Story writing debate

It was a gray day. Limbs lacquered in black and limned in white stood, frozen, in an eerie silence. Lavinia walked through the freshly fallen snow, the rhythmic shuffling of her steps the only sound for miles. The forest was seized by a pervasive sense of immutable death, of silence and a strange peace, in which time slumbered and withdrew its withering presence. She could easily imagine it being this way forever: untouched, unmoving, encased in cold beauty and indifferent to the ragged traveler whose steps painted a slate-blue line in freshly fallen powder. The stillness was shattered when, ever so often, a bit of ice would slip loose from some distant branch and come crashing to earth, birthing a symphony of haunting chimes which shivered in the air for minutes afterwards, breaking her out of her trance. She would suddenly realize that there existed a world beyond the small circle of white in which she strode, the stark latticework above, and the gray fog which walled her in. It was midday when the clouds and fog began to fade away, their hazy edges burning with ever brighter white fire as they receded. The sky above was a blue so pale that it seemed artificial, and the sun burnt in it like a cold diamond, its sharp, brittle light dancing from every surface of the ice-glazed forest. The silence, too, receded. It was filled with the near constant music of falling ice, the once disembodied sound now accompanied by what looked like distant showers of stars. Lavinia would often stop and stare at the spot where one had fallen, an unreadable look on her face. She had always been struck by such things before, and they lifted her spirits even in the darkest of times. But the natural happiness which normally welled up within her met some nameless opposing force and, finding no way of passing the obstacle, fell back before registering on her features. Lavinia had been walking since morning, having left a small village on the other side of the wide aspen forest. Her clothes were old and threadbare, though she wore enough of them to serve the same function as full winter garb. Her body seemed an amorphous bundle of tattered rags, until a breeze would blow and she would pull them tighter about her, revealing the waifish form beneath. What had once been chestnut curls were matted and disheveled, framing a face both beautiful and haunted. Its large, honey-colored eyes were a bit too sunken, the lily-white skin stretched a bit too tight, and the small rosebud mouth was cracked and pale. Every delicate feature, every sign of softness and beauty, seemed deprived of vigor and youth. It was the face of a broken doll, a once-beloved plaything tossed aside and forgotten. Lavinia had lingered a long time in villages and towns where she was not welcome, where she was at best scorned and abused, at worst ignored. When at last she began to regain some semblance of vigor, she set off into the West. At first it was simply a direction in which to walk, a goal with which she could preoccupy herself. But eventually she began to entertain fancies of a new life in another land, of the ability to forget and move on. There was always the possibility of capture while crossing the border. But the possibility of finding something more for which to live superseded everything, and stood like a white-hot arrow guiding her ever farther westward, towards the River Tarsha, which cut a black line between the Balderian Empire and the neighboring kingdom of Evincia. It was here that the other refugees had been fleeing to. She saw them sometimes, in the distance: the little shadows bent as if bearing the weight of memory, shuffling along in the same direction. Somehow the sight made her feel even more alone, and she tried not to think of them. In the distance the wind began to moan, and she could hear the soft tinkle of falling ice accelerate, building into a series of unceremonious crashes as a wall of white appeared in the distance and slowly advanced towards her. She lowered her head and forged ahead.