50 chapters in this book very cool
also yes hi welcome back

TWs: Suicidal ideation, suicide, suicide attempt implied suicide, death, implied hypothermia, isolation, self-doubt, self-esteem issues, self-worth issues, death, drowning.

Scott was a creature of ice. He was the champion of Aeor, god of a snowy mountain kingdom. He had a link to the ice's power just as his counterpart had a link to fire. Xornoth was a creature of fire, champion of Exor, two sides of the same coin. The Rune Blade was a link between the two worlds: hard and cold as ice, strong and furious as fire, which was why it was the only thing that could destroy them both.

And they needed to be destroyed, because both of them were awful for this world. Ice and fire alike were too extreme for these lands, too dangerous to survive. The Rune Blade was a chance to fix that.

Scott stared down the demon in front of him, waiting and watching as they smugly informed him that they had won. At that moment, his hand on the hilt of the Rune Blade, he knew what he had to do. Of course, it meant he would suffer too, but didn't he deserve it? He'd gotten off unpunished for hurting Gem.

"I don't need you in here to kill you." Scott told the demon calmly. He closed his eyes and thrust the sword towards himself and his icy heart. Xornoth screeched in denial, disbelief, anger. But there was no turning back.

Send me somewhere I'll never hurt any of them again . Scott told the blade. Where my ice can't freeze anything .

He felt no pain, simply a strange feeling as the sword vanished from his grip and everything else disappeared. He opened his eyes to ice, stretching as far as he could see. How painfully fitting that his afterlife would be eternal ice and snow.

At least he couldn't hurt it. He couldn't hurt anything here, it was already frozen. Ice couldn't be frozen again, as far as he knew, and neither could snow. All he could do was add to the already-thick piles of snow. He looked at himself and found that he somehow had thick wool-lined boots, a feather-down cloak, and thick clothes fit for cold weather. It was a simple outfit, but a warm one.

He stepped forward cautiously, unsure of where to go. He eventually decided to just fly in one direction, hoping that maybe the ice spikes eventually ended. Of course, he knew there was no chance of that happening, but he could try. He flapped his wings and took off, going as straight as he could (which was to say not at all, because Scott could do many things but going straight was not one of them). He didn't think he was going in circles, though, so that was good.

After hours of flying, he had found nothing. Not a single variation in the land. Mountains, rivers, cliffs, and valleys were all covered in a thick layer of snow, ice spikes thrusting upwards intimidatingly.

He landed in a drift, sitting and slowly losing hope. He was never going to get out, was he? He'd asked for this. It was probably infinite. Just an eternity of ice, snow, and cold.

He let himself cry.

The next day was spent wandering aimlessly, just exploring. There was only one thing in this place besides ice and snow, and that was berries, probably because they were the only things with the resilience to survive the frigid temperatures. Scott soon discovered he didn't need them. He simply never got hungry, not needing food to survive. Really, it only made sense. He wasn't living , not really, simply existing. H̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶s̶h̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶i̶s̶h̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶j̶o̶b̶.̶ ̶I̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶r̶e̶a̶d̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶u̶n̶h̶a̶p̶p̶y̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶e̶n̶c̶e̶.̶ ̶I̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶r̶i̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶.̶

He didn't do much else that day besides wander aimlessly, stumbling through snowdrifts with unusual clumsiness. Night never came, and the sun overhead never shifted from where it shone down. He wandered farther and farther until he couldn't be bothered to move anymore and simply collapsed where he stood onto the cold ground.

The next day (was it even day if there was no night?) Scott awoke to find himself curled in a snowbank that he didn't think he'd been in when he'd fallen asleep. He needed to get out of it before it covered him forever, trapping him inside it, but he couldn't even bring himself to get up. What was the point? Nothing would change. He was alone, forever, by choice . It was what he'd wanted . Here, he couldn't hurt anyone. Everyone else was safe far away from him. Why did it matter whether he was wandering pointlessly or lying abandoned in the snow? (h̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶c̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶o̶n̶e̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶o̶n̶e̶-̶ ).

Time passed unnoticeably. Scott had no way to tell how long he'd been in this place- a day? A week? A year? A century? He spent his time aimlessly stumbling along, slipping farther and farther from himself, his memories growing hazier. All he saw now was the blue and white of ice, and hadn't he wanted this? How could he be so selfish as to complain about something he'd done to himself?

The ice was hard as ever the day he finally did try to escape this prison of his own choosing. did he deserve to escape wasn't this his punishment

He took a breath in, feeling the cold for the last time, hoping against everything that perhaps this would work and he would be free from the endless white and blue.

Scott spread his wings and shot straight up into the air until the ice spikes were nothing but blue dots below him. Then he stopped, tucking his wings to his back and letting himself fall. Wind whistled past as he plummeted, his wings trailing unused behind him. He didn't slow as he went down, letting himself be dragged down towards the ground without protest. He landed first on ice, which shattered into shards, scraping up his wings, then cold engulfed him, a chill seeping into his very soul.

He soon realized what it was when he found out he couldn't breathe. Frigid water rushed into his nose and mouth, darkness overtaking his vision. And he c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶p̶p̶e̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶i̶e̶ he couldn't bring himself to care enough to stop it- c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶t̶h̶e̶ - Scott pushed himself to the surface, gasping for air. He instantly began to shiver as the cold air hit him, partially wishing he could just go back underwater and get away from the cold forever.

But for some reason he slowly pulled himself up onto the ice, cold hitting him like a wave as the frigid air touched his soaked clothes. He couldn't move any farther, and really, what was the point?

He could do nothing but curl up and shiver, alone on the ice, his skin turning blue from cold.

Scott used to love the color blue. Now it was just a painful reminder of the eternally frozen landscape he was doomed to wander forever. Blue and white. Blue and white. His colors. The only colors.

Just blue and white and cold for all eternity.

don't worry angst gremlins, i have more planned
and it is so much worse, just you wait :)

(now lets be honest c!scott would never think he deserves a happy afterlife)