely not." The voice is a woman's, steady, cool, but not unkind. Muse remembers black hair and black eyes with a glint that could make wolves cower. "It's for your own good."
 
The bread inside the basket on their arm has also gone cold. It will need to be re-warmed for a while in the oven. The smell of baking bread is the same, at least. So is the heat radiating from the oven. Yet they are also different, felt and smelled from inside the kitchen instead of through windows and heavy brick walls.
 
"They say you lose your ability to withstand the cold if you spend too long indoors." A man's voice, this time. Muse recalls brown hair and eyes so pale a blue the sky would be envious. "Who will be able take care of the land then?"
 
Muse feels another shiver coming. They force their shoulders to remain still. If they keep their head down, if they focus on the icy daggers stabbing up each ankle as they walk, maybe they can stave it off. Their feet had been numb, once. How had they let this happen?
 
"We don't have the same gifts you do." Another woman. Younger. She is the one who answers the servant's door now, now that Father and Mother are Grandfather and Grandmother. This new Mother has hair the color of dry grass in autumn, eyes as grey as a winter sky. "You're stronger than we are. And you love your home, don't you?"
 
The path is familiar enough now that Muse's feet find it automatically. A sharp turn past the temple of Rhodena, toward the trees that rise like a bulwark to block the wind. Down the cobbled road. Off into the snow as they approach the Meadows, towards the conservatory. Their steps slow, bit by bit, until finally they stop within arm's reach of the door.
 
"You care so deeply about this house." Child, who is now Parent, with Grandmother's black hair and Grandfather's cold, clear eyes. New Mother stands away from the door, holding Small Son in her arms, with Big Son clinging to her skirts. Both are crying. "I know you want to take care of it, and us. But you have to understand what you're doing to this family, and to yourself."
 
…Muse is shivering again.
 
They shake themselves hard and set the basket down outside the conservatory door. Off comes the shimmering cloak Nita so kindly gifted them. Off comes the coat Aeos helped them pick out. Off comes the star Sephira’s acolytes gave them during the midwinter festivals, the star they still keep tied around one antler. All of these items find themselves bundled up and shoved into the basket. Then they break into a long, ground-eating lope. Their stride carries them along the side of the Meadows, their posture sinking lower and lower. By the time they hit the line of trees, they are running on all fours.
 
Maybe they will be back in the evening. Maybe they will not be back until tomorrow morning. Even they aren't sure yet. But their family is right. If they cannot even withstand the cold, they cannot withstand anything else that might threaten their home. They will have to work harder, build up their strength all over again. And why did they need to enter the house? Why had they wanted to? Why had they ever let themselves in, when it was clear how much doing so had made things change?
 
You must not come inside this house, the family's voices whisper down through the years, until the overlapping echo of them is all Muse can hear. It is blessing enough that you have a home at all.