The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius

Irina lowered her hand with the cup of steaming tea and looked through the window pane thickly covered with ice flowers, while the old enamel pot of beet soup simmered on the worn gas stove in front of her. The thin woman with the kind features squinted her eyes in the faint hope of seeing something outside in the twilight. But in vain. Nothing seemed to move on the vast, flat land that lay still under its thick, white blanket of snow. There was nothing to hear but the gentle wind that caressed the branches and tops of the scattered trees. Nothing to soothe her heart. It was this kind of silence and solitude that people so often feared out here on the outskirts of the Northern Cities. It was the time between times, when the winter sun disappeared, leaving the plains to the unknown. Away from the lights of the metropolises and the comforts of civilization, in a place like this, one was still aware of what the night could really mean.

"Where are you, my boy? Where are you...?" she whispered softly in her ancient sounding Russian dialect, her voice full of concern for the last person in the world who really meant something to her. Her nephew was already two days overdue. What would she do if something happened to him? What would she do if he didn't return? Normally, he always kept to the appointed times when he went hunting. No one around here could afford long range radios, an old yellowed dial phone was the only means of communication in this poor house, and if you were lucky it sometimes worked....

"Please almighty God, you have taken so much from me already, don't take my dear boy too..." she whispered again and swallowed. Her thoughts began to spin in ever-widening circles as her worries grew. There had been many misfortunes in the past years that had made her family smaller and smaller. She would never forget the day 20 years ago, when all their fates had begun to take a strange and tragic turn. The day when Sergey, her dear little boy, the younger of her sister's two sons, had run away at the age of five. It had been winter, like now. He had disappeared suddenly, and the few traces they could find showed that he had probably gone to play in the nearby forest. Or maybe he had just run after an animal. They had run, searched the whole area for days, screaming his name until their voices failed them and they couldn't find him. The winters out here were so impossibly cold at night that their hope of ever seeing him alive again quickly faded, giving way to a searing despair filled with self-blame. Her sister and husband were devastated, as was she, of course, who was unable to help in the search as she had to take care of Artyom, the older of the two brothers, while the parents left no stone unturned in their search for their youngest son.

After more than a week, a miracle happened that no one could have expected. In the middle of the night, while they were still awake, staring wordlessly into the fire of the wood stove, unable to speak in their grief, it had happened. There had been a knock at the door, three times, slow and firm. The sound had startled them and made them jump, for who would have expected someone to suddenly demand entry on a freezing winter's night out here? Her brother-in-law had stood and taken the axe before carefully opening the door. Under the circumstances, he felt more comfortable with a weapon in his hand, his familiar axe that had served him so well in the past. However, he had not been prepared for the sight that met his eyes. About ten people were standing in front of his house. At first glance, they looked like humans, but they were all much smaller and more delicate in stature. Their clothes looked strange, finely crafted from thin white fabrics that seemed to keep them perfectly warm out here. Some of them, men and women with noble features and unusually fair skin, held long walking sticks with fist-sized pearls forged into the ends, giving off a deep blue shimmering light. Their eyes were slightly larger than a human's, and some of them had eyes that shone with a faint orange light, while others had blue eyes. In the middle of this group stood his little son, wrapped in a white blanket. When little Sergey saw his father, he immediately ran to him. The father dropped the axe, ran to his son, picked him up and hugged him.

"Papa, Papa, the forest spirits have brought me back, the little one squealed happily. "I was lost and they found me and gave me food and water. I'm so sorry, please don't be angry. I'll never run away again," said little Sergey, barely able to catch his breath as his father hugged him so tightly, tears of joy streaming down his face as he thanked God for this miracle. The joy of the boy's return overcame any fear a human might have when confronted with beings whose existence he had never expected.

"'Sergey! Sergey!" he cried, not knowing what to do with his happiness, as Irina and her sister came running out of the house, hugging the boy and showering him with kisses. The strangers just watched and smiled in silence.

"How can we ever thank you? How can we ever repay you?" asked Irina at last. "Please come in and warm yourself by our fire. Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?" Some of the people looked at each other questioningly and began to speak to each other in short sentences in a language the family had never heard before. Words that sounded like parts of a soothing song with many ups and downs, sounds from an unknown world. Finally, one of the men raised his hand to Irina in farewell, smiled, and shook his head gently. Then they all turned slowly and walked back into the darkness, towards the forest. Silently they disappeared, the night wind and falling snow covering their tracks. It was not long before the lights of their walking sticks were no longer visible.

"See you again, dear forest spirits," Sergey called after them, waving. But they did not see each other again, and if they had not all been together at this strange meeting, they would have doubted their sanity. The next day, except for Sergey, they had only two things to prove this unreal meeting. One of them was the thin white blanket made of the strange material in which the boy had survived the cold. The other, which they had noticed only later, was that their son now had a tattoo on his left shoulder about the size of two fingers. This image looked like writing, the characters of which they could not read or interpret. Sergey himself kept confirming and insisting that these spirits, as he called them, had found him in the forest when he got lost playing and could not find his way back. They had not understood him at first, but they had listened attentively, and after a few days of wandering through the wilderness together, they seemed to have grasped the meaning of his words. He kept trying to explain to them what his family's house looked like, and when they finally realized what he was trying to tell them, they brought him right back. Sergey also reported that they painted the writing on his shoulder with a thick liquid paint instead of tattooing it. It did not hurt him, but the paint stayed on his skin. He did not know what the writing meant. The woman who painted him had hummed a beautiful tune while doing it and had been very kind to him, as had everyone else in the group.

And so the weeks, months, and years passed, and Artyom and Sergey grew into teenagers, when disaster struck the family. Irina's sister and brother-in-law were driving together to Neo Yakutsk for a big shopping trip when the brakes on their old pickup truck failed just outside of town. The truck crashed through the poorly constructed fence of a serpentine road in the mountainous terrain and overturned several times as it hurtled down the slope. The couple did not survive the accident, and Irina continued to raise the two boys on her own. Of course, the brothers were not unaffected by this tragedy, but they reacted to it in very different ways. While Sergey became withdrawn, taciturn, and repeatedly fell into severe depression, Artyom became aggressive and downright choleric. The few children at the distant school suffered so much from him that he was eventually expelled. Irina did not know how to help herself and was completely overwhelmed by him. She was all the more grateful when an acquaintance at the weekly market advised her to send Artyom to the military. She hoped that this would give her nephew a foothold in life. Perhaps he would learn to control his anger and grow into a good man with discipline and rigor. Perhaps life in the troops could give him what his aunt, with her soft nature, was obviously incapable of.

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After Artyom was drafted to the barracks in Neo Yakutsk, Irina and Sergey heard nothing from him for a long time. After six months of basic training, the first letter arrived, written in short words. Another after a year. Then the news that his company had to leave to quell an uprising further east, then another. Meanwhile, the political situation in the periphery was becoming increasingly unstable, as people in many places rebelled against the harsh regime and the high tax burden. There were news reports that the government was "setting an example" by being particularly ruthless against the people in these uprisings. Artyom had been decorated for his service in the field and was rapidly rising in the military hierarchy. Irina and Sergey increasingly sensed what this must mean. One day, when Sergey visited his brother at the base and listened to Artyom's stories, he finally knew. His brother had become a ruthless killer on the battlefield, allowing himself to be used by the government as a tool to suppress the freedom of innocent civilians. Sergey had tried to talk some sense into Artyom, but of course he would not listen to his younger brother. He was convinced of his cause and enjoyed the recognition in the form of promotions, medals and money he had received for his atrocious deeds. He just sent Sergey away laughing, and Sergey returned to his aunt and told her how much Artyom had changed. More time passed, and three weeks ago a letter arrived from the military saying that Artyom had been killed in action during a military operation off the coast of Tennogawa. The official letter, written like a cross between a memo and a propaganda leaflet, spoke of a heroic death. No explanation, however, was given as to what the Northern Cities troops were doing on the coast of Japan's northern island in the first place, or why they were there. While Irina cried and took a few days to recover from the shock, Sergey became defiant.

"Don't you feel it too, Auntie?" he had said. "Don't you feel it? Artyom is not dead. It's not like with my parents, when I felt they were dead even before I saw the burned car. This time it's different, my brother is alive, I'm sure of it."

"I know you loved him despite everything he did. But what's done is done. You can't go against the truth, it will only eat you up inside," Irina had answered him, but he continued to insist on what his innermost self was telling him. They even argued about it repeatedly, because as much as she understood her nephew in his grief, she didn't want him to get caught up in this obsession. And now... now he was out there in the deep, cold night. Again, just like that time. Irina lowered her eyes to her cup and sighed deeply with all the pain that gripped her heart.

The walk through the knee-high thawing snow had been long and arduous. In the twilight, the familiar light of their old log cabin, his childhood home, appeared on the horizon. Not much longer and he would have reached his destination. A cold wind blew toward him, his waist-length, pitch-black hair clinging to his face, thin and wet with sweat. Absentmindedly, he grabbed a handful of the slushy white mass and put it in his mouth, letting it slowly melt and quench his thirst. Then he adjusted his heavy backpack, the straps of which cut painfully into his shoulders. It carried his bow and quiver and the two hares he had killed. The snow was still too high for him to tie his prey to his belt, as he normally would have done. He marched on, step by step, through the darkness, now pierced by the rising howls of the wolves, who must have picked up his scent some distance away. Impassive and unimpressed, he trudged forward, oblivious to the potential danger that seemed to be approaching from behind. It was no surprise that the scent of hares attracted such roving packs. At this time of year, the predators found little to eat out here in the wilderness, and the enticing scent made them forget their natural repulsion of human scent. The howling came closer and he sighed. Why couldn't they just leave him alone? Was this complete exhaustion really necessary, so close to the finish? He had no desire to fight or sacrifice one of the two hares to gain time. His hands, protected by thick mittens, gripped the straps of his backpack tightly and he quickened his pace to an easy run. It was the fastest possible in this deep snow and considering the distance he had already covered. After only a few minutes, sweat poured into his eyes, which were narrowed to thin slits, and his throat burned from the cold air he was quickly sucking in through his open mouth.

"Why can't it go smoothly just once, damn it..." he muttered to himself as the howling sounded again behind him. At least the gap to his pursuers didn't seem to close any more. It was not far to the hut, he was almost there. Those beasts wouldn't follow him to the front door, would they? Even as he thought that, he felt a sharp pain in his right foot and fell forward, landing on his knees and hands and sinking into the snow. Damn it, what had happened? Had he gotten stuck on a root or a larger boulder? He didn't know. He was breathing hard and loud, his heart was racing. He would have preferred to lie down in the soft snow, fall asleep right there. Then he looked up, saw the flickering light of the windows of his house through the puffs of his expelled breath. Not far now. Get up! As he scrambled to his feet, he heard a howl and a growl behind him, ominously close.

"Screw you all," he hissed and stomped off again, gritting his teeth to mask the pain of the overstretched tendons in his foot and accelerating again. His vision flickered. Was it his circulation or the pain? What would happen if he fainted now? He was running now, he didn't know how. Running through the snow, not daring to look back as he ran. The door of the house in front of him opened and a figure rushed out through the light. It was his aunt, coming out of the house with his father's rusty rifle. She must have seen him and the wolves chasing him. As he approached her step by step, she raised the rifle and fired, the sound breaking the silence of the night like thunder. The wolves recoiled, turned and fled. Then she ran towards him, catching him as he stumbled with his last strength into her warm arms.

"Sergey, my little Sergey," she sobbed as she held the young man, who towered over her by a head and a half. He huffed and puffed and then smiled.

"I brought hares, Auntie. They'll make a nice soup for the next few days," he said finally. "It will be our farewell dinner." Irina jumped at his words.

"You...?" she started.

"Yes," he interrupted her immediately. "I was thinking while I was hunting. I have to do it to get certainty, I'm going to town. In the barracks I'll hopefully find out what really happened to Artyom."

"They won't let you in," Irina shook her head and supported her grandson, walking slowly towards the house with him. "You'll only put yourself in danger. Again. And for nothing. For now, come inside, warm up and rest. Tomorrow we'll see." Sergey smiled again. His decision was final. When he regained his strength, he would go to the city. And he would find what he was looking for, he was sure of it. Be it in the barracks or on the streets of the metropolis. He would finally learn the truth and find his brother. It would finally bring him peace.