Her Secret Strength

She would never forget this Moon. It was the final full moon of the year. “The Cold Full Moon” as she is commonly known in the old folklore. She is known too as "The Long Dark Moon". Also an apt name since the day and it's darkness extends with this Full Moon's arrival. And though it possessed these chilling names- she always associated this special night with fond memories. But this one- as brilliant as ever was the saddest Cold Moon she'd seen.

She took in the smells of her special Egg Nog and secret night cap amidst the friendly freeze of her old familiar arctic realm. The ice gleamed with the Cold light. It was ‘eery’ this time of year she thought to her self, absently. For a moment she had forgotten the simple reassurance which a warm glass of Nog and a chunky-hooded coat from a bear can bring. This bear- I might add- whose clan always came to breathe their first breath of eternal sleep upon hers and her husband's snowy doorstep.

We always made them toys. Whatever they wanted, Nicholas brought it to them. Nicholas always loved her eggnog. She remembers meeting the strange man with his red cheeks who couldn't stop looking at her. Her children had all grown up- some had left the tribe. Two had joined the warm world.

And here was this magnanimous man bringing her of all things- a strange drink he called Egg Nog. For some reason she took to it. Perhaps it was his room-shaking laugh or that twinkly smile which shone to her like a sun through the snow. And he swept her up in his giant sleigh and they kept one another warm in the coldest place in the world.

And he always enjoyed how she would 'improve' upon his Eggnog recipe. One year adding rosemary or lavender and another stirring in coffee.

He called her his 'little Nogologist'.

She always mused at the irony that this silver-icy moon glowed forth during a time of warmth and cheer. She loved hat contrast over the years and decades. But she noticed a strain to that harmony in recent years. There were strange goings-on indeed amidst the realm of the warm.

And tonight she found her dear Nicholas all'a blubber, his head in those huge hands of his, saying through tears-- what is the joy of a toy whence compared to not being able to see ones mother or father?

So many... so many missing children. And the Nogologist was ready with assuring whispers and strokes of his silky beard. And when he had exhausted himself, she made them some 'Nog. And she stepped outside to this Coldest of Moons clad in loving Bearskins and the comforting steam wafting off her Cup'o'Nog. 

The people of the warm world- they seemed especially cold hearted this year. And she sipped her fragrant pistachio'd Egg Nog. And where there was no one else around to calm her, the waft of pistachios and nutmeg arose to do so...