Mini-Grand 5109 [Round 2: Aranina]

Mini-Grand 5109 [Round 2: Aranina]
#21
Re: Mini-Grand 5109 [Round 2: Aranina]
Originally posted on MSPA by XX.

tick .tick .tick.tick.ticka.ticka.tickatickticktickatickatick tickticktickticktick

I would prescribe no more then 3cc, any more will damage
any more will Talmadge


“Talmadge.”

But how had he gotten here?

He was lying on a floor with his coat pooled around him, the edges dipped in diamonds. No, not diamonds- he used to have a lens of diamond on his gun. That was glass. This was ice. Ice, wasn’t it? Cold as ice. He laughed and licked the floor, tasting tears. Who builds a castle of tears?

Lieutenant Tea, Psion Corps, Canis Div-

“Don’t call me that,” he heard himself snarl, and then he was on his feet and reeling under a frozen cathedral. Warped buttresses of ice and panels of glass burned his eyes with light, an icicle chandelier hung far too low over his head. “That’s not my name,” he said haltingly. He looked down at his hands, covered in frost.


“Of course it is,” she said. “And you’re a hero.”

Her voice was a river flowing under ice. She was taller than he was by at least a foot- hard not to top fivefootsevenannahalf but- she was slender as a whip and cold as the ice. Her hair, her eyes were the palest shade of blue and her skin made the frost look grey. A crown of frozen fingers rested on her head and rained down drifts of snow whenever she walked, over to him to cast her winter’s shadow over the sleeping form of Proper.

“Strangers have come to my village,” she said, drawing an icy hand over his cheek. He felt his skin blister at her touch. “In the heart of winter they have come to my little crossroads. A trio of heroes, determined to stand against my lord Ashkaroth. Do they know the doom that awaits them? Do you…?”


Talmadge’s eyes slid to the floor. Proper was sleeping soundly, curled into a ball snout-to-tail. A fiery sword glittered in its jaws.

“I know who you are,” the ice woman whispered. “I know everything about you. I am the Queen of Winter, and I see all that walks in my kingdom. You cannot stave off the hand of winter, nor will you survive the attempt- but it need not be cruel, as they say. I have need of one such as you, Talmadge.” She said his name in a foreign tongue. “Help me slay the others; I see you are no friend of theirs. I can bring you power beyond your grandest delusions. Ashkaroth remembers those who serve.”

Proper opened an eye, burning yellow against the span of ice.

Plumes of steam followed Talmadge’s words out of his mouth as he agreed with the ice woman’s plan. Was she the one, wasn’t she familiar, yes, the woman locked in the ice in the catacombs? Dancing. People change, Talmadge, people change but you don’t. No, you never will.

Proper circled his ankles, letting the sword’s blade trace a circle around his feet. Dyed in the wool, as they say. I’ve brought you so much. Its cold wolf’s snout was pressing the pommel into his hand, he couldn’t refuse. I did everything for you. I did everything for you.


The Winter Queen’s eyes widened just so slightly as Talmadge leaned on the fiery sword now grasped in his hand. He was so tired suddenly. The tip smoked and scorched as it burned its way through the ice. “Where did you- ah, I see. You’re a hero. Yes…”

She led him, unruffled, to a window of razor-thin ice facing a courtyard of frozen statues. “I sculpt one in the image of every life I give to the snow,” she said. Talmadge could see their blissful faces from here, an army of smiling animal-men-monsters. Proper laughed. “Because all too often they forget who holds the true crown. They are all clustering around some oracle now, my little spies tell me. She must be shown her place.”

She clapped her hands and there was a sound like bells; a white fawn appeared. Its eyes were black as coal. “Prepare the carriage,” she told it. The little creature yawned. “I think it is time my hero and I paid the village a visit.”


Talmadge only smiled. A wolf howled, long and loud.
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Messages In This Thread
Mini-Grand 5109 [Round 2: Aranina] - by Ixcaliber - 09-18-2011, 04:52 AM
Re: Mini-Grand 5109 [Round 2: Aranina] - by GBCE - 12-11-2011, 03:54 AM