What sounds like boots against a marble flooring sounds around, though it's always some clear blue structure that I find myself in.

I only ever catch glimpses of the man with curly brown hair, and skin so pale he might as well blend in with the snow that I know surrounds the castle like structure because of the way he consistently walks out onto a balcony of ice each time I see him. Each time, he turns his face, just enough for me to make out his profile, just enough for me to catch sight of icy blue eyes.

The emotion behind those eyes has changed since the first time I saw it. He seemed confused before. Scared, maybe. But it's evolved since then. Slowly turning more and more resentful towards my gaze, and I don't know why.

And then I wake up. The room is always so much colder than usual when I have those dreams; the heater somehow turning off as I sleep. It's one of the only two dreams I have, neither of which I have often, though this one always comes first.

A different kind of cold fills my bones, a cold that has me jolting and ripping the covers off of my body, a move I would usually count as a mistake, seeming as though my room feels twenty degrees colder than when I went to sleep.

I can hear the faint sound of the living room radio growing louder as I race towards it, coming to a halt in the living room doorway to find the weather already being announced.

No, no, no, no, no.

'...-emergency. I repeat: the following villages are currently at high risk of a level of a Destructive Hail Storm Warning...'

Village after village is listed, and a breath I didn't know I was holding in is shakily exhaled while I fall to my knees as mine is called, and more after.

'Destructive grade Hail Storms generate balls of ice two inches in diameter or larger. Please evacuate the area immediatel-'

The monotone voice doesn't get a chance to continue its droning, as I find myself clutching onto the remote for dear life, turning off the television entirely.

"This happens every time," I whisper, not quite sure who I'm speaking to as I realize I've started shivering; whether it's from the large amount of cold or it's from the terror, I do not know.

In a matter of hours, that hail storm will be here. It will destroy everything in this village, but my house will be left untouched. That is, unless I try and hide people in here. Then, it's like the hail passes over every other house in the area and everything that was supposed to go to them comes to me.

It's the Ice Prince.

Once upon a time, I thought it was a fitting name for whatever omen of death and destruction that is the boy I've kept seeing in my dreams who reminded me of a tragic fairy tale I once heard. Now, the title simply sounds too boyish and innocent.

For four years I've dealt with the dreams of the Ice Prince. The fires of my house always burning out much too quick, with snow storms following me wherever I go, places that before, hadn't seen snow for over a century.

Of course, after the snow storms, I moved out, began to live on my own. And that's when the hail started.

Tears roll down my face as I lean my head back against the cool grayish-blue wall of the living room, pale skinned hands coming to wipe the tears and the dark brown hair from my face.

There were never storms before the Prince began glaring at me. But ever since then, it's like he was the one sending these storms, the icy gaze he casts command enough for the North to obey his wish to find and punish me for something. What, I have no clue.

"I don't know why you're doing this," I say, with barely any voice in it at all.

I've taken to thinking he's watching me, kind of like a stalker. How else is he supposed to know where I'm living? How else is he supposed to know each time I try and help someone else, just so he can thwart my plans and make the community hate me?

I spend the next few hours preparing. The coastal area I now live in usually has only ever had to deal with tropical storms, so they've made it a point to have every house proofed with easy installments to cover the windows, prevent flooding, things of that nature. The former should help at least a little with the giant balls of ice.

I spend the next few hours preparing, and after dusk is gone, I listen to the sound of destruction outside as night falls. Most people in their right mind have probably left their houses in favor of one that isn't in direct line of fire for the hail.

When I go to sleep tonight, I dream the only other dream I have, one that always succeeds that of the Ice Prince.

I sit in my father's lap, and he's holding a book out in front of us, letting me read and helping me with some of the words that I don't quite understand yet.

'The tale of the Prince and the Moon.'

The story is about a young prince who was prophesied to be born somewhere in the North, away from all other people. He was lonely. He didn't know how to make friends, and, as far as he was concerned, his parents had abandoned him in the castle when he was a baby, with only the maids to take care of him.

He got so lonely he began speaking to the moon at night. Sometimes he spoke to her like he thought someone would a friend, other times, he'd ask her to give him a way out of the castle. He loved the maids who raised him, but he just couldn't stand to live the rest of his life the way they told him he would. Cold, alone, ruling over a land he wasn't even sure existed anymore.

The moon took pity on the boy. She made a deal with him. The boy would not die before he had a chance to experience something truly magical, something others would envy and speak of for years to come.

The boy was delighted. But in return, the boy was never allowed to leave the castle. He hadn't been before anyway, so he thought it was fine.

Soon enough; however, it became a problem, as the maids who raised him slowly began dying off while he still remained the same. The maids, who'd kept him from leaving the castle before, were gone. When he tried to exit the doors, it was said the moon had placed her guards outside, throwing the boy back in.

So now, he sits and waits, wondering what the moon could possibly have in store for him.

And that is how the story ends. The prince never gets his happy ending, he doesn't even get a sad ending, which I thought was a more tragic ending than anything else. It's an unfinished story, which always made me angry. How could the author just.. not? Not finish? Did he not care about the life he created when he gave the boy a soul, and emotions, a motive to make a deal with the moon herself?

I stir. Sleep having thrown me out of its tavern just as soon as it's given me the message in dream form that it wants me to have.

"Ask the moon, Bella," my father always used to tell me. "When the storm comes, hold your compass out to the moon. She'll tell you where to go."

Those were the words my father always told me after he finished reading me that story, back before I even knew what a compass was.

A few years ago, I never thought about it. But now, it's all I can think about on cold nights. I don't want to ask the moon anything. If that was the story she gave the prince from the story, someone royal, she couldn't imagine the deal she would give to a peasant. Something far worse, if the moon played favorites, which everyone did.

But she had to wonder... what would happen?