Sofila wasn’t very tall and she didn’t look very old, in fact he thought she looked far too young to be his bride. She stood out in the dim edges of the lights of the celebration, her breath streamlines of clouds on the air as she stared up at the stars. Even from a distance he could see how piercing blue her eyes were, as if they were carved ice from Lake Muka. Her skin was the colour of wet sand, not as dark as his but rich, the silver bracelets shimmering in the light that reached her. Her dress was of navy and silver, the colours of her clan. The embroidery spoke of a lot of gold coins, webs of snowflakes training down her sides from her shoulders. Though she was breathing, her stillness made him think he was staring at one of the carefully painted murals the tribes to the south designed, just her breath replaying in puffs. Her hair was a deep brown that looked black in the night, and rolled out from behind her in rolls of curls. It had all been bundled up in two long plaits when he had seen her at the beginning of the ceremony. It made her look smaller because it stretched down just past her knees, reaching for the tops of her leather boots. He thought that her expressions, though her face round, were mature, more than they needed to be. Her head shifted slightly and he held his breath as she tilted her face to see him with both eyes. He worried what she might say or do, thinking she must surely be afraid of the union, but rather than hurry away from him or appear sheepish, she smiled.

[This is a quick look at Sofila, one of the main characters in my work The Arrangement in the Snow]