A swelling rage - any

[Hoarfrost]

A WHITE BLANK PAGE AND A SWELLING RAGE, RAGE
YOU DID NOT THINK WHEN YOU SENT ME TO THE BRINK, TO THE BRINK

This little animal is wise.

Hoarfrost had been formation—mouthless, eyeless, senseless; numb to the nature of hearts and souls, for his was hard and cold and it did not beat but sat still for an aeon, unresponsive—far, far longer than he has been animal. “Hmmmmmmmmmm,” he rumbles, again, blinking slowly, head nodding heavy and somber, “you are right... small Fox,” the giant considers his words, having never spoken of his former self because it had taken so long to begin to gain a concept of that separation for himself; because he hasn’t the words to describe it accurately, but fumbles as ponderously as he walks the earth now. 

“Not always,” the woolly horse says, reverberant and thoughtful, “but… now. Yes.”

The frost giant watches the boy move, to him it is as quick as a hawk descending for prey. To him, everyone moves in hyper-speed, passing by and around him, synapses firing of like lightening licking earth—as he rambles up beaten paths, considering all manner of flower and woven nests as he goes. His animation and awareness are nascent, so much like a newborn.

“More… impressive, I say, to be small.” He has found being large to be a great burden—social and practical—thus far. “I knock things over,” he frowns, shaking his roughly hewn head. “They look at me,” this hurts the most. The giant was made by a cruel but fair God—he was made into a social creature, when he could have been made bear or lynx; he was made frightening and strange to his fellow equines.

But not this little animal. He is brave.

When Fox remarks on his frost, he tilts his head, having not ever considered the feature. It has been a constancy to him. He has always been cold. At least at his peak, which had been perpetually snow-capped for as long as it was high enough to freeze. “Frost. Winter,” he repeats, a childish kind of mimicking—the boy may not realize it, but he is teaching the giant. 

He has experienced warmer climates in his wanderings. The frost would melt and drip from his hair, unnoticed by him. But it always reformed in a snap on his frigid skin. It did not effect the low temperature of his core, the slow and deliberate beating of his heart; it did not thaw out his glimmering, heavy eyeball. “Always cold. Always winter... see?” he moves to reach out and touch the boy, unaccustomed to the social boundaries unspoken, but he is stilled in his path.

He blinks at the sudden, renegade snow, not knowing to connect the magic to the boy.
Not knowing magic at all, but for the one that toppled him to the ground.

“Hmmmmmmmmm. Strange.”

THE FROST GIANT

PHOTOGRAPHY © STEINAR ENGELAND