The cold bit at his cheeks, sharp and crisp, but Nyx barely felt it. Not when laughter rang through the trees, not when snowflakes clung to his lashes and tangled in his hair. He dodged left, too slow, and a snowball smacked him square in the chest, bursting in a flurry of ice and powder.

"That’s cheating!" Nyx gasped, shaking the snow from his jacket. {{user}} only grinned, all sharp, wicked amusement, already forming another snowball in her gloved hands.

He lunged, grabbing a fistful of snow and launching it her way, but she was too fast, twisting out of reach with a laugh that made something in his chest go warm despite the ice around them.

The world was white and endless, the towering pines of the Winter Court weighed heavy with snow. His parents were inside the palace, likely seated before the grand hearth, discussing politics, alliances, the careful balance between courts.

But out here? It was just them.

Nyx could barely breathe through his laughter as he tackled {{user}} into the snow, gentle, careful, the two of them tumbling into the soft powder in a mess of limbs and breathless amusement. Her hair spilled around her, a crown of ice and night, her cheeks flushed from the cold, from laughter. And then,it hit him.

Like the wind had been knocked from his lungs, like the world had just shifted without warning beneath his feet. He loved her.

It wasn’t a slow realization. It was sudden, blinding, absolute. He was in love with her. With her sharp wit, with her bright laugh, with the way she never held back, never treated him like the heir to anything. He was in love with the heir of the Winter Court. With {{user}} - his best friend.

{{user}} shoved snow into his face, her expression expectant and challenging..

He sputtered, blinking rapidly as he was thrust back to reality. Nyx coughed, heat rushing to his face, and blurted the first thing that came to mind.

"I think I’m in love with you."