It was easier to be cold.
It was familiar. Almost comfortable, after the centuries he had spent alone. He kept all of them at arm’s length, as if denying himself their warmth would allow his heart to slip into torpor, allowing his pain to be put to rest.
He hid himself away behind layers of ice, telling himself that if he was cold enough, he could be numb. And if he was numb enough… he would not feel.
Foolishness, in the end.
In the night, the aching still came, carrying with it memories of warm and love, made all the more painful for the lack of it now. He didn’t sleep much. Pacing the halls didn’t keep the echoes away, but at least it changed them into strange company, a companion rather than a punishment. He built for himself a glittering palace of ice, and carved each ghost a room.
Tokens, laid in a line. Coin, canteen, and necklace. Button, animal, and ring. The firing pin. The silver flower.
And himself, a ghost still piloting a solid form, haunting the palace of ice.
But spring came to everyone, eventually. Even permafrost could be thawed.
She appeared to him as a blossom pushing through the snowbanks, the petals of her face fragile and trembling before his icey walls. And it… hurt to look at her. It hurt to hurt her, knowing that flowers need the warmth.
And so… he allowed the curtains parted. He let the sunlight in — just pale dawn fingers at first. A smile here. A kind word there. And ahhhh, how she would bloom!
She spread her roots, growing, changing. Changing him too. Just little things, at first. A home cooked meal. A comedy feed. And little by little, the glacier would shift. And little by little, his heart would wake. Cracks in the ice, revealing the truth behind the walls. That he was lonely. That he could feel. And finally, that he loved so deeply, so truly, that he had long since scarred himself grasping for shards of anything within the dark.
It wasn’t fair to her. He knew this. He knew — she was a bright and loving thing. She needed light, she needed space but he… he needed her. She laughed off his concern, patching up his hurts, and calling him out, playing, laughing, reaching, but he knew… his ice would hurt her too. And so, he pushed her away gently, to find warmer places to be.
But she always came back, and she brought the sunlight with her. Flopping down onto the couch, sighing dramatically as she told him of the world outside of his palace walls, describing everything in such detail that even he had to laugh. True to her name and her nature, she brought spring with her wherever she went.
And then… he found summer within a pair of storm gray eyes, burning with heat that struck straight through the cracks. She had barreled into his life and the rest of the ice simply shattered, exposing his heart once more to the air. It should have been terrifying. It was, truly, but when his heart fell from the palace, she caught it and warmed it gently between her hands.