The true name of Frost – Portrait of an Ice Witch [Short story]

A portrait short story in six acts, featuring:
- CI Cold DoT Occultist (Witch)
- Black Star

The true name of Frost – Portrait of an Ice Witch

Against the common assumption that occultists are those notoriously long-robed, demon-summoning ceremonial mages who prefer the solemn high-magic rituals in their elitist and sophisticated circles, not all witches stick to this dusty stereotype. The tale I share with you, gentle exile, is woven instead with the threads of fate of an ice witch who fearlessly faced eldritch evils like the Undying Hunger, yet started off as an outcast, exiled from her homeland. Ship-broken and washed ashore on the magically tainted Wraeclast, she fits the image of a humbled criminal rather than that of a supreme high mage.

*** First Act: A Twisted Journey ***
As she stranded on this unknown beach among wrecked ship parts, surrounded by hostile undead and fierce creatures of the land and the sea, the witch had to make a desperate decision: either tap into the tainted powers that made the dead rise and twisted all kinds of local beings into uncontrollable abominations, or die a cruel death by the latter. She neither had the bodily strength nor the agility as some of her fellow ship-broken exiles, so she sticked to her intuition and chose to let her mind connect deeply with the mighty powers of the land. Quite in a distance, alluring and beautiful, she felt the presence of high, fir-covered mountains and immediately knew that her fate would eventually take her there. Nature itself was tagging softly at her mind, drawing her towards the frosty peaks. Although her journey led her and the other exiles through lush forests and places brimming with rampant natural powers, volcanoes of fiery energy and graveyards where all sorts of necromancy would be extremely potent, she yearned for the crystal-clear energy of frost and snow. In the meanwhile, her magic was fuelled only by rainy clouds and the cold winds that swept across the wide plains of Wraeclast. Once beyond the Forest Encampment, she realised that something truly hostile was happening to this continent and felt oddly interested in the answer as to why. But power was a tricky thing here; embrace it and corruption would eventually swallow you whole, or reject it and powerful mages and unnaturally depraved creatures would eat you alive. The witch had to learn how to balance ambition and temperance, safety and advance, selfish survival and kindling the rare flames of friendship and alliance with those who had not lost their sanity yet. Wraeclast was a dark, cruel place, but so was her own mind.

Trying to solve the riddles given by the surroundings and its corrupted inhabitants, her journey up to the mountains became increasingly harder. She had to face Piety and Dominus, two alarming examples of souls so perversely powerful that their inevitable fall shattered them into uncountable pieces. Exhausted and gore-splattered, she stood upon the Sceptre of God, the twisted corpse of Dominus and his minions at her feet, realising the extend of ruin and cruelty that had befallen this forsaken land and its most ambitious people. Impressed by the likeliness of their fate to her own, the witch resisted their kind of corruption only to find herself in her own downward-spiral of power, ambition and survival: no effort up to this point would have made any sense at all had she given up now. So the only way to keep surviving was to become even more powerful, implying the struggle for sanity against corruption. Not all hope was lost, as the mysteries and magic hidden in the primeval landscape kept her curiosity up and her ambition growing.

*** Second Act: Finding the Name of Frost ***
She sat on the edge of a high cliff, staring into the crackling campfire. Stormy winds whistled the rough song of winter. She poked at the glowing embers with a wooden stick and watched the dimly lit city below through a veil of idly whirling snowflakes. Highgate looked peaceful from this distance. Shivering, she drew her cloak tighter around her shoulders and felt the last rays of a wintry sun disappear behind the horizon, nightfall painting the snow in slate grey and shadows in midnight blue. Cold thoughts crossed her mind. Why should she journey on, she thought, and what exactly did drive her to this desolate place? Though she never had a problem with travelling alone, this world felt much more cruel and hopeless, even in comparison with Oriath where she would fight in order to protect the people although she had been exiled a fair while ago. Heroic, wasn’t she? And dutiful. From outcast to hero, only by fighting the apparent greater evil, doing a dirty job. Ironic, and a twisted kind of fate.

At least she found a sense of beauty and connectedness with the wilderness of the mountains. When she closed her eyes and let her mind wander, the glistening snow resonated brightly in her soul; icy crystals easily danced to her will, synchronised with her breath. A swipe of her hand and they would form a solid piece of glass-clear ice. When she willed it, the air around her would spiral and swirl, cooling down the surroundings so that her snow crystals formed and shaped a glittering aura that froze everything it touched. Sometimes it felt like she played with the forces of the universe itself, masked and fractured within each perfect flake of snow. Her bond with frost grew stronger and she heard the true name of it in every chilled wind-whisper, read it in every precious drop of water and tasted it in the mighty blizzards of the high mountains. As much as the Frost bent to her will, as much had she to surrender to its.

*** Third Act: Frozen Mind ***
When she killed, it was not out of pleasure or duel or gore, neither did she like or dislike it. It was but one more layer of the wall she built around herself, unconsciously, even unreflected. Her resonance with the ice originated deep within her soul: the inertia towards fellow living beings made her unmoved by most happenings, even more so as she tapped deeper into those forces of snow and ice. The crystallised structure of her magic corrupted her oh-so-slightly, more each time, making her crave perfection, structure, control, balance. Against the perfect beauty of untouched ice - a structure of pure inherent order - common things just failed to acquire any closeness to perfection, always staying incomplete from her coldness-tainted point of view. She lowered the temperature around her by sheer presence, but as much as coldness rose, warmth leaked her soul. The price of power – she realised in one of those rare moments of humanness – the price of her power was her humanity. The colder and thicker the icy wall around her grew, the more she was protected, all right, but the more of her humanity was drained as well. Nothing could break through her shield of crystallised will. And yet: should anything touch that one last bit of humanity she had left in her, by all gods, she would shatter just like her fiercest enemies had.

She took down Sirus, the Awakener, by sheer willpower: in her chilling presence, his mind and body forcefully slowed down enough for her snowstorms to banish his corrupted soul into oblivion between the worlds; a cold snap of her finger and his mortal remains shattered into frozen pieces. She felt like a demigod and as she arrived at the Karui Shores after their fight, symbolic sharp-glittering ice crystals dancing in her wake wherever she went, people began to fear her more than admiring her for defeating the greater evil. Although almost totally devoured by her thirst for power, a tiny piece of her conscience kept her from losing sanity by appealing to her sharpened senses and icy logic: even if she was driven by rational thought, humanity was still left and could maybe even be recovered. But at what cost?

*** Fourth Act: Polaric Void ***
Time passed by and her frost magic was more powerful than ever. The witch did not doubt her powers at all, yet the Maven enticingly hinted at something that captured her attention fully: there was an entity just as playful, challenging and aloft as Maven, but as savvy in ice magic as the witch herself. After Veritania, the Redeemer, had turned out to be disappointing and weak, the witch appreciated the challenge against an equal. Apart from that she had grown fond of the atlas and its wild nature, wanting it to stay as it was.

Black Star, she heard from Commander Kirac’s scouts, was terribly powerful and not less beautiful. The ice witch gathered every piece of information about her and now finally stood in front of the star-swirling, glowing portal that seemed to lead into the infinity of the universe. Powerful energy clashed against her as she entered the Polaric Void and it made the witch think of the highest fir-covered peaks of Wreaclast and the cozy warmth of a campfire alike. Home. Something tagged at her soul. Grim and calculating, she thought she was prepared to face any enemy, but when she stepped onto the platform beyond the portal, the atmosphere shifted and send a shiver down her spine. The scent of campfire, cinnamon and vanilla grew stronger and mingled with the familiar scent of wintry storms. Something stirred behind one of the ancient columns. The witch rose her hand, the frost shield around her strung tightly, a projectile of terribly powerful creeping frost ready at her fingertip. When her enemy moved, she didn’t hesitate and aimed her magic precisely. The lean, female body that appeared behind the column sparkled with star dust, her muscles were tensed but her nonchalant stance and challenging smile on her lips hinted at her having fun and no trouble at all when she easily waved away the icy attack with a swipe of her hand. “You have not come to fight me”, stated the ethereal being in her alien, yet alluring voice.

*** Fifth Act: Clash of Ice and Fire ***
The witch felt the amused glance of her enemy scan her fully. Starlight swirled in her eyes, a blend of colors she could not even name, and Black Star’s presence made her shiver in a mix of horror and fascination. She felt pulled towards the sublime beauty and pushed away by her fearsome, primeval power at the same time. All rational and crystallised thought was drained from her mind. The witch forcefully tore herself away from the powerful presence and charged again, this time quickly brewing up a blizzard around her. The surrounding temperature dropped instantly and as she approached the female figure that still leaned against the pillar, she dodged a ray of fiery light, the condensed power of a solar storm that was playfully shot at her. In turn, she charged another frost projectile and flashed it against Black Star.

The two of them fought a deadly battle, dancing and prowling, elegant like feral animals in their hunt. Searing firestorms against frost blades, a clash of opposing energies. The fight seemed even and more like two forces of nature battling out who would reign over the land than a mortal against an eldritch entity. But reality caught up with the witch before too long as the energy-charged air suddenly shifted from hot to cold, from opposite to synonym. Terrified by the sudden threat, the witch drew her dagger, a frost blade with intricate design and a deadly edge. Desperately dodging the icy comets that rained down at Black Star’s will, she charged her enemy head-on and with a quick cut towards her throat paired with a full-out blizzard around her. A far too soft hand foiled her attack; she was so close now and the almost gentle touch of Black Star’s warm hand broke not only her concentration but also her will to fight. The deep, star-swirling look that searched her soul was not that of an enemy, for it was intrigued and understanding, not hostile.

*** Sixth Act: Black Star’s Flame ***
“You fought well, little human”, whispered the silky, alien voice. Her face was so close that she could smell the vanilla-and-cinnamon scent from her glimmering skin. “Our fight entertained me. You are brave and have mastered the command of Frost quite beautifully. Yet you did not come here to fight me.” The witch felt warm fingers brush gently against her face, leaving stardust tingling on her cold cheek. She could not move, but then, neither did she want to. The warmth and beauty of the Black Star’s body alone made her icy will melt. As she was drawn into her embrace, the witch felt that small spark of humanity hidden deeply within her suddenly rekindled. The pleasant silky stardust touch reminded her of something long past, innocent and human. “I’m not the Maven, I don’t want toys”, Black Star said and tenderly thawed the icy skin of the witch’s shoulders and back with her mellow touch.

“You long for beauty and power, mortal witch, and that’s why we are alike. Yet you lack something and that’s what you seek from me.” The beguiling smile on her lips made her look almost as human as magnificent. She delicately released herself from the embrace and took one of the rings she had on her graceful fingers. Precious stones were arranged like crystals of ice and ember on it, sparkling and shining in the soft starry glow of Black Star’s skin. She held it out and told the witch: "Take it. It’s a token of my gratitude for an amusing fight. Infinity sometimes feels so boring… so alone. Our ambitions are alike, so I wish to spar with you again. But next time you will need to use your full potential, not just half of it. The ring bears the name of the Flame. Use it to rekindle yours, and find what you have come to seek here.” Then, the Black Star drew the witch close to her, and send her back to her realm with a star-touched kiss.

She awoke next to a homely crackling campfire, the masterly crafted ring in her hand and a wisp of stardust still prickling on her body. The flame within her rekindled, she felt whole again: her soul’s ice and fire, rationality and humanity, finally in balance.

(c) 2022 Neptuna Shadowblade

What an amazing story! The narrative its good at the point where im the witch myself i can feel what she have been trough. Great Job Shadow.