Winter is Delight, Zabuza, Sir...

Winter is delight and I love you, Haku.

Haku's mother liked to say that.

Always in the same breath, a run-on sentence that danced on chill winds and made them tolerable. Broken sounds that mixed together and swirled like the storm outside, fighting to get into your clothes and nose and chest and there live forever. Chant made in this ritual manner kept the cold away; that's what Haku’s mother taught, going over the phrase again and again until the Haku could repeat it in sleep.

In Haku’s dreams, the syllables of the sounds rose and fell like the points of a star wrapped around into a circle, ever repeating. Ever endless.
   
WinterisdelightandIlove

Learning it like that, reciting it in such a way helped turn the season sunny no matter what the temperature struck.

    -------

    "Do you have an excuse for yourself, Haku?"

    "Winter... is delightful, Zabuza, sir."

    To which the older ninja grunts, ever practical. Haku continues.

    "And..."

    -------

Inspired by a fan fiction, “Winter is Delight” by Luc Court (archiveofourown.org/works/2520…). This fan fiction is one of my favorites. Thank you so much for the inspiration.

So it took me like about 3 hours at midnight to finish. My first attempt to create something like this. The way I drew the faces were kind of different from usual, so the result is not as expected but I'm okay with this. Pencil, drawing pens, and a copic marker.

Isn't Haku's smile the sweetest? I hope you like it as much as I do.