Scott shut his eyes tightly, pushing back tears. Everyone he loved was in danger, and it was because of him. Him. He was a monster, he hurt people, that was all he did. All he ever did.

He'd trusted Gem, he'd believed her, and look where it had gotten him. Never again. Never again would he listen to a naive, innocent person trying to help him. It would only end in them getting something they didn't deserve.

"Have you ever- intentionally tried to freeze stuff?" Such an innocent question. She was so curious and helpful, always seeking new answers and magic.

"...No..? 'Cause I don't wanna hurt people." He still didn't. He'd known it was a bad idea. He'd tried... tried to tell her...

"But... what if you could do it in a controlled environment? Like an academy... and we could practice?" Bright-eyed, inquisitive Gem. Sweet, undeserving Gem. She'd only ever tried to help him... and look what she got in return.

"I'm just scared I'll hurt more people, Gem." He was a danger then and a danger now. He would hurt more people. Why hadn't he listened to himself!?

"You won't hurt anybody, I won't let you. You won't- you won't hurt, I promise, I promise, c'mon, let's go practice." That was why. He'd trusted her, foolishly, hopelessly, thinking that it would maybe be okay. But it wasn't. It never was, around him. He didn't blame her, of course he didn't. She'd thought he could be helped. He couldn't.

Scott sat soundlessly at the top of the steps in the empty hall, head in his hands as images rushed through his head.

Gem lying dead, pale white skin covered with a blue sheen- ice. Scott's ice.

His brother, red eyes gleaming, laughing as he caused pain to everyone. And Scott had had to stop him. He'd had to! But it still ached, still didn't change that he had cast aside his own brother. He had failed Xornoth. They were nothing but a puppet now, and it was Scott's fault.

Jimmy, no traces of cod or slime on him, lying peacefully on the bloodied sand, red spreading from a wound in his chest. All because Scott had failed to protect him. Been struck down pathetically without offering a fight.

Every one of the other rulers, suffering at Xornoth's hands, all because Scott was too much of a coward to do anything. All of the pain and suffering because he couldn't do it, couldn't strike down h̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶r̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ the demon like the champion he was supposed to be.

Eventually, he was disturbed by the sound of the door opening. Immediately, he flew into motion, wings that had been tucked protectively against his back flaring out in warning. The person entered and revealed themselves to be... nothing?

Nothing but a gust of wind, the latest blight brought on by him.

Scott sighed and stepped down the stairs, grabbing the shulker he'd set out. He had already discarded the clothes he wasn't fit to wear- he himself had said it.

"I'm not fit to wear this Rivendell armor anymore. It was designed for a ruler who could lead his people, a ruler who could protect his empire, but... that's not me."

He pulled the crystal from around his neck and held it in his hand. It pulsed warmly, heat emanating from it. Not like he needed it... he wasn't cold lately. It never occurred to him that maybe the crystal's warmth was why he wasn't cold.

Scott left it in the secret cave in the mountain, the one that contained the meeting room and throne. It would be safe there, away from him.

He spread his icy wings and took to the sky. Snow sat permanently on some parts of his clothes, but that was fine. He didn't bother removing it, since it was going to come back. More worryingly, his hands had taken on an icy blue tinge, but that was fine. He wasn't cold, so it was fine.

He flew for hours, until it was too dark to make out anything, which was probably he found his new home by crashing into it. He slammed into an ice spike and gasped as the air rushed out of his lungs. His wingbeats faltered and he felt himself falling. He tried halfheartedly to flap them again, but they were cold, stiff, frosted over, and didn't want to work.

He landed with a thump on the soft snow of the ground. It was so deep it cushioned his fall so that he barely felt anything. It was warm. That was something snow did. It made you warmer. Didn't it? Wait, didn't you have to be under the snow for that to work? Never mind.

He lay there for a while, until he slowly stumbled up. His mind complained about that (why did he have to get up? it was comfy there in the snow. nice, warm. warm like he hadn't been in a while. he could sleep. sleep would be so nice) but he'd lived in cold. He couldn't let himself give in to that or he would never wake up again.

Setting the shulker on the ground, Scott pulled out the simple materials he'd brought an constructed a basic shack. It wasn't special or even particularly nice, and he knew it, but it was all he could bring himself to do with his mind screaming to (sleep, it's so nice, snow is warm, aren't you warm, aren't you tired? wouldn't it be nice to rest?) give in to the cold. He shuffled inside. At least he wouldn't die now.

It didn't take long to let his consciousness drift away like a snowflake in the wind, and he was gone.

He awoke to a numbness in his fingertips and looked curiously down at them. Huh, not good.

Scott sat up from where he had fallen asleep on the ground. Snow lay in drifts around where he was, his meager body heat not enough to even slightly melt them. He scooped up a handful and stared blankly at the cold powder on his palm, tilting his head at it. Didn't it usually... melt?

"Scott!?" Huh. He heard fWhip's voice. Strange. He would have thought it'd be Jimmy he would fantasize about. And it sounded... forceful? Like fWhip was mad?

Scott looked up and realized the door was open. A flash of red darted into view behind it and Scott thought for a second that this was the end, then. Weird that it wasn't accompanied by pain, but then again maybe it was- his whole body felt numb.

"Scott?" fWhip sounded very confused as he walked into the house. Scott studied him confusedly. Why was he here? Why would he hallucinate fWhip, of all people? Why not Xornoth, come to taunt him, or Gem, come to try and save him?

And then the hallucination was over, or so he thought, because there was no more noise and the sight of the world faded to white. Or black. One of them. Either way it was gone.

|--+--|--+--|--+--| Please Note: Time Skip of Two Days |--+--|--+--|--+--|

fWhip was fuming as he came out of Gem's tavern. He'd flown in to the Crystal Cliffs expecting a quick chat with his sister and found her shivering, a white streak of ice in her hair, and all the while insisting that "it wasn't his fault!"

fWhip didn't particularly care whether Scott was at fault or not. Scott had attacked his sister, and in fWhip's eyes that was cause enough for consequences.

fWhip had gotten out of Gem that Scott had fled north, and so that was where fWhip went (after making sure Gem knew to go to Katherine's, an order he knew she wouldn't follow anyway, but he'd tried). After half a day's flight, he reached an ice spikes biome looking perfectly normal. He would have flown over it, but out of the corner of his eye he spotted something; a wisp of smoke.

Following its trail down to the ground, he saw the roof of a small spruce shack poking inconspicuously out of the snow. It was hidden beneath a small cliff and he was sure he would have flown straight past had it not been for the one stray wisp of smoke.

fWhip dived down and landed on the snow easily, his boots sinking into it slightly. He was a bit surprised to find that his feet didn't touch solid ground, but he'd been in snowy biomes before. He didn't like the feeling, it unsettled him, but he knew that that was semi-normal, nothing to be too concerned about.

"Scott!" he called out angrily, mustering his anger as he walked towards the cabin, ready to fight the man who had hurt his sister.

No reply. The door to the cabin was present, but open. There was no movement or sign of life. Maybe Scott was out hunting?

"Scott?" he called again, less fiercely. It was more like the call you make when you enter an abandoned house; the "is anyone there?" call.

He walked through the doorway and his eyes flew to the floor.

There, sitting with a blank look on his face, was Scott. His skin was pale, cheeks blue, and eyes empty. His wings draped limply behind him as if forgotten, the feathers Scott usually took pride in coated in ice, like they were made of hundreds of icicles. His hand was outstretched, holding up a pile of snow- which should not have been possible- and it too had a blue tinge.

In short, he looked awful, and there was no way fWhip could attack someone in a state like this.

Before fWhip could even think about making a move, Scott promptly went limp, his eyes rolling up in his head, and he fell to the floor. fWhip didn't have time to process this before Scott's head hit the ground and his eyelids slid shut. From this angle, fWhip could see that Scott's breath was barely making any sort of cloud like it should in this cold, and it clicked.

Blue skin, vacant expression, snow not melting, breath not fogging- he was nearly frozen to death, and fWhip had no idea how he was still alive because from what he knew, this was hypothermia at a stage that shouldn't have been possible to experience and survive.

Given that fWhip had no idea how to deal with hypothermia and that he was a decently good person, he did what anyone would do.

Pick Scott up and begin to fly as fast as he could back home where he could take him to Shubble and Katherine, who did know what to do.

But Scott was frozen, not starved, and he wasn't easy to carry. It probably didn't help that he had ice and snow stuck permanently to him. He wasn't big by any means (in fact, as elves went, he was quite tiny), but fWhip wasn't incredibly strong either. Actually, they were pretty much the same size. He lasted about two hours before he dropped to the ground and sat, panting, in a random forest somewhere.

Despite being out of the extreme cold, Scott didn't seem to heat up. Some of the snow melted off of him and soaked his thick fur clothes, which wouldn't really help with the problem of weight. fWhip then had the brilliant idea of taking off outer layers (Always a good idea in the middle of the night, in winter, when your friend is dying of cold and you're incredibly susceptible to the cold as well).

He unzipped Scott's thick jacket and pulled off his own only slightly lighter coat, then realized that Scott had two layers of fur pants on and pulled off the top one. After some thought, he discarded his own scarf and both of their pairs of mittens, then grabbed Scott and once again took off, lasting another hour before he began to shiver.

At this point, fWhip was quite shocked Scott was still alive. He had no idea how hypothermia worked, but the snow hadn't melted on Scott's hand, so he figured it was safe to assume that his body heat was way below normal. Perhaps he would have brushed it off as an Elven thing (and that was really probably why Scott was still breathing anyways), but he knew from years spent with Scott that he didn't have a lower body temperature than the others. He was more resistant to the cold, sure, but he wasn't actually a cold-blooded creature. That, fWhip laughed, was Jimmy's role.

Scott would have died that night had it not been for the random chance that followed.

By complete luck, fWhip had flown straight into the lands Lizzie claimed for hunting. And by absolute dumb luck, she'd decided to hunt there tonight. Call it chance, call it instinct, call it a gut feeling, fWhip didn't particularly care, but somehow Lizzie was there, and it was that fact that saved Scott.

Lizzie saw fWhip land and strode into the clearing. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. "You're ruining a perfectly good hunt!"

Of course, she wasn't really upset. Most of the empires were on quite good terms, and they all knew that. "Trying to get to Shelby's," fWhip told her. She then noticed Scott in fWhip's arms and apparently her motherly instincts, usually reserved for her axolotls, kicked in.

"Oh my fish sticks, what happened to Scott!?" she exclaimed. "Why is he the color of my kingdom?"

"Huh- oh," fWhip said smartly. "I think he's got frostbite."

"That's not just frostbite," Lizzie told him. She strode over to him and took Scott from his arms. She was taller than them since her blue axolotl transformation (and honestly, she kinda scared fWhip). Then she looked him up and down. "Oh, goodness gracious, you're freezing yourself, too."

"I am?" fWhip held up his fingers and noted an icy white tinge to them. "Oh."

"Follow me," Lizzie rolled her eyes and sighed. "Boys."

The Ocean Queen quickly outpaced fWhip and he struggled to keep up. It was another hour before they made it to the Undergrove, but Shubble was out in a hurry. The women of this server had to have some mental telepathy link or something, because they always seemed to know what was going on.

"Scott!" Shelby exclaimed worriedly. Her eyes flicked to fWhip, who stood obediently before the gnome who was half his size. "And you've managed to freeze yourself, too." She shook her head in very much the same way Lizzie had. "Come in. Lizzie, put Scott on the bed to the left of the doorway."

Lizzie nodded and followed Shelby's orders. fWhip sat where he was told to at Shubble's kitchen table and drank the hot tea he was given, waiting as the two women tended to Scott. After a while, they came back in and sat next to each other across the table from him.

And then came the questioning. "So, what happened?"

|--+--|--+--|--+--|--+--|--+--|--+--|

Cold.

He was cold.

Scott awoke to find himself in a dark room and oh, that was bad.

As silently as he could, he pushed back the covers and stepped onto the ground, careful not to disturb anything. He put the covers back as quickly as possible as to avoid freezing them and stole over to the door, where muffled voices could be heard.

"...why he ran away?" Shelby asked curiously. They were talking about him, of course they were, all of them about to find out, all of them about to forget him, remove him from their lives forever. Maybe it was best he just left now, ripped off the pain like a band-aid, got it over with.

"Cause he froze my sister," fWhip growled. Well, yet another reason for them to push him away. Good. That was better for everyone involved (Right? It had to be. He pushed back the part of him that cried at the thought of losing his friends; it was fine. It was better for them).

Slipping out of the door, Scott tiptoed towards the door and was nearly there when Shelby's voice rang out at him. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I've got to get away," Scott said desperately, a bit pathetic but that was fine for now. It was fine. "I can't stay here and hurt you."

"You'd never hurt me," Shelby told him unhesitatingly, naively. Scott sighed.

"I can't help it anymore, Shrub! I'm just going to hurt you," he told her, glancing quickly back at the door. Before she could stop him, he darted towards it, freezing when she spoke again

"Scott Smajor, don't you dare step out that door," Shelby said sternly. Scott glanced at her, steeled himself, and dashed out.

He'd never defied Shelby before; for someone who was about four feet tall and usually the definition of kindness she was absolutely terrifying when she wanted to be.

He spread his wings, ignoring the way the ice painfully snapped off them as he did so, and went to take off, trying to fly away, any direction, just away from where he could hurt his friends.

"Scott, please," Shelby's voice had a desperate tone. "I want to help you, I promise it'll be okay."

"Gem said that too," Scott told her, tears forming in his eyes. He didn't turn to look at her. "Then I froze her."

He took off, thrusting his wings downward to push himself off the ground. He ignored the way his cheeks were wet... and the way his tears weren't freezing on his face like before?

"Scott, come ba-" Just like Gem. So much like Gem. He couldn't trust their promises anymore. It wasn't their fault, they didn't know how broken he was, how much pain he brought.

But this time, much to his dismay, the person behind him wasn't frozen by his magic. And this time, they refused to give up. Shelby took off after him and caught up midair.

"Scott, wait!" she yelled over the wind rushing by.

Scott dove to avoid her, zipping through the forest below in an attempt to lose her. She followed nimbly, keeping pace with him. Eventually, they reached the edge of the forest and Scott swooped upwards into fWhip's mountains, welcoming the snowy scenery, a familiar thing. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted one patch that was lighter than the rest and veered away, leading Shelby off. Then, he looped over her head and tucked his wings, diving straight into it.

He flew through the powdery patch easily, but there was nothing behind it but rock. He hit it at full force. The powder slowed it somewhat, but it wasn't enough. A wave of pain hit him and he crumpled into the snow, the mountainside sliding beneath him and burying him in cold.

|--+--|--+--|--+--|--+--|--+--|--+--|

Shelby's gaze darted upwards to follow Scott. She lost him as he looped over her, not turning fast enough to see where he'd gone. But the slide gave it away. The slope moved, the snow tumbling over itself, and Shelby waited. It eventually stopped and she glided down towards it. Hurriedly, she scanned the area for any sign of him.

She found none.

fWhip and Lizzie landed next to her a few minutes later. They weren't as fast as Shelby and Scott, and so they couldn't hope to keep up. fWhip asked the inevitable. "Where's Scott?"

"He's buried!" Shelby exclaimed in a slight panic. "There was a snowslide-"

"You mean avalanche?" Lizzie asked, confused.

"Same thing. He's somewhere underneath it!" Shelby finished. fWhip simply walked up the slope.

"There's a patch of powder here. It's the only thing he possibly could have hit that would collapse this slope," fWhip told them. He knelt, digging a bit. "And... yep. He's under here."

Lizzie and Shelby hurried over and saw what fWhip had; a iced-over feather lying sticking out of the snow, a tiny flag indicating where Scott was. Together, they pulled out their shovels and burrowed down, finding Scott lying curled slightly, clothes ruffled and snow-covered. He shrunk backwards away from them and pushed some of the snow off of himself. "Get away, get away!" he exclaimed.

He tried to struggle free, and the light powder obliged. Snow flew everywhere, spraying the three others in a shower of white sprinkles. Lizzie was quick to react, grabbing Scott's leg as he tried to fly away. He looked down, panicked, like an animal caught in a trap. "You have to let me go, I'll hurt you!" he told her, eyes wide and scared. Shelby instantly knew that there was no way she was letting him leave now.

"You won't hurt us," Shelby insisted. Scott shook his head.

"No, I will, you don't believe me, I will!" he repeated desperately. He stopped straining and sank to the ground. "I don't want to hurt you," he said, softer.

"You won't," Shelby told him. He didn't seem to believe her.

"That's what Gem said. That's what Gem said, too, and I did," Scott muttered. "I can't- I can't be around people-"

"We'll fix this," Shubble said, trying to comfort him. It had the opposite effect.

"No!" Scott yelled, beginning once again to attempt to free himself from Lizzie's grip. "No, no, not again!"

"What?" Shelby asked quickly, worry filling her mind. What had happened to him? What had turned him so scared and guilty?

"No, I can't hurt you too, I can't," Scott begged. "Please, let me go-"

Shelby sighed. "Please, Scott, it's okay. We're your friends-"

"Gem was my friend too," Scott whimpered, clearly on the verge of tears and trying to hold himself together. "She was my friend and I hurt her. And I- I didn't mean to, but-"

"That's it," Shelby told him quietly, kneeling next to him. "It'll be okay, you won't hurt anyone else."

Scott once again began to try to pull away, to leave. "No, no, no, no, that's what Gem said!"

"Okay, sorry, I won't say that anymore. Will you just come with me and we can talk?" Shelby asked calmly.

"No- I'll hurt you! I'll hurt you, don't do this, you have to leave me. You have to, Shelby," Scott looked into her eyes and she met them. They were an icy-blue world of regret, guilt, and most painfully, terror. Shelby never wanted to see her friend so purely defeated, so clearly hurt.

She hesitated a moment, trying to think of something Gem wouldn't say. "Would it help if we talked about it?"

"About what?" Scott asked defensively, unconvinced.

"What happened with Gem?" she suggested cautiously, careful to watch for any reaction.

It turned out she didn't even need to watch closely. Scott visibly trembled and bowed his head slightly. His wings twitched nervously and he spoke quietly, "I- I- froze her, Shelby. I froze her and now I'll freeze you if you stay here, and I don't- I don't want to freeze you, I didn't mean to, I just- I just can't hurt you."

Shelby tilted her head. "You haven't frozen anything here yet," she said honestly. Lizzie pulled a water bucket from her inventory and set it on the ground.

"Freeze it, show us," she said simply. "Don't worry about unfreezing it, I don't need it."

Scott held his hand against the metal and watched the water, brow furrowing when it didn't freeze. "It- what?"

No one said anything. Scott dipped his hand in the water with no effect. "I- why's it gone now- it- that makes no sense- oh what's happening-"

"It's okay," Shelby reassured him quickly. "What have you frozen so far?"

"Gem- Gem and Rivendell. And your kingdom," Scott said softly, voice tinged with regret.

"What was the last thing you froze?" Shelby wondered.

"Gem," Scott answered miserably. "Now my power's probably just depleted and it'll come back worse," he added fearfully.

fWhip suddenly crinkled his brow. "Wait, Scott, did you leave the Xornoth crystal behind when you left for exile?" he asked.

"Yeah," Scott told him. "I didn't want to hurt it."

"Gem said you'd told her you weren't cold," fWhip said. "But you were clearly cold when I found you."

"I froze myself, too. But I didn't feel it until..." Scott thought a second. "Until I took off the crystal."

fWhip's eyes lit up and he rocketed away. Scott sighed. "It's not the crystal."

"Are you sure?" Lizzie asked. "You froze as soon as you took it off, and you haven't frozen anything since."

Scott nodded. "It's me, it's me, I did this," he insisted. Why was he so intent on insisting it was him? Normal Scott would welcome the opportunity to get rid of a problem.

fWhip was back faster than Shelby would have thought possible, holding the glowing red gem in his hand. He dropped it in the water and instantly it froze over. Scott's eyes widened.

"No- it's me. It can't- it has to be me!" he insisted. "It has to be me, it can't be-"

"Why does it have to be you?" Shelby asked.

"Because- because I did this! I did all of it, it can't just be- if it's not me then I have no powers. I've got nothing," Scott rambled. "And- And I can't have nothing, I can't be worthless! I can't be-"

"You're not worthless," Lizzie told him. "You don't need to have powers to be worth something."

Scott trembled slightly. "I- It- Yeah- I can't- I'm worthless. Xornoth has everything, I've got nothing, I've got to-" He looked like he had been here before. His wings extended around himself a tiny bit and he tried to bury himself in the snow.

"It's okay, you're still a great friend even without powers. Most of us don't have powers," Shelby pointed out.

"You're- it's- you're not elves! You don't have to have powers!" Scott exclaimed sharply. "Elves are- we're different! We're more powerful!"

"You don't have to be so different, it's alright to be normal," Lizzie said. "Although, you are very special. You're one of the most unique and fun people I know."

"I- It's not enough," Scott replied. "It's never enough, I'm never enough-"

"You're enough for us," fWhip said.

Scott wrapped his wings around himself and stared at fWhip. "I-"

"You're our friend, Scott," Shelby added. "You're enough for us."

"But I'll hurt you and I hurt Gem and-" Scott began.

"And it's okay, we can heal Gem, and you won't hurt anybody else. And if you do, we know you didn't mean to, because we're friends" Lizzie told him.

"I-" Scott choked up. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for-"

"Don't apologize, we know," Shelby said. And then, unable to help herself, she leaped into his arms and hugged him. He slowly loosened up and returned it, then Lizzie released him and joined in.

They eventually released and Scott laughed. "Let's take this somewhere better than a random mountainside."

Shelby grinned. "Let's do that."

|--+--|--+--|--+--|--+--|--+--|--+--|

Eventually, Scott trusted them again. It took a while, but one day the incident was nothing more than a faded memory, forgotten and pushed aside. The Xornoth Crystal was sealed away where no one could touch it, away from where it could hurt anyone...

For now.