Her hair was like burnished gold, her eyes like blue icicles, as she lay in the snow, bundled up in layers of winter clothes.  Alexa stared up at the cold winter sky, waiting for the fall of night.  For when night came, she would finally meet her again.  All Alexa knew about her was that she was the beautiful girl she had ever seen.
 Alexa had met her last winter, walking home one night from her beat friend's house three streets over from her own.  The girl was quiet, but Alexa was drawn to her nonetheless.  She first saw the girl walking in her direction.  She was wearing a long black coat and tall black boots.  Her long white-blond hair was unbound and flowing the chilly night air.  She had stopped in front of Alexa, and said only three words, staring at her with large crystal-clear green eyes, "We meet again."
 Alexa had been confused and scared for a moment, but the girl quickly smiled and took Alexa's mittened hand in her own black gloved hand.  "I have waited for you for a very long time, my dear Alexa.  Come, we must speak." the girl said quietly, guiding her towards a small house.  Inside, the girl shed her coat to reveal a slender figure clad in a pair of black pants and a midnight blue sweater.  The dark clothes made her skin and hair even paler in comparison.  She was breathtaking.
 But the night went quickly as the two girls spoke in the small room.  The girl never even told Alexa her name.  As the day grew nearer, all she said was, "I shall see you the same time next year.  Maybe you shall remember me by then."
 But even as the year went by, Alexa could not recall who the beautiful girl was.  She told no one of this encounter.  So now, as the night approached, Alexa waited in the snow in front of the empty house that she had sat in a year before, with the fairest girl she had ever known.
 "Alexa..." a faint voice called.  she sat up, hearing the voice of the one she had missed for such a long year.  "Come inside..."
 So she did just that.  She walked inside and took her outer clothes off.  As she walked into the main room, she smiled broadly.  It was her.
 "Oh, how I have missed you, my dearest Alexa.  Did you finally remember me?" she asked the happy girl.
 "I am afraid my mind is blank, my friend.  But I missed you too.  And I want to know if you will just tell me who you are." Alexa asked.
 "Since you seem so eager to know and do not seem to remember, I shall tell you." the girl said, motioning for Alexa to sit down in the chair across from her.
 "A long time ago, in a land called Lylandre, you and I were lovers.  I was the princess of the land, under my father and mother, King Islander and Queen Kujara.  You were the Lady Histara, and we were deeply in love.  My father was very disapproving of our relationship and when I was of marriageable age (21 years old at the time), he had you banished and I was set to marry the disgusting prince Geurkal of the neighboring country Jyrsta.  But you, being trained as a warrior (for in our country, the women were the warriors), came back and rescued me from my father's castle the day before the wedding.  Unfortunately, my father found out and came after us with his army.  They scoured the countryside for us, until one fateful night in the dead of winter, they found us laying together in a small shack in the middle of a heavily wooded area.  Because you had "kidnapped" me, you were sentenced to death.  I begged my father to let you go and that if he did, I would go peacefully and marry Geurkal and never see you again, but he was adamant.  So, on January 8th, that following day, he had you burned at the stake as a witch.  But before they took you out of the jail they had you in, you gave me this necklace," she held out a beautiful silver necklace with two interlaced hearts on the chain.
 She continued, "You said that we would see each other again soon after you gave it to me.  So I resigned myself to marrying Prince Geurkal and I bore him a daughter I named Kitra.  Since I felt that I had done my duty in life, I wrote him a note to give Kitra the necklace when she was 18, and then hung myself in my bedroom.  Now, I was reborn 19 years ago, as Kitra Landers, and my mother gave me this necklace for my eighteenth birthday.  She told me that it was an heirloom in our family.  She told me the story of the tragic lovers, an the memories of my past life came flooding back to me.  So I have been searching for you since then.  Of course, I could only be here for short periods of time and only in the winter because that was when I could come."
 Alexa was astonished. "So, you are saying we are destined?"
 Kitra nodded.  She then placed the silver necklace in Alexa's hands.  Alexa suddenly felt a tug and all her past memories came back.  She began to cry.  She had loved her princess so much!
 "Do you remember now, my dear?" Kitra asked.
 "Oh, my princess, of course!" Alexa cried, then threw herself into the arms of Kitra.  The two girls stared into each other's eyes, the eyes they had waited to see again for the many centuries they had been apart.  They then kissed, and they knew they would never be alone again.