"I'm cold"
The snow didn't make me numb — it burned.
Every breath I took was like a shard of glass scraping down my throat. I could feel my blood freezing inside me and the warmth within my veins dissipating.
I knew they would get rid of me on way or another. Did they expect me not to notice the ice only broke apart under my feet. Had it not been for Aren, they would have even bothered hiding it.
The fall had been long. And my despair longer.
When I finally hit the bottom, I felt everything break apart within me. I could barely stay conscious as the snow—falling from above—sealed the ground shut, burying me beneath meters of solid ice. The moonlight was gone from my veiw, leaving me only the torture of heavy and absolute silence.
Maybe this is a fitting end.
The twin without frost, dying beneath it.
---
I tried to move, but my limbs no longer obeyed me. My chest was tight and my lungs shallow. The taste of blood filled my mouth. It tasted like copper — and regret.
That was when I saw it.
A faint, pulsing glow beneath the ice — red and rhythmic, as though it were alive.
At first, I thought it was my imagination. But the longer I stared, the louder it pulsed. The sound vibrated through my skull, echoing to the sluggish thump of my heart.
Something ancient was definitely buried here, and it's very powerful. I could feel it's deep hunger. Crawling toward it, I dragged my body through the dense snow — enduring excruciating pain as my skin peeled off the cold ice ground — leaving only trails of my blood.
The strange glow brightened as I grow closer and I could feel a strange warmth emanating from below. When I reached it, I brushed away the snow on the ice surface.
"A sphere?" I thought in my haze — it looked like it was half a crystal and half flesh in nature — pulsing at the center of a frozen cocoon. Veins of black and red ran through it like lightning trapped in solid ice. It looked like a heart, long dead but still refusing to stop beating.
My blood slipped through the cracks and inexplicably began approaching the beating heart. It looked as though it was drawn to it. When my blood reached the it, the worlds time stopped and everything turned grey for a moment.
---
Pain.
I was struck with pure, absolute and unbridled pain.
The core latched onto the current of my blood like a parasite. My blood immediately started to boiling and my veins seared with every passing moment. I tried to pull away, but the cut on my arm pulled me closer to its grip. Soon, the beating of my heart started to match its pulse.
Then came the voice — not as a sound, but in form of instinct. A command etching into the marrow of my existence.
"Let me in."
And the core forced its will unto my conscientiousness.
My blood turned molten. My heart became a forge. I screamed until the breath in my longs ceased and my vision blurred into white and red.
Then the ice broke apart and the crystal heart beneath turned molten and out came a red substance flooded into my system. The heat was unbearable. It filled me through my lungs and spread though out my internal organs. When I gasped— I could taste it, something thick and metallic was forcing itself down my throat.
"Blood?" I thought.
Not mine though. But it was definitely not human. it must have been buried beneath the ice for centuries.
At last only a small red crystal was left — it remained suspended before my eyes. I could tell that I was to devour it as well, my body demanded it. The moment I did, everything went dark and the pain ceased.
["Am I dying, again?"]
---
When I woke, I wasn't cold anymore.
The ice that had once pierced my skin now recoiled from me. My breath misted faintly, not from the chill — but from the unnatural warmth coursing beneath my entire body.
I sat up slowly, staring dumbfoundedly at a reflection of my face in a slab of frozen ice.
My skin had turned pale — almost white. My hair, still as silver as frost. But my eyes…
They were crimson. Glowing, flaring and red. They look so calm and endless, like blood preserved in winter.
But I felt a little weird. There was no panic nor fear. Only an strange sense of clarity. How very.... unusual.
---
["Grrrr—"]
A low growl echoed through the cavern from every direction. Not just one though, it sounded like a pack of them approaching slowly in coordination. Shadows moved between the ice columns — they were lean, graceful and deadly.
Frost Wolves.
Their fur shimmered with silver frost, each movement stirring a flurry of snow. Their eyes glowed faint blue, and with every breath, frost spread across the ground in crystalline webs. The air itself froze around them.
They're control or ice seemed so effortless and instinctive.
The largest stepped forward, its fangs glinting like sharped knifes. It smelled the blood on me and it attacked.
---
Even though I was in danger, all I could think about was how unnaturally calmed I felt—as though I were staring at a lower life-form. A profound and new sense of awareness. It was very akin to pride, but felt like much more.
When the alpha lunged at me. I could feel time slow down around me. My body moved before my mind could think. I twisted aside, feeling no pain as it's claws tore across my ribs. Before it could land a second strike, I caught the wolf by its throat. My fingers sinking into its fur and flesh.
Its pulse throbbed against my palm — it was fierce and still had a defiant look in its eye.
"How infuriating" I snared.
Then, instinct took over and the core within me answered.
"Devour ", the words came out on instinct from within my psyche.
Upon voicing my command — the wolf began convulsing, its eyes wide as its blood rushed into me through my grip —it felt like a liquid snow storm pouring through my veins.
It wasn't just blood. It was it's essence and it felt cold and bitter .
The moment i had drained the beast of all its blood, I felt it —a freezing chill, the innate chill that governed their kind. My blood turned cold, congealing for a moment before stabilizing.
And then something impossible happened.
The blood I'd spilled across the ice crystallized as though it had acquired a frost-like trait.
Not the pure crystaline blue of House Frost's magic — but deep crimson, translucent and blood red. I could also feel my muscles tighten and my senses sharpened. Suddenly, I could see so clearly despite the darkness and misty hue of the ice-lands.
I exhaled and a deed-red energy spread from my feet outward, forming jagged, red-tinted blood crystals that steamed in the air. The Alpha wolf's dying breath froze mid-motion, as I captured it in a frozen blood-red sculpture.
The rest of the pack hesitated. I could feel their confusion and their fear and the thought hit me, "Aren't I enjoying this far more that normal?, What is going on inside me?".
When they attacked again, I met them head-on. Over time I realized their claws and fangs were useless against my blood crystals. The more blood they shed, the more crimson ice I could manipulate — bringing me more joy as time fight progressed.
Every strike I parried left trails of red crystals in the air. Every wound I suffered sealed instantly, my blood replenishing endlessly.
When one wolf tried to encase me in a blast of frost, I answered — raising my hand, focusing on the pulse beneath my skin.
My blood obeyed.
It surged outward, twisting and freezing midair —conjuring a spear of blood-ice and impaling the beast through its skull.
The pack scattered, but there was nowhere to run. I sealed them in with walls of crimson frost, filling the cavern with a red blood mist. Each drop of blood that touched the ice bloomed into crimson frost, impaling them all.
By the end, silence returned — marking the end of my hunt.
---
I stood among the bodies.
Their blood seeped toward me, drawn by the core within me.The ice beneath my feet turned a deep scarlet, patterns spreading like veins across the ground. Seeing all that I had done, I gave a slight grin—the thrill of ending a life, I never knew it could be so.... exhilarating
The core inside me pulsed once, approvingly.
And then, that's when I knew something inside me han already snapped — or perhaps I could say it freed itself.
All the pain, the rejection, the hatred of two lives — every emotion I had ever buried — melted away. Not in rage, just absence. I was absolutely calm and in peace for the first time since my reincarnation—and it felt so good
The devoid of emotions I felt was perfect for my life-to-come. I believe it to be better this way — in order to rise above everything in this world, my useless emotions that once held me back, will no longer be necessary.
I looked down at my reflection once more and thought,
"I might as well be a vampire at this point, it's my luck this world doesn't have tales of their existence or else I'd branded a demon. At the very least I look more striking. With skin this smooth and a face so good looking, I doubt I'll ever need to worry about future prospects"
White hair.
Crimson eyes.
And frost made of blood. I still don't understood what I am now.
My power was not of Frost, nor Aqua or any House for that matter. I was something new. Something the world would mistake for a mutation —or perhaps a cursed branch of Frost magic maybe.
They would either call it a miracle. Or a plague. They would never understand that it wasn't Flere at all, It was a primal hunger. Alive and waiting.
I whispered to the still air:
"The world buried me in ice so I'll be nice and return the favor by downing it in blood." My tone cold and heartless.
The core inside me pulsed once more, steady and patient — like a heart learning how to beat again.
And in that frozen grave, Leo Frost died.
Only the Blood Demon of House Frost remained.