Well, hello. It seems I couldn't bear to leave the fandom as it was. And don't flay me on this story; it was written on a whim, and also out of sadness that the Maple archive is so slow.

I don't really know whether I believe what I just wrote. In a way, I do. In another way, it's all meaningless. Because we aren't immortal. But it's nice to imagine yourself as someone else for once.

Don't ask about the second voice of the story. I'm not sure who it is. Just an ordinary adventurer, I suppose.

The story takes place within a single gaze.

Monster

Don't you ever dream?

I know you are a monster, you look like a monster, you murder like a monster, you hate like a monster. You have never known anything higher or more holy than this cave of misdeed that won't let you breathe.

You have nothing of the world above, but shadows. Shadows on the walls, flickering like demons, but less demonic than yourself. Shadows taunting you, asking you to guess, never telling you the answers.

Don't mock me. I have no tears to shed.

You have never walked before, and all you can do is destroy the ones who can walk. And slash them apart, and play with their legs—their dismembered, bleeding legs, with old water on their boots. You imagine walking, like them.

Then their legs fade in your hell-rot, and you are left with empty hands. Only hands, so many hands. No legs.

But is thisyour only prison?

I will free myself! I will kill them, again and again! Their blood will free me! It will set me free, from this guilt—

Is that freedom?

They will kill you too, again and again.

Their pain vanishes. It takes a mere impulse of devil-rage. A heart ceases to beat, the clockwork slipping off its rails, the cogs shattering on fire-drenched stones. They stop hurting, just like that.

They stop breathing, and then they become stars.

What are stars? Why do you speak to me in riddles?

Your pain never vanishes. They kill you and kill you. You die, and you die again. And you always rise like before, wearier than last time, wearier than ever—but no less alive. No less monstrous. You rise, to be killed again.

Your fire will continue to burn as long as the people of snow continue to live. Like the light and the shadow, like the snowy poles of the world, you live only as long as the other lives. You are destroyed together. And until the ice has melted, you will continue to burn. You will.

It doesn't matter how many lives you take, how many rocks you have stained with blood. The axes have frayed, but your world is still spinning.

Is that freedom?

Let it, then! I will kill them again. I will be there to murder them when they come! They are an endless line, but I am a circle. I am unchanging.

I never asked for immortality. I never asked to be a circle. Die, and live again. Die, and live, and die again. But is there anything else for me? But unchange? Who am I to question my prison?

When I have enough blood upon my fists, I will be unshackled. I can live till I am dust, and continue to live even then. I will burn forever, and that burning is my freedom!

I will live beyond them. Millennia beyond them. I will see times they will never see.

I don't have to see stars. Or snow. I don't have to die. I don't have to walk! I will be free because my imprisonment never ends.

—free—free—free—

But is that freedom? Tell me, is that freedom?

It's the only freedom I can hope to know.

Then is it real freedom? There has to be more. You know that there is a world outside, a world of snow and starlight. You need it as much as I—

"Snow" is horrible, so is "starlight"—they are nothing but words.

But they exist—you won't believe me, but they exist.

They are pure, pale, white.

They are cold. So unlike these flames. They, too, become nothing in the morning. Nothing at the end of winter. But as they vanish, something new rises to take their place.

Something new.

Why—why do you speak to me in riddles? Why do you try to entice me? Why do you take me for a fool?

This is hell, and I am a monster. I am the jester of the king, chained to his throne. Let me live my fate! What can you do to change this, being of the snow? What can you do, but talk to me only to leave me in the darkness?

Don't mock me! I have no tears to shed, no tears, no tears—

Yes, you do.

I HAVE NO TEARS!

I know you are a monster. You look like a monster, you murder like a monster, you hate like a monster.

But who is to say? I am as much a monster as you.

Don't you ever dream, of something new?

Something different from this eternity?

When people come, you only kill them, because they have things that you will never own. When you see these shadows flickering among the cracks of the wall, you wonder what they are.

And you want to know.

You have never known anything more than this cave of misdeed. You have never known any play, but that of the puppets on your wall. Calling, calling, from a world you cannot reach. Even with ten hands. You tell me, you tell yourself, you are content with what you have.

But can you deny that you have ever wanted more?

You dream like an angel. You seek the light that all angels long.

Can you deny it?

D—don't—don't compare me to the angels. I am a monster, and I cannot be anything more.

Close your eyes, and imagine, child. Those hands, they look a little like wings.

I cannot. I am trapped inside this circle. Forever.

And are you content, letting it be?

Do monsters dream?

You hear whispers of "starlight" and "snow", and yes, maybe they are only words to you.

But they are all you have, from the world above. They are all you have, from the world you will never see.

I can do nothing for you; I cannot free you. I cannot give you legs or wings. I cannot take you away from here, and I cannot bring the world to you. But I can make it easier.

And how?

Don't you dream?

…

Don't you?

Yes. I do.

I dream of dying.

I dream of living.

Because this isn't living.

Then keep dreaming. That is freedom. Keep watching the shadows on the walls, and imagine what they could be. Keep watching the snow-people that come, and imagine what that wetness on their boots is.

…is it snow?

Snow. It vanishes in your fire.

Because one cannot exist with the other. But one cannot exist without the other, either. Fire and ice. Shadow and light. Human and monster.

They are one and the same, aren't they?

Watch the shadows, and don't forget.

When they murder you, take faith to know that you have another chance to live.

When you murder them, give them the angels' deaths that they deserve. Because they are like stars. They are born to shine, and fade, and die. They don't have another chance to live.

And yes, you are one and the same. You are an angel too.