[fic] ce soir je suis desole (you may be living in ice)
ce soir je suis desole (you may be living in ice)
pg13 - tablo/eunhyuk [tiny mithra/heechul and donghae]
4382ws
a/n: okay. so this fic has been about two months in the making, and i've never worked so hard to finish a fic before, lmao. this is alllllll for runawayxxlovee. i hope it's everything you were expecting nhi, so you didn't wait two months for nothing. D: [special thanks to ishougen for the beta! <3]
There's a tiny castle on the peak of the highest mountain that stands over the smallest village in the biggest county of the country. It is quiet and the snow from the clouds above it cover the peak and tumble down to cover the village. Even the eldest of the Elders don't remember ever having seen the clear green ground and the bright green trees. Their world is white and ice and snow.
You come to this town on a whim, looking for a new tale, a new story to write and share with the world. You follow half-whispered half-truths told behind covered mouths up a deserted dirt trail and watch the world turn from color to white in slow sweeping passages.
The tiny village is quiet and muted, the snow that piles high above the walls of the village seem more formidable then the actual hard stone walls.
You stand outside, clutching your satchel close and blinking the soft snow out of your eyes, wondering.
"Are you coming in?" A boy appears to your right, hair a shocking black against the white landscape.
"In?"
He rolls his eyes. "Into the village?" At your nod, he gestures in with his head and starts forward. "You better hurry, you'll die if you're caught outside in the snow at night." He disappears in and you take one last look at the tiny castle that's only half visible through the lazy clouds that drift around the mountain peak.
Inside, the village is bustling and full of noise and live in the form of people covered head to toe in thick furs. You wander slowly, past shops with open doors despite the cold and children playing in the snow. It already seems as if your story has started, in this tiny village of people who smile as the snow piles in over their heads.
"You little rat!"
A booming voice catches you attention, and you smile when you see your friend, a giant bear of a man with all the facial hair you've never seemed able to grow. He catches you in a hug that lifts you inches from the ground. "You didn't tell me you'd arrive so soon."
You shrug. "I didn't realize I would."
"Well come, eat, my boy has food already set at our home."
You're sad to disappoint him, but you shake your head. "No, I couldn't, I don't want to intrude. Besides, I haven't got much time, the king will only tolerate my absence for so long. I want to go up."
Your friend follows your eyes as you look up past the village walls and to the castle on the mountain peak. He opens his mouth, makes a soft noise that would've been the start of a word if he didn't stop it. "I know well enough not to argue with you. At the very least, let me bring you a thicker coat. That little thing you have on now is no good. And something to eat on the trip up. It's not very far, but the snow is a hard thing to travel in."
You accept his offer and soon you've left the village again, this time wearing a thick black fur coat that shows you how cold you've really been without it. In your hands is a roll of warm sweet bread, that had been given to you by your friend's boy, a redhead with warm eyes and a sharp tongue that had lashed you up and down for not wearing enough warm clothing, despite the situation of your first meeting. You smile at the memory.
The path up to the castle is just as your friend had told you. It isn't far, you can already see the turrets reaching up into the sky, but the snow that comes to your thighs hinders your process. You stumble many times and voluntarily stop many more to catch your breath, take a bite of bread.
But the struggle is nothing against the promise of a new story. You can already see the words in your head, the description of the (not)warm(enough) village and the curved path.
You being to wonder if maybe the path is an enchanted one, to trap innocent travelers until the end of time, when you come over a small hill and the castle is in front of you.
It isn't so tiny when you're beside it. The walls that surround the castle are made of stone, like the village walls, but the stone is pure white; if you hadn't been so close, you would've mistaken it for the snow itself. You've never seen such stone and you stop to let your eyes follow the walls to the very top.
You walk alongside the wall, let your hands cautiously touch the stone. It is stone, true stone, but you imagine you can feel it humming and alive underneath your fingers. You wish you had brought along the court painter as well, when your thoughts are interrupted by laughter.
You stop, alone on a mountain peak with a half-eaten roll of bread and a satchel filled with paper and pens, and listen to the laughter that rings out sweet and clear.
No one will believe this, you think to yourself before you turn and follow the wall back the other way, following the laughter as if it were music notes floating in front of you, taking your onwards.
You turn the corner of the wall and face an entranceway. It's covered in vines that are frozen, muted green shining under a layer of clear ice. You hold your breath as you reach out to touch one.
It doesn't shatter.
You follow the vine up as far as you can reach, and it's like touching crystal. You're completely captivated until you catch a glimpse inside the entrance way and your breath is swept away.
It's an entire garden captured in ice. There are perfectly formed roses blooming on bushes, their petals covered in the same ice as the vine. Trees grow high into the sky and down to their smallest leaves and twigs, they're fossilized. This mountain top has never felt so much like a dream, a fairy tale, then now in this garden of frozen things, where color is muted and yet so brightly shining.
"Who are you?"
You spin around at a voice behind you and find your eyes dazzled.
He can't be older then you, much younger maybe, or it could just be the wideness of his eyes as he stares at you. His hair is dark, no, more than black, completely black, not the red-black and blue-black you've happened to see in your traveling, just a pure simple black completely devoid of color. It shines as brightly as yellow would have against his skin. He could've been made of the ice and snow himself. The only time you've ever seen a person so pale, they were dead and awaiting burial. He's dressed in white, leggings and boots to his knees and a tunic, you think. You're not quite sure as it blends in with his skin and the snow behind him.
"Who are you?" he asks again, taking a step closer.
He doesn't seem a bit afraid.
"I'm a storyteller. A scholar of sorts," you manage, watching him move to you. He walks as if he's dancing, a grace to his being that speaks of dancing in ballrooms, of royalty and fine blood.
"Why are you here?" He cocks his head slightly, and a smile spreads over his lips. It's childlike, yet slightly terrifying at once. "There's no story to be told here, at least, nothing fun, nothing entertaining." He glances down, touches an ice rose and it shatters under his fingertips, delicate as the pieces fall to the snow-covered ground. "There's nothing but sadness and eternity here."
You shake your head slowly. "That doesn't matter. A story is a story. Some of the most beautiful stories in the world are tragedies."
He laughs, his attention back to you, and the laughter is strangely exuberant and loud and it's the laughter you heard from before. "Well, this is definitely a tragedy." He comes closer again, and now you can see that there are faint places of color on his face, pale rose pink at his cheeks and lips and the smallest hint of brown in his eyes. "Do you want me to tell you the story? The story of this castle and the Snow Prince? Will you stay and listen?" His eyes are wide and his voice turns pleading. "The inside isn't nearly as cold here, as the Gardens. The Gardens are the coldest place in the castle. This is where love died; I can tell you that story too."
It seems, once the boy's words start, they can't be contained. He is so eager to talk, to tell, to have your company for just a little while longer, you can't refuse.
"I'll stay. I'll listen."
He smiles and his eyes seem to brighten and you think that you just might not have the right words to put this story down onto paper.
---
The inside of the castle is just as white as the outside snow.
The walls are still the dark stone, but you can only catch glimpses of it as they are covered in tapestries depicting white forests and white plains and the mountain peak that the castle stands on. You wonder who could have made them: the former residents of the castle? And where are they now, why is the castle so empty of life?
“My mother sewed those.”
He stands beside you but he doesn't admire the tapestries as you do, he watches your face as if you have the answers to all his questions written across your face. It's troubling to see his face so still; his mouth seems more suited to quick laughs and waterfalls of words then for the serious straight line it's set in.
“The only thing my mother loved as much as me… the castle and the lands that surround it. She sewed those in the winter, with fifty maidens from the village below to help her. She worked from the moment the sun rose, and worked until the sunset, with candles burning around her and the maidens drifting to sleep as they sewed.”
He steps closer to you and lays a hand on your arm.
You jump, jerking away, because you can feel the chill of his skin through your furs.
He grins at you. “When my mother sewed, I could feel the heat of the fire in the great hall. When someone touched me, I could feel the warmth of their skin. When my guard came in from the stables and pet my cheeks, I could feel the coldness of his skin. Now I don't feel anything at all.” His eyes widen and he steps closer yet and reaches out; you take his hands without meaning to, and start to shiver instantly. “Am I cold? Do I feel like ice itself? I don't remember anymore.”
You tremble because the coldness is seeping into every pore of your body. You can feel it run along your skin, before it seems to grow from inside out, starting from your chest and growing and growing until it feels as if you aren't wearing anything at all, standing in the drafty hall in only your bare skin.
He makes a face, pulls his hands away, and all the warmth returns to your being in a rush that makes you gasp and tremble slightly. He walks along the hall and you try to take it in as the blood inside of your body rushes, rushes back hot and warm and burning.
“Come sit down- are you thirsty? Hungry?” He sits at the head of the long hall table, sitting on a throne made of dark wood and stains cloths. You can imagine it grand and magnificent before time and carelessness brought it down.
You approach cautiously; this man-boy with his lightning smiles is something not as you are. “A bit thirsty,” you concede as you sit to his right, drawing your satchel over your head and leaving in on the table.
“You'll want something hot.” He grins at you. “Close your eyes, I'll show you a magic trick.”
Years of traveling and listening tell you not to do as he tells you, to refuse, but the storyteller in you that yearns everyday for the magic of words has you closing your eyes without a second thought.
You've barely closed them when he speaks again. “Open them,” and you open your eyes and feel your jaw grow slack and your eyes widen.
The long table is filled with steaming food and mugs of drink, a feast when there was none only seconds ago.
You lean forward and touch the edge of a plate of meat and it's warm.
“I didn't know what you wanted to drink so there's something of everything. And just in case you got hungry.” He leans forward with you and pushes a plate of bread, freshly baked, to you. “I can't eat anymore, but it's fun to watch other people eat.” He tilts his head, boyish confusion clear on his pale pale face. “I never understood taking joy in watching others be happy, but I've had lots of time to think about.” He turns his gaze to you, clear and cutting, uncomfortable and making you shift a bit on your seat with a bit of bread already in your mouth. “When people are rare in coming, you soak up everything you see. Like a monster, you try to suck them of all the life they have, just to keep you warm for a little while.”
“Is that what you're going to do to me?” You sip from the mug closest to you and it's ale, warm and thick, sweet.
He laughs and falls back into his throne for make-believe princes. “Yes. Will you give me everything?”
You can't stop your own smile from forming on your lips. “If your story is well-told.”
His eyes dim, then brighten. “I don't think I'm much of a storyteller, but this story, I think, will be interesting enough to hold your attention. Do you like tragedies?”
You nod, taking another sip of your ale. “I like any story. Regardless of whether you think it's a good one or not. Stories are stories.” You slant a look at him, mischief rising from the sudden warmth of food and drink. “I soak them up like you soak in life.”
This time, the Prince's (because you've decided, he must be a prince, prince of this lonely white cold castle) laughter rings out through the entire hall, and it warms your skin as if it were the ale, the bread. He leans towards you, pale pale brown eyes brightened into a smile. “Then I'll tell you everything. Are you comfortable? Is there anything else you need?”
You shake your head, lean back in your chair. Away from the food, the chill of the castle runs across your back. “I'm fine. Tell me your story then.”
He leans back as well, a soft sigh on his lips, and he looks away from you, away from the table, back to the tapestries that his mother had stitched.
“I was born to a Queen with no King, a bastard prince of the highest kind. An unfortunate by-product of a meeting between the widowed Queen and her closest bodyguard, her best friend. The ministers of the castle, the Council, were appalled and disgusted. My father was put to death, by hanging.”
The Prince waves a hand in the direction you'd come from. “There, in the Gardens, they hang him as they make my mother watch, barely two days after birthing. It is winter then… The Council has no choice but to name me Crown Prince, heir to the throne. 'We will never speak of his unfortunate birth father,' they say. 'We will add his name in the books as legitimate son of the late King.' They tell my mother, 'we do this out of mercy. We do this because we are kind, and forgiving, and we will forgive your one mistake, if you renounce the commoner you coupled with.' My mother refuses.”
“A month, two, half a year goes by, the Council wanting to make an example of my mother, and my mother hanging onto love as close as she could. She sits in this room, with a chair pulled by the window overlooking the Gardens, and she sews her tapestries. All of the same winter, of when her heart was stopped cold. She becomes mute, and I grow up knowing her as my Statue-Mother, as my still beautiful broken Mother who doesn't sleep, doesn't awaken, just sews and stares. So I grow up without her, surrounded by Council members who feed me lies and half-tales, and I grow to resent her. They tell me that my mother is an adulterer, a witch. She is to blame for all the troubles in the kingdom, and I believe them, because she doesn't move, and she doesn't defend herself. I have no one to teach me any better. On my eighteenth birthday, when I am named the King, I push her. I rip the tapestries from her hands and yell at her. 'If it's death you want, die! You are useless, to me, to yourself. You are wasted here. You are no mother of mine.' And she looks up at me, and her eyes are bright and clear, and she talks to me for the first time. 'You look just like your father.'”
The Prince-King sinks further down into his chair, and he rubs a hand across his face as if he's tried, as if the telling of the tale is breaking him. He takes a deep breath as he goes on.
“I yell at her, louder than before. 'If you love him so much, so much more than me, then die with him!' She only smiles and for the first time in my life, I see her stand from the chair. Her back is bent and gnarled, but she's as graceful as the roses in the Gardens when she bends to pick up her spilled tapestries. When she rises, she looks as if she's a goddess. She turns to the Council members gathered round. 'You've turned my son against me.' She looks back at me. “And you, my son, you are so easily turned, from the woman who gave you birth. My angry son.' And she laughs, laughs and laughs, until suddenly she stops, closes her eyes, and takes in a deep breath before falling to the floor. She dies like this… We bury her in the Gardens, underneath the tree where my father was hanged, and the Council tells me the story of my birth, the truth.
“The next morning, it's winter. Snow has covered the castle, the entire valley, and when we walk outside, the Gardens has been frozen in crystal. You see, things aren't dead in this castle, but sleeping. You saw, the roses are still perfectly red, the trees are green. They don't grow and they don't die. One by one, Council members leave the castle. They are afraid of my mother, even in death. 'The witch, she's put a curse upon this place. We leave tonight,' they say to me. It's only a matter of days until I find myself alone in this castle, this cold castle and the eternal winter around me.”
Silence fills the hall, and you blink, as if waking from a dream. You stare at the Prince, who stares into space, still, and you shiver. It's as if you can finally feel the magic around you.
The movement catches the Prince's attention, and he looks at you. Suddenly, he is almost frightening in the possibilities of his being.
“I have been eighteen for a very very long time, scholar,” he murmurs. His eyes don't leave yours. “I cannot leave this castle. I can only go as far as the outer entrance of the Gardens until my body freezes, and I'm unable to go on. I know every secret of this castle, because I've had more than enough time to find them. And I- I don't know why. Is it my mother's curse, to keep her unloving son locked into this place with the winter as a reminder? Maybe not, maybe so. I still don't know the answers. I know only the numbness of the stone around me, the silk of the tapestries, the breeze of the wind that I know is cold, but cannot feel.”
He rises from his throne, graceful as if he's snow fall himself, and the closer he comes, the colder you get. He's never seemed dangerous before, but you can feel it now, and you lean back in your chair, though there's nowhere to go.
He leans over you, the fall of his hair black against his pale cheek, the irises of his eyes seeming lighter than before. “Do you remember, scholar, how I told you I get my warmth from the people who come to see me?” His voice is a sudden whisper, a wind chill across the skin of your face.
“I don't think you understand. I'm freezing, numb. I feel nothing, but I know the pain as if I could. I suffer year after year, just for a touch of warmth from a poor soul who hears half-stories about my tragedy and brave the winter to seek me out.”
He traces over your cheek with long thin fingers, and the ice-water coldness soaks into your body. Just like before, it sinks into the very core of your being, closing around your heart and slithering to your lungs and leaving you gasping for air. The breaths that pant out of you are white like smoke.
He moves closer still, until you can feel the skin of his lips across yours. You realize then that he doesn't breathe. There is no air moving through his nose, through his mouth, and you can see then that his chest does not rise and fall.
“What- what-?” You're stuttering when you don't mean to, teeth clacking together.
“What am I?” He shakes his head, mouth brushing yours as he speaks. “I don't know. But I do know what I'm very much no longer human. It's been almost a century since I last took a breath. My lungs are ice and stone.” He grins then, and you can't breathe, can't take your eyes away from him.
“They ache for something warm.”
You push backward and your chair topples, the sound of the crash rings so loudly through the hall that you flinch.
The Prince laughs, bright and brittle, and he stands over you, the white of his clothes blinding. “Don't run, scholar. You said you liked stories. What better than to be in one yourself.”
You scramble back on your hands, gasping in air that doesn't seem to last long enough in your lungs to properly breathe. The Prince follows you, stepping almost in a dance, the smile on his face just as genuine as the ones before, that had lulled you.
“I'm going to have you. I think- you'll keep me warm for a long while.”
You can feel the draft of air coming from the door behind you, the entrance to the hall, and you push faster, unable to get your legs under you to stand up and run. You can feel the stone of the steps under your hands when a loud crash makes you jerk, stagger to a stand to turn around.
There's a boy with black hair, black like the Prince's, pulling down the lock for the doors. He turns and gives you a look, something sad and disappointed and resolved. He shrugs at you, smiles faintly, and disappears, slipping behind a pillar and moving down a corridor you hadn't seen before.
You wonder absently why he seems so familiar, as if you've seen him in a dream long ago.
“I found 'Hae when he was only ten, left for dead in my castle. His parents believed him sickly, possessed of a demon, and sentenced him to freeze, alone. He helps me.”
The Prince has come behind you, wrapped his arms around your waist and pressed a cheek against your hair. He brings the stinging chill with him. You fall limp, trying to force your lungs into taking air. He pulls you close, speaks into your ear.
“If you close your eyes, it feels almost like you're slipping into a dream.”
You struggle weakly, but the lack of air makes you lightheaded and weak, the cold seeps into your bones and makes them heavy. You sigh, unable to make any other sounds, and against your will, your eyes slip closed. You can still hear the Prince in your ear, voice rising and falling.
“I'll keep you close to me for a long while, scholar. I'll have you in my heart and I'll dream your memories, and I won't be alone. It'll only be a while, but I'll remember warmth and sleep and I'll carry you like a hope.”
You sigh again, and he's right, it's like slipping into a dream.
It's a dream of a castle made of ice, delicate as it reaches up into the sky. There are tiny cracks at the base, and when you reach out to touch it, the castle groans. It groans and it shakes and suddenly it's falling, blocks of ice coming to cover you. You're being buried alive but it's still a dream, only a dream. You lay under your cover of ice and shiver and you think of all the stories you've told and wish you could tell someone this tale. Someone should know about this boy-man who's trapped in winter, searching for a little bit of warmth to fill his heart. Your eyes fall heavy in your dream, and it's like falling into a dream in a dream, of winter sleep and pale skin and a Prince that could dance if he weren't made of ice and crystal.
pg13 - tablo/eunhyuk [tiny mithra/heechul and donghae]
4382ws
a/n: okay. so this fic has been about two months in the making, and i've never worked so hard to finish a fic before, lmao. this is alllllll for runawayxxlovee. i hope it's everything you were expecting nhi, so you didn't wait two months for nothing. D: [special thanks to ishougen for the beta! <3]
There's a tiny castle on the peak of the highest mountain that stands over the smallest village in the biggest county of the country. It is quiet and the snow from the clouds above it cover the peak and tumble down to cover the village. Even the eldest of the Elders don't remember ever having seen the clear green ground and the bright green trees. Their world is white and ice and snow.
You come to this town on a whim, looking for a new tale, a new story to write and share with the world. You follow half-whispered half-truths told behind covered mouths up a deserted dirt trail and watch the world turn from color to white in slow sweeping passages.
The tiny village is quiet and muted, the snow that piles high above the walls of the village seem more formidable then the actual hard stone walls.
You stand outside, clutching your satchel close and blinking the soft snow out of your eyes, wondering.
"Are you coming in?" A boy appears to your right, hair a shocking black against the white landscape.
"In?"
He rolls his eyes. "Into the village?" At your nod, he gestures in with his head and starts forward. "You better hurry, you'll die if you're caught outside in the snow at night." He disappears in and you take one last look at the tiny castle that's only half visible through the lazy clouds that drift around the mountain peak.
Inside, the village is bustling and full of noise and live in the form of people covered head to toe in thick furs. You wander slowly, past shops with open doors despite the cold and children playing in the snow. It already seems as if your story has started, in this tiny village of people who smile as the snow piles in over their heads.
"You little rat!"
A booming voice catches you attention, and you smile when you see your friend, a giant bear of a man with all the facial hair you've never seemed able to grow. He catches you in a hug that lifts you inches from the ground. "You didn't tell me you'd arrive so soon."
You shrug. "I didn't realize I would."
"Well come, eat, my boy has food already set at our home."
You're sad to disappoint him, but you shake your head. "No, I couldn't, I don't want to intrude. Besides, I haven't got much time, the king will only tolerate my absence for so long. I want to go up."
Your friend follows your eyes as you look up past the village walls and to the castle on the mountain peak. He opens his mouth, makes a soft noise that would've been the start of a word if he didn't stop it. "I know well enough not to argue with you. At the very least, let me bring you a thicker coat. That little thing you have on now is no good. And something to eat on the trip up. It's not very far, but the snow is a hard thing to travel in."
You accept his offer and soon you've left the village again, this time wearing a thick black fur coat that shows you how cold you've really been without it. In your hands is a roll of warm sweet bread, that had been given to you by your friend's boy, a redhead with warm eyes and a sharp tongue that had lashed you up and down for not wearing enough warm clothing, despite the situation of your first meeting. You smile at the memory.
The path up to the castle is just as your friend had told you. It isn't far, you can already see the turrets reaching up into the sky, but the snow that comes to your thighs hinders your process. You stumble many times and voluntarily stop many more to catch your breath, take a bite of bread.
But the struggle is nothing against the promise of a new story. You can already see the words in your head, the description of the (not)warm(enough) village and the curved path.
You being to wonder if maybe the path is an enchanted one, to trap innocent travelers until the end of time, when you come over a small hill and the castle is in front of you.
It isn't so tiny when you're beside it. The walls that surround the castle are made of stone, like the village walls, but the stone is pure white; if you hadn't been so close, you would've mistaken it for the snow itself. You've never seen such stone and you stop to let your eyes follow the walls to the very top.
You walk alongside the wall, let your hands cautiously touch the stone. It is stone, true stone, but you imagine you can feel it humming and alive underneath your fingers. You wish you had brought along the court painter as well, when your thoughts are interrupted by laughter.
You stop, alone on a mountain peak with a half-eaten roll of bread and a satchel filled with paper and pens, and listen to the laughter that rings out sweet and clear.
No one will believe this, you think to yourself before you turn and follow the wall back the other way, following the laughter as if it were music notes floating in front of you, taking your onwards.
You turn the corner of the wall and face an entranceway. It's covered in vines that are frozen, muted green shining under a layer of clear ice. You hold your breath as you reach out to touch one.
It doesn't shatter.
You follow the vine up as far as you can reach, and it's like touching crystal. You're completely captivated until you catch a glimpse inside the entrance way and your breath is swept away.
It's an entire garden captured in ice. There are perfectly formed roses blooming on bushes, their petals covered in the same ice as the vine. Trees grow high into the sky and down to their smallest leaves and twigs, they're fossilized. This mountain top has never felt so much like a dream, a fairy tale, then now in this garden of frozen things, where color is muted and yet so brightly shining.
"Who are you?"
You spin around at a voice behind you and find your eyes dazzled.
He can't be older then you, much younger maybe, or it could just be the wideness of his eyes as he stares at you. His hair is dark, no, more than black, completely black, not the red-black and blue-black you've happened to see in your traveling, just a pure simple black completely devoid of color. It shines as brightly as yellow would have against his skin. He could've been made of the ice and snow himself. The only time you've ever seen a person so pale, they were dead and awaiting burial. He's dressed in white, leggings and boots to his knees and a tunic, you think. You're not quite sure as it blends in with his skin and the snow behind him.
"Who are you?" he asks again, taking a step closer.
He doesn't seem a bit afraid.
"I'm a storyteller. A scholar of sorts," you manage, watching him move to you. He walks as if he's dancing, a grace to his being that speaks of dancing in ballrooms, of royalty and fine blood.
"Why are you here?" He cocks his head slightly, and a smile spreads over his lips. It's childlike, yet slightly terrifying at once. "There's no story to be told here, at least, nothing fun, nothing entertaining." He glances down, touches an ice rose and it shatters under his fingertips, delicate as the pieces fall to the snow-covered ground. "There's nothing but sadness and eternity here."
You shake your head slowly. "That doesn't matter. A story is a story. Some of the most beautiful stories in the world are tragedies."
He laughs, his attention back to you, and the laughter is strangely exuberant and loud and it's the laughter you heard from before. "Well, this is definitely a tragedy." He comes closer again, and now you can see that there are faint places of color on his face, pale rose pink at his cheeks and lips and the smallest hint of brown in his eyes. "Do you want me to tell you the story? The story of this castle and the Snow Prince? Will you stay and listen?" His eyes are wide and his voice turns pleading. "The inside isn't nearly as cold here, as the Gardens. The Gardens are the coldest place in the castle. This is where love died; I can tell you that story too."
It seems, once the boy's words start, they can't be contained. He is so eager to talk, to tell, to have your company for just a little while longer, you can't refuse.
"I'll stay. I'll listen."
He smiles and his eyes seem to brighten and you think that you just might not have the right words to put this story down onto paper.
---
The inside of the castle is just as white as the outside snow.
The walls are still the dark stone, but you can only catch glimpses of it as they are covered in tapestries depicting white forests and white plains and the mountain peak that the castle stands on. You wonder who could have made them: the former residents of the castle? And where are they now, why is the castle so empty of life?
“My mother sewed those.”
He stands beside you but he doesn't admire the tapestries as you do, he watches your face as if you have the answers to all his questions written across your face. It's troubling to see his face so still; his mouth seems more suited to quick laughs and waterfalls of words then for the serious straight line it's set in.
“The only thing my mother loved as much as me… the castle and the lands that surround it. She sewed those in the winter, with fifty maidens from the village below to help her. She worked from the moment the sun rose, and worked until the sunset, with candles burning around her and the maidens drifting to sleep as they sewed.”
He steps closer to you and lays a hand on your arm.
You jump, jerking away, because you can feel the chill of his skin through your furs.
He grins at you. “When my mother sewed, I could feel the heat of the fire in the great hall. When someone touched me, I could feel the warmth of their skin. When my guard came in from the stables and pet my cheeks, I could feel the coldness of his skin. Now I don't feel anything at all.” His eyes widen and he steps closer yet and reaches out; you take his hands without meaning to, and start to shiver instantly. “Am I cold? Do I feel like ice itself? I don't remember anymore.”
You tremble because the coldness is seeping into every pore of your body. You can feel it run along your skin, before it seems to grow from inside out, starting from your chest and growing and growing until it feels as if you aren't wearing anything at all, standing in the drafty hall in only your bare skin.
He makes a face, pulls his hands away, and all the warmth returns to your being in a rush that makes you gasp and tremble slightly. He walks along the hall and you try to take it in as the blood inside of your body rushes, rushes back hot and warm and burning.
“Come sit down- are you thirsty? Hungry?” He sits at the head of the long hall table, sitting on a throne made of dark wood and stains cloths. You can imagine it grand and magnificent before time and carelessness brought it down.
You approach cautiously; this man-boy with his lightning smiles is something not as you are. “A bit thirsty,” you concede as you sit to his right, drawing your satchel over your head and leaving in on the table.
“You'll want something hot.” He grins at you. “Close your eyes, I'll show you a magic trick.”
Years of traveling and listening tell you not to do as he tells you, to refuse, but the storyteller in you that yearns everyday for the magic of words has you closing your eyes without a second thought.
You've barely closed them when he speaks again. “Open them,” and you open your eyes and feel your jaw grow slack and your eyes widen.
The long table is filled with steaming food and mugs of drink, a feast when there was none only seconds ago.
You lean forward and touch the edge of a plate of meat and it's warm.
“I didn't know what you wanted to drink so there's something of everything. And just in case you got hungry.” He leans forward with you and pushes a plate of bread, freshly baked, to you. “I can't eat anymore, but it's fun to watch other people eat.” He tilts his head, boyish confusion clear on his pale pale face. “I never understood taking joy in watching others be happy, but I've had lots of time to think about.” He turns his gaze to you, clear and cutting, uncomfortable and making you shift a bit on your seat with a bit of bread already in your mouth. “When people are rare in coming, you soak up everything you see. Like a monster, you try to suck them of all the life they have, just to keep you warm for a little while.”
“Is that what you're going to do to me?” You sip from the mug closest to you and it's ale, warm and thick, sweet.
He laughs and falls back into his throne for make-believe princes. “Yes. Will you give me everything?”
You can't stop your own smile from forming on your lips. “If your story is well-told.”
His eyes dim, then brighten. “I don't think I'm much of a storyteller, but this story, I think, will be interesting enough to hold your attention. Do you like tragedies?”
You nod, taking another sip of your ale. “I like any story. Regardless of whether you think it's a good one or not. Stories are stories.” You slant a look at him, mischief rising from the sudden warmth of food and drink. “I soak them up like you soak in life.”
This time, the Prince's (because you've decided, he must be a prince, prince of this lonely white cold castle) laughter rings out through the entire hall, and it warms your skin as if it were the ale, the bread. He leans towards you, pale pale brown eyes brightened into a smile. “Then I'll tell you everything. Are you comfortable? Is there anything else you need?”
You shake your head, lean back in your chair. Away from the food, the chill of the castle runs across your back. “I'm fine. Tell me your story then.”
He leans back as well, a soft sigh on his lips, and he looks away from you, away from the table, back to the tapestries that his mother had stitched.
“I was born to a Queen with no King, a bastard prince of the highest kind. An unfortunate by-product of a meeting between the widowed Queen and her closest bodyguard, her best friend. The ministers of the castle, the Council, were appalled and disgusted. My father was put to death, by hanging.”
The Prince waves a hand in the direction you'd come from. “There, in the Gardens, they hang him as they make my mother watch, barely two days after birthing. It is winter then… The Council has no choice but to name me Crown Prince, heir to the throne. 'We will never speak of his unfortunate birth father,' they say. 'We will add his name in the books as legitimate son of the late King.' They tell my mother, 'we do this out of mercy. We do this because we are kind, and forgiving, and we will forgive your one mistake, if you renounce the commoner you coupled with.' My mother refuses.”
“A month, two, half a year goes by, the Council wanting to make an example of my mother, and my mother hanging onto love as close as she could. She sits in this room, with a chair pulled by the window overlooking the Gardens, and she sews her tapestries. All of the same winter, of when her heart was stopped cold. She becomes mute, and I grow up knowing her as my Statue-Mother, as my still beautiful broken Mother who doesn't sleep, doesn't awaken, just sews and stares. So I grow up without her, surrounded by Council members who feed me lies and half-tales, and I grow to resent her. They tell me that my mother is an adulterer, a witch. She is to blame for all the troubles in the kingdom, and I believe them, because she doesn't move, and she doesn't defend herself. I have no one to teach me any better. On my eighteenth birthday, when I am named the King, I push her. I rip the tapestries from her hands and yell at her. 'If it's death you want, die! You are useless, to me, to yourself. You are wasted here. You are no mother of mine.' And she looks up at me, and her eyes are bright and clear, and she talks to me for the first time. 'You look just like your father.'”
The Prince-King sinks further down into his chair, and he rubs a hand across his face as if he's tried, as if the telling of the tale is breaking him. He takes a deep breath as he goes on.
“I yell at her, louder than before. 'If you love him so much, so much more than me, then die with him!' She only smiles and for the first time in my life, I see her stand from the chair. Her back is bent and gnarled, but she's as graceful as the roses in the Gardens when she bends to pick up her spilled tapestries. When she rises, she looks as if she's a goddess. She turns to the Council members gathered round. 'You've turned my son against me.' She looks back at me. “And you, my son, you are so easily turned, from the woman who gave you birth. My angry son.' And she laughs, laughs and laughs, until suddenly she stops, closes her eyes, and takes in a deep breath before falling to the floor. She dies like this… We bury her in the Gardens, underneath the tree where my father was hanged, and the Council tells me the story of my birth, the truth.
“The next morning, it's winter. Snow has covered the castle, the entire valley, and when we walk outside, the Gardens has been frozen in crystal. You see, things aren't dead in this castle, but sleeping. You saw, the roses are still perfectly red, the trees are green. They don't grow and they don't die. One by one, Council members leave the castle. They are afraid of my mother, even in death. 'The witch, she's put a curse upon this place. We leave tonight,' they say to me. It's only a matter of days until I find myself alone in this castle, this cold castle and the eternal winter around me.”
Silence fills the hall, and you blink, as if waking from a dream. You stare at the Prince, who stares into space, still, and you shiver. It's as if you can finally feel the magic around you.
The movement catches the Prince's attention, and he looks at you. Suddenly, he is almost frightening in the possibilities of his being.
“I have been eighteen for a very very long time, scholar,” he murmurs. His eyes don't leave yours. “I cannot leave this castle. I can only go as far as the outer entrance of the Gardens until my body freezes, and I'm unable to go on. I know every secret of this castle, because I've had more than enough time to find them. And I- I don't know why. Is it my mother's curse, to keep her unloving son locked into this place with the winter as a reminder? Maybe not, maybe so. I still don't know the answers. I know only the numbness of the stone around me, the silk of the tapestries, the breeze of the wind that I know is cold, but cannot feel.”
He rises from his throne, graceful as if he's snow fall himself, and the closer he comes, the colder you get. He's never seemed dangerous before, but you can feel it now, and you lean back in your chair, though there's nowhere to go.
He leans over you, the fall of his hair black against his pale cheek, the irises of his eyes seeming lighter than before. “Do you remember, scholar, how I told you I get my warmth from the people who come to see me?” His voice is a sudden whisper, a wind chill across the skin of your face.
“I don't think you understand. I'm freezing, numb. I feel nothing, but I know the pain as if I could. I suffer year after year, just for a touch of warmth from a poor soul who hears half-stories about my tragedy and brave the winter to seek me out.”
He traces over your cheek with long thin fingers, and the ice-water coldness soaks into your body. Just like before, it sinks into the very core of your being, closing around your heart and slithering to your lungs and leaving you gasping for air. The breaths that pant out of you are white like smoke.
He moves closer still, until you can feel the skin of his lips across yours. You realize then that he doesn't breathe. There is no air moving through his nose, through his mouth, and you can see then that his chest does not rise and fall.
“What- what-?” You're stuttering when you don't mean to, teeth clacking together.
“What am I?” He shakes his head, mouth brushing yours as he speaks. “I don't know. But I do know what I'm very much no longer human. It's been almost a century since I last took a breath. My lungs are ice and stone.” He grins then, and you can't breathe, can't take your eyes away from him.
“They ache for something warm.”
You push backward and your chair topples, the sound of the crash rings so loudly through the hall that you flinch.
The Prince laughs, bright and brittle, and he stands over you, the white of his clothes blinding. “Don't run, scholar. You said you liked stories. What better than to be in one yourself.”
You scramble back on your hands, gasping in air that doesn't seem to last long enough in your lungs to properly breathe. The Prince follows you, stepping almost in a dance, the smile on his face just as genuine as the ones before, that had lulled you.
“I'm going to have you. I think- you'll keep me warm for a long while.”
You can feel the draft of air coming from the door behind you, the entrance to the hall, and you push faster, unable to get your legs under you to stand up and run. You can feel the stone of the steps under your hands when a loud crash makes you jerk, stagger to a stand to turn around.
There's a boy with black hair, black like the Prince's, pulling down the lock for the doors. He turns and gives you a look, something sad and disappointed and resolved. He shrugs at you, smiles faintly, and disappears, slipping behind a pillar and moving down a corridor you hadn't seen before.
You wonder absently why he seems so familiar, as if you've seen him in a dream long ago.
“I found 'Hae when he was only ten, left for dead in my castle. His parents believed him sickly, possessed of a demon, and sentenced him to freeze, alone. He helps me.”
The Prince has come behind you, wrapped his arms around your waist and pressed a cheek against your hair. He brings the stinging chill with him. You fall limp, trying to force your lungs into taking air. He pulls you close, speaks into your ear.
“If you close your eyes, it feels almost like you're slipping into a dream.”
You struggle weakly, but the lack of air makes you lightheaded and weak, the cold seeps into your bones and makes them heavy. You sigh, unable to make any other sounds, and against your will, your eyes slip closed. You can still hear the Prince in your ear, voice rising and falling.
“I'll keep you close to me for a long while, scholar. I'll have you in my heart and I'll dream your memories, and I won't be alone. It'll only be a while, but I'll remember warmth and sleep and I'll carry you like a hope.”
You sigh again, and he's right, it's like slipping into a dream.
It's a dream of a castle made of ice, delicate as it reaches up into the sky. There are tiny cracks at the base, and when you reach out to touch it, the castle groans. It groans and it shakes and suddenly it's falling, blocks of ice coming to cover you. You're being buried alive but it's still a dream, only a dream. You lay under your cover of ice and shiver and you think of all the stories you've told and wish you could tell someone this tale. Someone should know about this boy-man who's trapped in winter, searching for a little bit of warmth to fill his heart. Your eyes fall heavy in your dream, and it's like falling into a dream in a dream, of winter sleep and pale skin and a Prince that could dance if he weren't made of ice and crystal.