The rear door of the barn opened with a creak. Tika screwed up her eyes as the brilliant white of the landscape flooded in. A fur-mittened hand smacked her sharply on her bare buttocks, and instinctively she stumbled forward into the chill glare.

Still squinting, Tika shivered miserably as she heard the barn door barred behind her, sealing her in the little field at the back of the small, family-run farm. Tossing her fine, dark hair out of her face with a jerk of her head, Tika sighed, and a wispy cloud of breath spiralled up into the crisp, clear sky.

Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the light. The little farm whose owners Tika now belonged to lay near the top of a hill, one of several above a nearby village, and faced the settlement. From here at the back of the farm, the view was of rolling hills, evergreen copses, and a winding stream threading its way down the hillside towards the river miles away. The undisturbed snow lay in a thick blanket across the northern countryside as far as she could see, right the way to the coniferous forest in the distance where it frosted the treetops with an serene, lazy glaze. Aside from the occasional voice from the farm behind her, the only sounds were the distant echoes of bird calls, and the lonely babbling of the stream as it tumbled towards the forest.

The view was beautiful; used to the warm, rain-drenched climes of her homeland, Tika had no concept of snow before she arrived in Helmgard, and she had been stunned by the magical stuff. But she had been naïve - ignorant of how highly prized the people of the female warrior tribes were as ponygirls in the north. Though Tika was young, her lone trek north her coming of age adventure, her skill with her spear was formidable and her first three attackers had met grisly ends. But so valued were the Amazons as ponygirls compared to the weaker northern women that the other slavers had been undeterred; her capture had been inevitable even as she had taken her first wide-eyed steps into Helmgard. A net thrown by an unseen hunter had ensnared her, and her fate was sealed. The majestic northern landscape now taunted Tika rather than stirring her. It mocked her plight, forcing her to look upon the spectacular freedom that was forever denied to her.

She shivered again. Bare feet crunching in the virgin snow beneath her as she stepped forward, Tika spied a water trough next to the fence on the far side of the field, and realised she was thirsty.

Hoping the water would not have turned to ice she jogged through the snow towards it, long springing steps carrying her over the frozen field with speed that belied the awkward bearing of her ponygirl body. The legs that carried her so effortlessly across the snow were now her only appendages - arms were deemed unnecessary and removed, leaving a smooth, limbless torso, and giving ponygirls a strange, almost pigeon-like gait. But those legs were powerful, and Tika reached the trough in only a few bounds. Unable to scoop handfuls of water to her mouth, she stooped elegantly to bring her lips into contact with the water and lapped the murky liquid thirstily.

After a long while she was satisfied and swivelled back upright. Water dripped infuriatingly down her chin and she had an intense, instinctive desire to reach up and wipe it away with her hands, as though her arms would return if she could only wish it hard enough. But even as the feeling gnawed away at the pit of her stomach, she knew this was an itch she would never again be able to scratch. Every latched gate, every barred door was a burning frustration - obstacles not worthy of the term for a normal person, but insurmountable for a ponygirl. The gate that led from the field to the freedom just the other side of the fence was one such obstacle - Tika, the proud Amazon warrior, was helplessly trapped by a tatty rope thrown carelessly over a five-foot post.

Not that getting free would do her much good. Armless, mute and branded, no one who saw her could possibly take her for anything but a ponygirl. She would simply be recaptured. No, Tika knew in her heart that she would be a farm animal the rest of her days, her only friends the three cows whose barn she now shared. It was said that every nightmare was a spiteful child of Fear and Desire, but Tika not feel the male sibling's influence on this desolate fate. A wretched existence, she would surely be expelled from the halls of the Sky Queen when her time came to be judged.

Suddenly realising tears were welling in her eyes she shook her head hard, cursing herself. Such self-pity was unbecoming a daughter of the forests. She had witnessed miracles worked by the bones and fires of shamans in the past, and perhaps - just perhaps - it was not beyond their power to restore her, if only she could find her way home. Though Tika was naked and alone in this frozen land, she resolved that the inextinguishable double flames of her people, hope and pride, would be her warmth.

Gritting her teeth, Tika set herself jogging around the field to pump her heart, fighting the cold that was biting every inch of her unclothed body. Passing close to the snow-glazed barn, she heard the glowing laughter of the family's flame-haired twin daughters, then the warm voice of the farmer who had bought her at the town market that morning.

"…Now, girls, leave it to get used to its new home tonight. But if you promise to get up early and feed it, tomorrow you can each ride it on a trek through the forest …"