Snow Tinks and Dragons

Had two days of ice this past week.  I'm sure anyone reading was aware of the Kansas+-sized winter storm that swept across the US last week.  My part of Arkansas got hit pretty hard as far as the state's usual winter weather goes.  Sleet the first day.  Snow the second.  I actually got snowed in at a friend's apartment on the second night.  It didn't occur to me until tonight that it was anything other than ordinary.  Tonight I saw the Snow Tinks.

It was foggy this evening as slightly-above-freezing temperatures caused the snow and ice to melt and the humidity was so high that it became visible in the night air.  As I've said before, strange things come out of the mists.  And tonight was no exception.  I was walking the path around the outside of my dorm (looking for some headphones I had dropped), when it came out.  It was large, in the European style of dragons, and looked to be made of paper and books.  Not really surprising, it being a Sunday evening with so much unfinished homework about.

Like most dragons, it quickly zeroed in on me.  And I, foolishly not having considered the fog, was unarmed.  Fortunately for me, that was when the Snow Tinks arrived.  All at once these little snow- white imps seemed to appear from all around and latch on to the dragon.  The air tinkled with a sweet childish laughter.  Within moments, the dragon was an ice sculpture of itself and the little creatures hopped off and went about their business, which now that I noticed them could see that it was a huge snowball fight.  One of those snowballs went for me and I took it as an invitation to join in.  I can't say that I won, but I haven't had quite so much fun in the snow in quite some time.

Now as to the Snow Tinks themselves.  They're somewhat of a rare breed.  Almost unheard of in North America.  They're actually the strange crossbreed of a gnome and pixie (something about a "free love" movement in the 1700's from what I've heard) and they tend to bring snow and other wintry weather wherever they go.  The name Snow Tink is actually a more recent development derived from their striking similarities to a snow white variation of J.M. Barrie's Tinkerbelle.  The species' numbers have grown significantly since the race was born, but they mostly stay in Europe.  One has to wonder what they're doing all the way over here across the pond.

But I'm not about to look a gift mouth in the horse.