Steve dreams. He knows he's dreaming, in the way of dreams, but can't seem to wake up.
He doesn't want to wake up. There is cold there.
"Yes," says his strange companion, as Steve mentions this, "It is cold where you are. And humans don't do well in the cold. I'm sorry."
Steve eyes him again, his deep cerulean skin, his deeper blue eyes, his ice-white armor, and shivers at the connection his mind makes. "You are the cold, aren't you?"
The creature laughs. "I am not the ice for your world, but yes. Aegis, Elemental spirit of Ice and Valor. It seems we are both waiting for something."
At Steve's inquiring look his companion, Aegis —didn't that mean shield?—went on, "My SoulWeaver is in much the same state as you, trapped in ice, and I can't undo it. The little dragon will not let me near."
Dragons. This spirit –and isn't that a strange concept- has a dragon.
"Why come to me?" Steve asks, looking out at the endless expanse of ice and light that spreads before them.
Aegis shrugs. "You needed a shield. I am a protector."
"Why now?" Steve asks, wishing for pencil and paper, wanting to draw the endless expanse of beauty that spreads before them, the wall of wind preventing him from reaching it.
"The barriers flex with the changing of the cycles. Worlds cross and rejoin, and the Plane of Elemental Spirits brushes more than one world at all times." Aegis' words explain everything and nothing, but it makes sense, in the way of dreams.
Steve wants to ask more, but finds a different question rising instead. "How long will…" he trails off, instead gesturing mutely at the plain around them.
A gentle smile. "Forever and an instant. Time is also subjective, here." The cool hand brushes his own for a moment as the other rises to his feet. "You will be free soon, and so will my SoulWeaver."
Steve makes a connection as the dream shifts around them. "Your SoulWeaver," and what does that even mean? He should fear something by that name, but here in this dream it is only expected, "and I will both be free soon? Is there a connection?"
Aegis frowns a little, eyes a deeper shade than the ice shadowed by the helmet he wears. "I'm not quite sure. Your Threads are crossed, but you'll never meet. Still… I'm here."
This time Steve asks the question he's been trying to ask. "How long have I been like this?"
"As humans measure time in your world…" Aegis thinks for a moment. "Seventy years, I think."
The answer is not as shaking as it should be. The dream is strange that way.
Soon, the spirit promises, soon he will be free. What does free even mean, when seventy years have gone by? Should he just wake up now, and die?
No. He won't. Bucky would hate him forever if he did, and forever is a long time in death.
He asks another question. "Will I remember this?"
This time the shrug is accompanied by a smooth crackle of ice as the spirit's form shifts a bit, more armor crawling up his body. "You are crossed into the Plane of Elemental Sprits, but you are not a SoulWeaver, or a SoulSmith. I don't know."
They remain like that in the white plane for a moment longer, an eternity, before the dream recedes.
And when he wakes, it feels as if there is something hovering at the edge of his thoughts, like a face he can't recall, a dream of a dream.
Something about snow.
Yes, snow and ice.
A.N. Credit for the awesome cover picture goes to glasscitadel on Devaintart.