[private] chain of the demons; australis

[Tycho]

Chain of the demons set free, strange alchemy...

Father found me and healed my wounds, but the touch of the ice demons left clean white scars, a stark contrast slashing against the deep red violet of my coat. The lines are thin and interlaced like spiderwebs across my face and down my neck, where the tips of their claws traced delicate patterns as I writhed in pain. The ones along my chest and sides and hips are more chaotic, more savage, thickening where claws dug deep into muscle. 

I can still hear myself screaming, a stranger’s voice raw and ragged as it tears from my throat.

Father will not be pleased that I left again so soon, nor that I left my guardian behind again. But I have given him no explanation for what happened, neither name or face to put to the one who wielded ice and demons both, and only let me go out of boredom. He could not latch onto my mind and feast on fear, nor could he reach in and twist that fear into something greater. That part of my father’s protection is too intrinsic a part of me, written into my DNA, his magic mutating into something that is Mine.

Father would be standing at my side if I had asked him to. If he knew I were coming back, he would watch over me and keep me safe, and make sure the wielder of demons did not return while I stood amidst the shattered ruins of the ice cage that held me captive, that burned with every touch. He would want to be here. But this is mine to do, and I must do it alone.

I stare down at the shards of ice that remain of what was so briefly my prison, and an unfamiliar sensation begins as heat in my chest, flooding through my body and building, burning, searing through me, and I know now what those words mean. Burning. Searing. Vivid memories of agony piercing flesh, lighting nerves on fire, screaming in my veins and leaving me utterly powerless to stop it.

Tension vibrates in my chest, pressure building until it tears from my throat, a primal scream echoing through the air sounding more of fury than pain, a nuance I would not have understood all too recently. Now I can feel the rage in that sound, feel it vibrating in my chest, resonating and shaking my ribcage, hear the cracking as my bones shatter around m--

Hmm? Not my bones. That shattering sound, though, that was...solid. An auditory sensation, with no physical pain accompanying it. And its origin was farther out than my chest, and in every direction. I open my eyes, glancing around to find the source, when it came from all around me.

The ice.

The shards of ice that were all that remained of my cage lie in glittering little pieces around me. Pieces much smaller than they had been only moments ago, torn from the ground and smashed back down against it until they were nothing more than innocent ice crystals glittering in the sunlight. Well. Isn’t that curious?

Tilting my head, I step forward, leaning down to study the nearest of the scattered masses of ice. To prod it with a hoof, to stir it in amongst the fallen snow. It does not scream in my veins, it does not radiate up my legs and draw anguished cries from my throat, it is merely...ice. Huh. Fascinating.

[australis]

show me who i am and who i could be

It had been easy to slip away from the Tundra, easy to disappear through the narrow ice gate without anyone noticing. There were just so many new faces and they kept mother hidden away up the mountain and father almost constantly tied up. It seemed strange that her parents had found each other, that they worked so well together, because to an outsider they were so very different. Offspring loved his kingdom, he loved his people and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect them. He was often among them, teaching them or answering questions, sorting out the new alliances and the cave-guard. But mother was different. It wasn’t that she didn’t love the tundra, that she didn’t love those who called the northern kingdom their home, she just- they affected her differently. Isle had never learned to control her mindreading, she had spent too much time trying to suppress it, so with this many new horses milling together within the ice walls, mother became a ghost. So when she disappeared through the gate it was to be totally alone, and she was certain no one had noticed her go, no one except maybe Nevi. Nevi saw everything.
 
She followed the network of streams to the meadow, followed them further to disappear among the trees that edged such open places. While she had no fear of the wide open - home felt as open as the sky, like a reflection of settled cloud-drifts - she just wanted something different, something less-same. From the mountains above the Tundra, she could occasionally see these streams in a flash of light, and they reminded her of veins cut through a frost-soaked leaf. For a moment she closes her eyes to picture them in her head, unraveling the tangles of silver until she could almost picture how far she had come. It was hard though when she had nothing to compare it to, when this was her first time here. She had only ever visited the Chamber and her surrounding forests.
 
So with a sigh she draws to a halt, turning her dark face away from the stream and letting those bright eyes adjust to the half-dark. She can’t see anything besides the trees, can’t hear anything besides the creak of cold branches and the chirp of stubborn bird. But she can feel something, a strange pull that spans the length of a single heartbeat before it ends with a resounding crash. The crash is a sound she knows well, the sound ice makes when icicles fall from the mouth of a cave, the sound ice makes when it explodes against the ground.
 
It shouldn’t make her curious, not when it’s something she’s so familiar with, but it does. It does, and so her long legs slip back into easy motion, finding no awkwardness in the weight of the snow she sinks into. When she turns a bend, weaving quietly between the tall pines, her eyes settle abruptly on a red-violet figure standing in a puddle of sunlight with ice scattered like diamonds at his feet. It is strange, so strange, but she cannot stop the bubble of quiet laughter that tips from her lips. It seems that even when she is away from home and looking for something less-same, the same will always find her. She eases to a halt, leaning the brown dapples of her shoulder against the trunk of a nearby tree to watch him a moment before saying, “Haven’t you ever seen ice before?” But there is only warmth in the brown and white of her heavy face, only bright leaking from the dark eyes watching him with such quiet curiosity. 

initiate the heart within me until it opens properly

[Tycho]

Chain of the demons set free, strange alchemy...

The ice no longer burns to the touch, no longer sears my flesh and leaves me screaming in agony. It is merely...cold. Nothing more than water cooled below its freezing point, allowing the formation of ice crystals. I lower my face to inspect the nearest pile of shards, half expecting the sharp stab of pain as my lips brush against the fragments of what once were cage bars. Curious. Perhaps the absence of the stranger who wielded ice as a weapon accounts for the change.

Much more interesting anyhow is the way those bars shattered around me. Was it some quirk of nature, an unknown phenomenon of some sort? Or...or did it have something to do with the fury that had been building in my chest? I’m closing my eyes to try to recreate the sensation somehow when I hear a quiet laugh from somewhere behind me.

Given my recent experiences in this very spot, it is perhaps understandable that my body’s immediate reaction is a subtle tightening of the muscles along my back, adrenaline pouring into my system and setting my heart to racing and readying my limbs for action. The clenching of my stomach and chest, that’s new and unpleasant, but I distract myself by slowly raising my head to look for the source of the sound.

The girl seems harmless enough, though I am learning appearances can be deceiving. Still, there is quiet curiosity in her eyes, not a hint of the cold brutality that had been in the face of the one who left me covered in scars. And she stays where she is, leaning against a tree and casually watching from a comfortable distance. The tightness in my chest and belly starts to ease, and I tilt my head. Interesting.

“On the contrary,” I answer her, nudging the nearest pile of jagged bits of ice with a hoof. “I’m far more familiar with it than I would like. Or with one of its more vicious incarnations at any rate. It appears to be nothing but ice now, no longer burning to the touch. It was not nearly so innocuous yesterday.” Heat flares in my chest at the memory, and I find myself grinding the ice beneath my hoof. The other piles tremble almost imperceptibly, and the shuddering movement catches my eye and dissipates the heat, distracting me from my...anger?

“Curious.” I tilt my head, and my dark eyes narrow at the now motionless ice. A remnant of its formerly possessed nature, perhaps? Does it move on its own? As a reaction to negative emotion? A reaction to me in particular, or would it happen for anyone else? “Would you assist me in a small experiment?” I ask, looking back at the girl. I step out of the circle and nod my head toward it, inviting her to step within it. “There is something unusual occurring here. And I am uncertain as to the nature of the phenomenon, whether it is something left in the ice itself, an echo of its former nature, or…”

Or something else entirely.

“It moves. When I…” When I remember what happened here. When heat rushes through my chest and down my limbs and builds into fury. “It appears to react to negative emotions. Anger. Rage. It shattered, and just now, did you see how it tremored just slightly? I am curious whether it is a reaction to me, somehow tuned to me because it held me captive, or if another’s anger would have a similar effect. Would you be willing to help me find out?”