The swan-birthed smoke curls silently across the star-vaulted heavens. The sounds of lamentation from the ship-haven are a weak susseration floating over the cold waters of the bay, to wash against the icy shore.
Here, the thick bluelit ice shifts and groans to itself, as though it cries out in protest at the shocked tread, proud tread, angry tread, sorrowing tread of soft-clad feet and high-stepping reluctant horses. Rivers and streams of legs flicker past, richly dressed. The edges of cloaks, the tips of sword sheaths and the interlaced bottoms of straining baskets pass over the head of the tiny newborn, blinking in her makeshift bower - a white cloak on the snow.
The feet press the virgin snows, churning them grey, despoiled by the wordless multitude as they walk into exile. The banners are held high aloft in defiance, yet the breezes refuse to unfurl them. Nature turns its face away from the guiltly. They in their turn, turn their back on home and kin and virtue. Proud and oathsworn, there are no more words. Yet in some eyes the grief is manifest, folly and regret battle with stubbon anger.
The child's father gathers her up into his own, innocent hands, cupping them about her perfect naked form, a warm cradle. He holds her up to his chest and turns her to face the utmost West. The un-named child is silent, blinking her silver lashes in the flurries of snow stirred up by the passing feet. Over the multitude, through the banners, she stares at the glittering summit of the highest mountain. The pinacle of the world. Pure, snow-white, ablaze in glory.
Around them the river of the host parts, as water about a stone. The child's mother, wan and as swan-pale as her hour-old daughter, rises to her feet. She must arise, even now, when any other mother would wish to rest and to celebrate her joy in her first child. But the river tugs and insists she move on - will sweep her in its current over the grinding, bitter ice. Here, then, caught between bliss and exile, in the snow-light of the peak of the world, her father begins to sing. One sound in the silence. For it is said, is it not ... that a swan sings only once in its life, as it dies? ... its Swan-Song. His song bestowes her name - in honour of her mother, in sorrowing memory of the ships, for the purity of what is now passing away, in faith that something may yet remain. Alqualosse - the snow-white swan.
