Cold.

It was destroying Scott's life, and yet he himself couldn't feel it. He wasn't warm, exactly, but he wasn't cold. He should be, standing in the middle of a swirling blizzard atop a lonely mountain, wearing nothing but basic winter gear and fur boots. Even Rivendell's finest clothing should never have been able to keep out every chill in a storm this bad.

But somehow, he wasn't cold, hadn't been cold for weeks despite the consistently worsening weather.

Scott felt tears coming on again and he bit them back. There was no reason to cry about this. He was a menace, a curse, a monster, and no amount of self-pity could change that.

Nothing could change this now. The ice spikes had invaded the land as surely as the corruption had before. Funny how the one place never touched by Xornoth was now the spot suffering most from this new threat.

He suddenly realized he was doing absolutely nothing standing out here thinking over the past few days again... and again... and again. But what could he do? There was no point in doing anything else. This was his life now.

Vaguely he thought he should probably have found some sort of food source since his golden carrots wouldn't last forever. He should go sit inside his cabin where it was warmer. But he wasn't cold, so what was the point?

Maybe he should tear the cabin down, since he wasn't even using it. It would stop the others from finding him. The others. Gods above, the others. He'd abandoned them, running away instead of facing the problem. Just like he did with every problem, except this time it was with him. He was the problem.

Tear down the cabin. That seemed like a good idea. Otherwise Gem would probably come speeding in to instantly find him and drag him back, where he would only cause more harm, more pain, more destruction.

He didn't, of course. He didn't have the motivation to bother to tear down the small hut. So instead he simply waited, letting the snow fall around him.

Two hours later, the snow was already on the verge of burying him alive. The cabin was up to its eaves in snow and it was still piling. Scott stood up, shaking snow off himself. Most of it fell off, but some stubbornly clung to him, and he let it. There was zero point in bothering to brush it off when new snow would just take its place a second later.

The snow was up to his waist, and that was just the newest layer, the bit that had fallen since he'd wandered outside. That amount of snowfall was definitely not normal, but that was just his curse lately, wasn't it? Doomed to bring eternal winter. For there could be no doubt now that was the problem.

He pushed through the snow, struggling to make a path through the heavy, wet stuff. Slowly, he made his way to the door of the cabin, silently thanking Past Scott for making it open inwards. Snow slid in along with him. He tried to shut the door and push it back out, but it refused, so Scott simply let it stay. He'd be buried soon anyways. He had the minimal sense to snuff out the fire before he was trapped.

And he was. Within an hour the snow had covered the doorway and there was a solid wall of white in the way of any escape. The cabin definitely wasn't airtight, but if the snow kept up this way it would cover the roof and leave Scott buried alive.

He wouldn't be alive for very long, though.

As anyone with even a limited understanding of science can tell you, enclosed spaces have a limited air supply. And living creatures use air to breathe, which subsequently is a necessary function for survival.

Which is why being stuck in an airtight space with no means of escape is a death sentence.

Scott was half-tempted to relight the fire. He'd put it out out of habit, knowing it would eat up his air and speed up his death. But he was completely isolated, buried in an unknown spot where no one would find him- he'd made it that way.

A sudden jolt of primal panic struck him. He didn't want to die. The world may have been better off if he did, better off without this eternal winter, but Scott was selfish and he wanted to live, even if he brought the others misery because of it.

He spread his wings (frosted over and covered in icicles now, which was painful and it hurt him to leave his beautiful wings in such a state but he didn't have the motivation for anything recently, too paranoid and busy worrying and wallowing in self-pity and fear) and leaped for the ceiling, aiming to break through the wood.

It smashed, snapping into splintery bits of timber. Scott whimpered as shards of wood dug into his wings, creating new stabs of pain constantly. He tumbled out onto the snow and grimaced in pain again, feeling splinters all over. Tears sprung to his eyes and he groaned.

Snow kept falling, kept burying him. He would have to move and god that would be painful.

What had he done? How had he ended up like this? Lying riddled with splinters, constantly battling ever-falling snow, alone and isolated from everyone for fear of hurting them?

Scott let his wings fall limply on the snow, trying to ignore the stabs of hundreds of splinters in them. He gradually fell into a restless sleep, drifting into consciousness several hours to weakly flap them again, shove snow off himself, and then drift back off.

He would probably end up with hypothermia or some sort of sickness from this, but that was Future Scott's problem. Just like removing the splinters from his wings before they got infected (which they probably already were) was Future Scott's problem.

And yet he was only just beginning to feel cold.

ha i used this lyric as a fic title first LOL

scott is just literally elsa now and i'm here for it
this fic only exists because scott is elsa and that finally got me inspired to write something so i did because i feel bad

oh also yes hi i'm alive

Might make a followup sickfic to this.

also unrelated but my theory is that the xornoth crystal is causing scott to have eternal winter powers, what do you think?