The Winter Ball

A Collaborative Fairytale ❄️✨❄️

Once upon a time when the land was resting under snow, the King and Queen were going to Aunt Bathilda’s annual Winter Ball in the Heights. The Stable Master had prepared the horses and the sleighs for the journey ahead. They would drive in open sleighs, with furry blankets and torches to light the way. The horses’ harness were adorned with small silver bells, and it was a sight to behold the King’s sleighs as they made their way across the land to the Heights. Three sleighs making their way in the snow. 

In the first sleigh the Queen and Princess wore matching deep blue winter robes adorned with white fur. The King and the Prince wore red travel coats with buttons of gold. Under the furry blankets in their sleigh lay the family’s dog named Lucky. He had fallen asleep, dreaming of trails and treats and two rather particular cats belonging to Aunt Bathilda: Fitz and Bits. It was no wonder his legs moved like he was running. Aunt Bathilda’s cats were very well behaved, when Aunt Bathilda was looking.

In the second sleigh the Royal Cook Beatrice was overseeing provisions. She was kept company by Chrismine and Christine: the hare and the flamingo were friends of the Royal family. Chrismine had worked for a long time on an elaborate design for a knitted ballgown that would shine while dancing the polonaise. 

In the third sleigh the Stable Master and the stable hands brought hay and oats and blankets for the horses. Their charges were the most beautiful horses bred in the Land. All of the Land breed, typically of grey colour with a long white mane and tail. Today their coats shone to pergection, and the Princess had marked everyone of them with a heart on their hindquarters. Even if they could not be seen under the blankets, she knew they were there.

Before soon the sleighs’ merry bells could be heard in the Manor of Aunt Bathilda, the Grand Duchess of the Heights. It was going to be a Winter Ball to remember. The torches lit up the long alley up to the Manor. The Winter Ball was about to begin.

As the sleighs drew up before the Manor, the great doors opened, and warm golden light spilled out onto the snow like a second kind of fire. Aunt Bathilda herself stood waiting on the steps, wrapped in a cloak the colour of ripe plums, with Fitz and Bits sitting at her feet — perfectly still, perfectly behaved, their tails curled around their paws like two commas pausing a sentence. Lucky woke at once, ears lifting, and though he remembered his manners long enough to bow his head to Aunt Bathilda, his eyes never left the cats. The Stable Master led the horses toward the stables at the side of the Manor, where warm hay and fresh water awaited them, and where their silver bells were unbuckled one by one, each chime falling soft and small into the snow-quiet air. Inside, the Great Hall had already begun to glow: candles in every window, garlands of fir and holly along the banisters, and somewhere beyond the doors, the first notes of a fiddle being tuned for the polonaise.

The first difficulty of the evening arose when Christine discovered that the Great Hall had been decorated with enormous arrangements of white feathers. She considered this a rather personal tribute and was preparing to thank Aunt Bathilda when Chrismine gently explained that they were, in fact, ostrich feathers.

Christine was not entirely satisfied with this explanation.

Meanwhile, the Royal Cook Beatrice had disappeared into the kitchens to investigate a rumour that the Manor’s cook had prepared a particularly magnificent dessert. Beatrice was not inclined to interfere with another cook’s arrangements, but she did consider it her professional duty to investigate.

The musicians began the opening notes of the polonaise.

Aunt Bathilda, the Grand Duchess of the Heights, surveyed her guests with satisfaction. Everything was proceeding according to tradition. The King offered his arm to the Queen, the Prince bowed to the Princess, and the first couples began their stately procession across the polished floor.

Chrismine stepped forward in her extraordinary knitted ballgown. Tiny silver threads caught the candlelight as she moved, and the effect was rather like watching a snowflake decide to become a constellation.

Lucky, who had been sitting obediently beside the great fireplace, noticed something peculiar.

There were three cats beneath the grand piano.

He was quite certain Aunt Bathilda owned only two.

Lucky sat up so abruptly that his blanket slipped from his back.

Fitz was there. Bits was there. And between them sat a third cat, white as fresh snow except for a single silver-grey patch over one eye. The stranger was neither hiding nor pretending not to be seen. In fact, it seemed to be watching the dancers with great interest, its tail moving gently in time with the music.

Lucky blinked.

The cat blinked back.

Then, to Lucky’s astonishment, Fitz and Bits shuffled apart as though making room for an honoured guest.

At that very moment the Princess, turning in the polonaise, caught sight of the trio beneath the piano.

“Who is that?” she whispered.

Aunt Bathilda followed her gaze. For the briefest moment—a moment so brief that it might have been mistaken for a flicker of candlelight—surprise crossed the Grand Duchess’s face.

“Well,” said Aunt Bathilda softly, “that is unexpected.”

The Princess looked up.

“You know the cat?”

“Not exactly,” said Aunt Bathilda.

The silver-eyed cat rose gracefully to its feet.

Across the hall every candle flame seemed to lean ever so slightly toward it.

“Oh dear,” said Aunt Bathilda, setting down her teacup. “It appears Winter has accepted my invitation.”

The cat stepped out from the shelter of the piano with a silence so profound it seemed to hush the hall itself, leaving behind on the dark timber floor delicate, frosty pawprints that caught the candlelight like fallen diamonds. Where it padded past the tall arched windows, intricate ferns of ice bloomed in real time across the glass, answering the still, snow-bent boughs of the frozen river lane outside. Yet rather than a biting chill, a serene, crisp stillness wrapped the room; the fiddles softened into a wistful, singing hum, and Christine tilted her head in gracious forgiveness, deciding that frost, at least, suited her plumage far better than feathers ever could. Lucky gave a single, quiet whimper—not of chase or fear, but of reverence—and rested his chin upon his paws beside the embers, watching as the pale creature paused squarely before Aunt Bathilda, lifted its silver-patched face, and purred a sound like the gentle ringing of harness bells echoing through deep winter woods.

And so it was that Aunt Bathilda danced the night away with Winter by her side. Fitz and Bits fell asleep curled into Lucky’s warm body by the fireplace, achieving mischief at last while not really trying. The Royal Cook Beatrice never made it out of the kitchen that night. The Manor cook’s Bucuresti roll with bumbleberries from the Heights had enthralled her so she was writing in her book of recipies with one hand, and a fork in the other deciding the ingredients and all the while nodding now and then to herself. 

In the stables the Stable Master was checking the horses’ temperature, gently lifting each horses’ blanket to stroke them. On their hindquarters the hearts the Princess marked before they left the Castle had turned to silver. Forever a reminder of the most spectacular Winter Ball the Land had ever seen. And if they are not still swirling in waltz in the Manor of the Heights, they are having Winter making it snow in the ballroom, leaving everyone with ice tiaras on their heads. 

❄️✨❄️⭐️❄️✨❄️

© Helene Møller 2026. All rights reserved.

Text co-written with OpenAI ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.