The little girl sat on the steps of her house in the cold of the Dweller Camp. The snow fell silently from the sky, as it did day and night throughout the year. It was especially cold at the this time of the night. But the girl did not shiver. She was born in the Dweller Camp, and had grown accustom to the weather, as any Dweller did. Her home was little more than a wagon without wheels, for the Dweller Camp was a poor place. She sat on the steps, unable to sleep.
She had awoken from a fevered sleep to find Mother slumbering, and Father gone. This didn't surprise the young girl. Father was an adventurer, a wanderer of sorts. It was unheard of for him to stay anywhere for a long period of time. She often awoke some mornings to find Father had left, and had only just arrived the previous day. He had stayed a descent amount of time with her on this occasion, and to see him gone was almost expected.
Sitting outside her home, the young girl watched her breath as it drifted ever upwards in white plumes. Though it had done this for as long as she could remember, it never ceased to fascinate her. She looked up at the sound of footsteps, the crunching of snow not unlike the volume of gunfire in the enveloping silence.
Father appeared farther up the path, his flame-red hair like a beacon against the whiteness of the landscape. He had provision strapped to his back; by the looks of it, he would be gone much longer than ever. Sadness hung in the girl's chest like she had felt never before. It weighed her down so she could not even stand and meet Father down the path. It was alright though, for he made his way up to the house and sat next to the girl with a grunt, his pack clanking mutedly as he did.
"Are you going to be gone for a long while, Father?" she asked quietly, already knowing the answer.
He sighed, his breath pluming as hers had done, and yet for the first time she found no interest in it. Suddenly, the peaceful night had become a time of great sorrow.
"I am, my winter jewel." He said, leaning over to kiss her snow-flecked, red-tinged brown curls.
"Can I come too?" she asked, looking up into his stormy grey eyes.
They reflected the sadness in the girl's own.
"No, my darling. Not this time. No, this time I will be gone far too long."
He stood, staring distractedly in the distance as he did every day before he would turn up gone.
"I never get to come adventuring with you..." she muttered, half to herself.
He leaned down and gave the girl a long embrace.
"When I come home, I promise I'll take you adventuring. Perhaps we'll go and see Bowerstone Lake; would you like that?"
Hidden behind Father's warm Dweller clothes, the girl smiled. "I would very much like that!"
He let her go, holding her at arms length. "Take care of you mother while I'm gone."
She nodded. "I will."
He nodded his goodbye and strode off down the path. He had almost been lost to sight when he turned.
"Remember where all my love lies?" he called.
The girl's face broke into a grin as she answer the question she had come to answer all her life.
She placed a hand over her heart. "It's all right here." she breathed quietly.
Father must of saw the gesture, because he waved and was lost around the bend in the path.
The girl felt tired once more, perhaps soothed in knowing where Father was. She curled up in her small bed. As sleep began to dull her scenes, the girl placed a hand over her heart once more.
That's where Father's love lies...