The Love that Burned through Ice

Gather round, friends, for I have a tale to share; one that has traveled across generations. It is said to be written by the legendary Lexus the Pure, a storyteller whose words were as clear and enduring as the stars themselves. Though many of his works have been lost to time, this one remains. A tale of love and warmth, a tale that shows prejudice can be defeated through understanding.

— Oriric Cherrybottle, Bard Extraordinaire

Once, in the cruel embrace of winter’s endless night, a girl wandered too far from home. She had followed the promise of starlight, but the winds of Ekiran know no mercy, and soon, the cold swallowed her whole. Snowflakes kissed her lashes like funeral petals, and the frost wove a shroud around her breath. When her legs gave way, she did not feel the fall. She did not feel anything at all.

Then came the dark.

She awoke to firelight flickering on walls of ice, its golden glow swallowed by blue. A fur was draped over her, yet the cold still gnawed at her bones. When she tried to move, she felt the iron bite of a cage at her back. Panic surged, and she turned, breathless- only to find him. A shadow in the fire’s glow. A beast of frost and stone.

A Glaciarc.

His hulking form loomed over her, too large, too monstrous to be anything but a nightmare made flesh. His skin bore the ashen pallor of the frozen dead, his white mane thick with the scent of ice and blood.

She screamed. He did not flinch.

When she clawed at the bars, he only watched.

When she begged for freedom, he said nothing.

Days passed and nights came and the girl thought that, for the silent beast, she was nothing but a meal to be fattened and slaughtered when the time was right. Yet when fever took her, it was his hand that steadied her shaking body. When the cold stole the breath from her lungs, it was his warmth that fought it back. He placed food within reach, never forcing, never demanding. And when nightmares stole her sleep, she awoke to find him there; quiet, unmoving, but near.

It was a long time before she realized he had never locked the cage.

She was confused and angered. She shouted, expecting rage, expecting threats, expecting anything- but the only answer was silence. He did not refuse to speak. He could not. He opened his mouth and showed her his severed tongue, before slowly turn away. The girl looked at him perplexed. For though he didn't let her leave, he never hurt her. Though he was one of the monsters who had slaughtered her kin in the past, he had saved her life. And though he could not speak, she could feel the weight of the words he left unspoken.

Stay. Stay, just a little longer.

She did not know when the fear began to wane.

Perhaps it was in the quiet moments, when the fever burned her from within, and she woke to find him pressing a cold cloth to her brow. Perhaps it was when he hunted and left his kills at the mouth of her cage; food she had refused at first, believing it poisoned, until hunger overruled her pride. Or perhaps it was when she watched him carve figures from ice with hands that had known only war.

She had never seen a glaciarc carve before, but rumors always implied they were incapable of anything tender or beautiful.

The creature before her was a contradiction. Brutal, yet careful. Monstrous, yet patient. He moved with the weight of someone who had learned to be silent, who had been made to be silent.

One night, as the fire crackled between them, she reached for the figures he had carved. They were animals- wolves, stags, things with wings that did not exist in this frozen world. One of them was her. She looked at him then, but he would not meet her gaze. She traced a finger over the frozen likeness of herself, lips parting, yet no words came. What was there to say? That he should not have done this? That his kind and hers had no place in the same world? That she had spent every waking moment fearing his every move?

She knew she should have left the moment she saw the cage was never locked. But something had taken root in her, slow as melting ice, gentle as falling snow.

A question. A promise. A longing.

The first time she touched him, it was an accident. Her fingers brushed his hand as she reached for the fire. He flinched. Not in anger, nor in pain, but in something else. Something more fragile. It struck her then that he was a prisoner too. Not by bars of iron, but by something far crueler.

The world was cruel to creatures like him, treating them as something that should not be.

A bond between their kinds was an impossibility, a foolish dream. She had grown up believing that love had rules- rules written in blood and bone, rules that separated the right from the wrong. But here, in the silent heart of winter, with a creature who had once been her nightmare, she suddenly knew...

Love has no rules at all.

The storm came in the dead of night.

She woke to the scent of smoke, to the distant howls of the hunt. The cave walls trembled with the weight of approaching doom. He was already on his feet, moving with the silence of a shadow, gathering what little they had. She saw it then: he had known this would happen. He had been waiting. Watching. Preparing.

His kin had found them.

She reached for him, but he did not let her. Instead, he pressed something into her hands- a cloak, heavy and lined with fur, not her own. His.

A gift. A shield. A farewell.

That was what he was waiting for; the reason he would not let her leave before. He wanted to be sure his kin would be occupied with him. At least enough for her to escape their grasp.

She shook her head, as if she said: No. No, I will not leave you.

But he was already moving, gripping her wrist with a hand that could have shattered bone but only ever held her with care. He led her to the hidden path behind the cave, to the veil of ice where the wind screamed loud enough to swallow her breath. He pointed to the darkness beyond, giving her a silent direction. She saw the plea in his eyes, the command in his silence. He had no voice, yet she heard it clearly.

Run.

She did not.

Instead, she turned to him, to this impossible creature who had saved her, sheltered her, changed her. The one she had feared, then pitied, then understood. And now... the one she loved.

The howls were closing in. The scent of blood was in the air. His shoulders tensed, his breath came ragged, but he did not leave her side. She grasped his face with both hands, forcing him to look at her. And then, with the storm wailing around them, she pressed her lips to his.

It was cold and it was fire, it was wrong and it was right. It was everything the world had told them they could never have. When she pulled away, he was still. Frozen, not by the wind, but by wonder. And in that moment, she saw the truth in his eyes. He had never truly believed she would stay.

But she had. And for the first time in his life, he smiled. No more running. No more cages.

The howls grew louder, the night heavy with the weight of war. But they were not afraid. Hand in hand, they faced the storm together. And in that moment, they both knew...

The world would break before it tore them apart.