Frigidity
"Because penguins are God's way of reminding us that sometime's your birthday suit is the fanciest suit you own."
I do not own Yugioh. All I own is this average sized lump of grey cerebral matter and the craziness it unleashes upon us all.
Anti out, darlings. Enjoy!
Three hundred feet below sea level, temperatures so hot as to dry the marrow inside your bones, and dripping with sulfuric acid; this describes the Ethiopian Danicle Depression, which has absolutely nothing to do with this story. No, the only reason the Depression is relevant is that it serves as a perfect counter example to the terrain in which the following story takes place, namely, an uncharted iceberg on the outskirts of Antarctica. A 'polar opposite', if you will.
Many miles away from the Depression, a flock of penguins converged together from their separate activities to huddle and shield themselves from the bitter frost of the upcoming winter. Unlike the turning of seasons closer to the equator, the little archipelago of icebergs experiences winter all at once as if someone had draped a blanket of darkness over them. The sky drained of the reassuring sunlight, the pale gilded tendrils of light ebbing away, to be replaced with a flurry of fresh snow airborne on the arctic wind.
His tribe was gathering together to take the edge off the harsh conditions, and the penguin called Malik knew he should join them. As if frozen in place, he stood near the edge of his tribe's iceberg watching the sun sinking into the horizon. He shuddered, his inky outer feathers expanding to capture his body heat and the heat of the remaining sunbeam traveling across his chest as it disappeared. Malik hated this season above all else. The smothering darkness surrounded him from all sides, cutting him off from the warmth and brightness he loved. He was afraid of the darkness, and the loneliness it brought. The darkness of winter was when his tribe made its Journey to the other side of the iceberg, to the spot where their eggs would be hatched. It was a long, cold, peril filled escapade, and some lost their lives along the way. This had been the fate of Malik's own mother; she had died along the way trying to protect his egg from the cold. His father managed to get the egg to the proper hatching ground, with the aide of Malik's sister Isis and brother Rishid, but they had never let Malik forget the sacrifice made for his birth.
This entire season was chalk full of bad feelings and memories, but it could get worse. Malik, handsome penguin that he was, had yet to find a mate. Having no egg to hatch, he was excused from the Journey and was free to huddle together with his fellow mateless penguins and eat a luxury that the penguin couples on the Journey had to forego for the sake of making it to the hatching grounds on time.
Malik's sister, however, was making the Journey for the first time with her mate. This meant that Malik would be virtually alone for the first time since birth. His beak clucked in disgust. Why did she have to mate, anyway? Older sisters weren't supposed to abandon their little brothers for...for eggs!
The soft crunching of flippers on the snow awoke him from his reverie. He sighed and turned, expecting to see Isis waiting to drag him away from the fading sun and into the warmth of the flock. His lavender eyes widened in surprise when he saw not his sister but a penguin he'd never seen before. Snow white feathers stuck out every which way in a very untidy manner, their silhouette against the now black sky was the only thing that kept this penguin from camouflaging into the embankment of ice he was stooping on. It was apparent that he hadn't expected to be seen, shock radiating from his brown eyes.
"Malik…?" The stillness was broken by the voice of Isis. Malik hadn't even heard her waddle up behind him! The white penguin's eyes narrowed, flickering with nervous annoyance as Isis' mate joined them as well. His snowy feathers fanned out, revealing his obvious discomfort with the amount of eyes focused on him.
The next few minutes were more blurry to Malik then the falling snow. Isis' mate made the first move, stepping in front of Isis to shield her and the egg between her feet and flap of thermal skin from the potential danger. The strange penguin took the slight movement as a sign of aggression, and lunged at the couple, knocking first the male, and then Isis to the hard ice. Her egg fell from its safety, and rolled five feet from Malik's flippers. He could see the steam rising from it as it began to cool, a chalky grey color spiderwebbing across it. A sickening thought crossed his mind. He could let the egg freeze, and Isis would stay with him when the Journey began the following morning. He wouldn't have to be alone! Shame clutched his heart like a vice. No, how could he even think something so horrid? Isis would never forgive him if he let her baby die. He couldn't afford to lose his sister's love.
The whole train of thought he had just undergone took up no more than two seconds. Unfortunately, the egg was freezing rapidly. Malik dove onto his stomach, sliding the distance between him and his sister's egg. The bitter cold of the shell stung his delicate down feathers when he placed it over his feet. He sighed. Just in time. His relief was short lived, though, as he remembered the scuffle a few feet behind him. Malik craned his neck to see what was happening, and his feathers fluffed in outrage. Isis' mate had hit his head on a sharp piece of ice when he was flung down, and he lay bleeding and unconscious. Isis stood teetering on the edge of the iceberg where Malik had stood to watch the sunset, facing the white feathered stranger. It appeared that Isis had been injured by the other's beak when he had tackled her. Her opponent stood breathing heavily in front of her, a wild look in his eye.
Before he could think through what he was about to do properly, Malik lunged at the intruder. The two tumbled onto the icy patch and slid backwards, away from Isis. They scuffled for a few moments, black and white feathers mixing together in a grey blur. Malik was propelled with indignant anger. How dare this…this random stranger just attack his sister! Her mate was lying in the snow, bleeding to death, possibly dead all ready! Angrily, Malik drove his shocking gold beak into the shoulder of the other, who cried out in equal anger.
A shriek from behind them brought the fray to a standstill. Malik's heart seized up in his chest. He had turned just in time to see Isis' neck snap in the jaws of a seal. Her body fell limp in its mouth, and the seal retreated into the water, dragging Malik's sister away. Nothing was left of Malik's only kin save a few feathers and droplets of blood staining the ice where she last stood. Something tore inside him. No, this could not be. It had happened too fast, it couldn't be real! Feeling helpless and vulnerable, he whipped around to face the one who'd caused all this. The white feathered penguin was sneering; mocking him, mocking his loss. Fury bristled through Malik, and he released the anger and confusion of the last few moments through the first method that popped into his mind. In a blind rage, he attacked the open wound on the penguin's shoulder.
"Damn you!!" Malik shrieked, ripping and tearing, forcing the wound to widen. "Who are you? Who are you?!" He wasn't even aware of what was coming out of his mouth anymore. His brain had stopped sending messages to his mouth a while ago. The words just spilled off his tongue as if they were the only words he knew how to speak. The white feathered penguin smirked mockingly, doing nothing to defend himself. 'Why?!' Malik thought desperately, 'what's he planning? Why doesn't he fight back?'
Wary of falling into some sort of trap, Malik stepped away from his opponent.
"Tch. All worn out all ready?" The penguin spat, brushing himself off as if he didn't have an open, bleeding wound on his shoulder. He too took a step back, so that both of them were on the snowy part of the iceberg, and slouched over, wings akimbo. "And here I thought it would be a few minutes more before you exhausted yourself. It would seem I've overestimated you." His voice definitely fit him; a rich baritone, bemused and spiteful. Inside, Malik felt his pride flare up. He was half tempted to charge this vile penguin again, but he restrained his rage.
"Damn you," he spat instead. It was the only thing he could bring himself to say, although his mind was spinning with unaskable questions. Opposite him, the snow-white penguin chuckled.
"H-heh heh heh, articulate aren't we?" In a fraction of a second, Malik found himself flat on his back, a milky wing pressed across his trachea. Wheezing, the inky plumed penguin struggled to escape the choke hold while the other hissed in his ear, "I'm not here to answer your poorly worded questions, or to be cursed in a very unoriginal manner. The only reason I've kept you alive this long is because I need some information. The others, your 'tribe'...have they left for the Journey? Answer me!"
The last sentence he yelled when Malik remained silent. Of course, even if he had wanted to answer, he couldn't; the white penguin's wing was still pressed against his wind pipe. This must have occurred to Malik's captor, for he rolled his eyes peevishly and released his hold on Malik's throat. Malik didn't waste a second in leaping to his feet, prepared once again to fight. His opponent sighed, aggravated at the monotony of Malik's actions.
"Fight fight fight, we're going in circles. Answer my question, or I'll gut you like a seagull does a fish."
From just outside the pair's peripheral vision, a rock hurtled into the alabaster penguin's temple, and he fell over unconscious. Gasping for breath, Malik turned to find three of the tribe's males running towards him.
"What happened, Malik?" said one. Malik felt as if he were dreaming. Isis was dead. She was really dead. He felt sick, dizzy and sick.
"Oh God..." said one of the others, he didn't know which. They had seen the blood on the ice, and the body of Isis' dead mate. He had apparently taken a fatal blow to the head. Malik's stomach turned. As if through a haze, he became aware of the warm mass above his feet. Isis' egg. 'It stayed safe through the entire fight?' he thought. He pressed against it, held it close against himself, for it was the only piece of his family remaining.
It was incredibly dark. Of course, it was almost impossible to distinguish night from day during the winter months, but it was obvious to Malik that it was late at night. He shuddered, hating the putrid darkness.A meeting had been called to decide what would become of the intruder, and Isis' egg. It had been decided that Malik, the next of kin, would take the egg on the Journey to the hatching ground the next day and raise the child as his own. The intruder would be held prisoner until further notice. He would eventually be put to death.
The thought of that despicable character made Malik growl low in his throat. He wanted to punish him, make him suffer. Death was not enough to right the wrong, no, something far worse must be administered. But what? Safe in the huddle of his fellow tribemates, Malik barely felt warm at all. In one brief quarter of an hour, he'd lost his beloved sister, his only kin, and become obligated to a seventy five mile trek over an unforgiving terrain and through blizzards nearing -100 degrees Farenheight. And what would be his reward at the end of this excursion? Month after freedomless month of caring for a helpless little creature that would do nothing but sit under his Brood Pouch until it grew a thick, downy coat of feathers to keep itself warm independently. Ugh. Surely, there could be no punishment worse than that.
Malik cooed, a delicious idea warming him again. He brought his head out from beneath his wing and begin waddling over to where they were keeping the intruder.
"Tch. What makes you think I won't escape as soon as we reach a desolated area?"
Malik had been able to convince the leaders of his Tribe to allow the intruder to accompany him on the Journey as punishment so long as one of his legs were broken so he couldn't escape, but Malik wasn't about to tell him this. Judging from the ruffian's demeanor, he didn't seem one to choose maiming over death.
"I have my reasons," Malik replied, "The point is, if you come with me your life will be spared. If you don't, you'll be stoned to death."
In a small pit dug by five of the Tribe's males, the intruder sat contemplating. If he accepted, Malik's personal brand of punishment would commence, and Malik's anger would be appeased. The intruder growled lowly.
"Fine. I'll come with you on your little excursion. But don't think I won't kill you and make my escape the instant I get a chance."
Malik smiled. 'Sure, you think that now. Try standing a chance against me when you only have one functional leg,' he thought smugly.
"Great. We leave tomorrow," he said out loud, "So long as we're traveling together, we should probably call each other by name. I am Malik."
"I don't care," the intruder snorted. Malik frowned, and stared down at him. The intruder held his gaze for a full minute before rolling his eyes. "Bakura," he stated, and said nothing more. Malik took this as a sign that their conference was over, and turned from the snow white penguin called Bakura. He waddled back to the safety and warmth of the huddle, passing a large young male with a hefty rock walking back towards the holding pit. Just as he reached the outer layer of penguins, he heard a sharp cry in a familiar baritone. He smirked. Stage one of Bakura's punishments was almost complete.