Ozorne hated the snow.
He hated the way that it was so cold, so frigid and dispassionate. Like a dessert turned cold as the day turned from night, but without the spice and sensual taste. No, snow was all tasteless and common, delicacies that were so easily trampled and crushed beneath the commoner's foot. A killer that hid behind the façade of a beautiful dream, making your bones and flesh ache with the pain of it all even as perfect flakes fell to open lips that cried in agony.
He had only seen it once as a young child, but the hate-ridden memory had carried with him even to his adulthood. Wrapped in silks and furs that made him sweat even as his nose turned red and was frozen, a humiliating image for the Prince of Carthak to endure. And his mother's court ladies had laughed and petted him affectionately, as though he were one of the common dogs that trotted behind the party, eagerly sniffing for scraps like the wretches that owned them.
Ozorne sniffed at the memory. He had rid himself of those families a long time ago, he recalled with a smile both reminiscent and sneering. A poisoning here, a bit of blackmail there, the framing of an entire family and hey presto! Embarrassing memories instantly gone.
He rid himself of any problems in his life in just the same fashion. When something made the Emperor less than best, he got rid of it. Simple as that. Arram Draper was a good example.
But snow, snow was something he could not change. It was eternal, filled with angry memories and contempt and perhaps even the faintest bit of jealousy. But within the walls of Carthak, with her hot desert sands and exotic spices, the memory had been locked away, thought of only when he tossed and turned in his sleep, where hatred spurred the flanks of his mind.
And then, that fateful day, when everything had been returned to him. Arram, as powerful as ever with that same mocking face in its generosity and kindness, so pathetic and everything that Ozorne could never be. And with her at his side, in a blue dress that brought out the harsh grey of her eyes. All pale skin and pink lipped and cheeked, a girl born from deep within the mountains of the world.
So beautiful, and fragile looking, and he wanted her. Wanted to own her, to claim her, to pin her down and have her as his own, or have no one have her at all. And all the more as the betrayer, the one time friend placed a protective hand at her elbow, those dark eyes as easy to read as ever as they conveyed a message the same way one would herald from a trumpet.
Stay away, this is mine and mine only.
And Ozorne had smiled graciously, but behind the smile his teeth ground together, his hands ached to clench around that pretty throat and strike the life out of her. For she was not his, and so no one else should have her.
So mocking of her, when she healed his birds- the precious things that were his love and passion, to have a commoner whelp come and heal them with a magic that was no more powerful than his own but oh so much more impressive by its rarity.
It was like a slap in the face, and his cheeks turned ugly with an embarrassed pink flush. A humiliating image, for the Emperor to be bested so easily.
And so he had offered her a place within his arms, a home within his empire, and so much more he offered her than he did even the most beautiful of princesses. To her, a common whore. And she had denied him. Denied him again and again.
And then when he had tried to get rid of her, she had not died. No, instead she fought to best him again, an army of the dead ruining his image of sands and spices, turning it instead into one of mud and rubble. And when he was cornered, she had just stared at him so blankly, so cold and hard, and he knew what she was.
She was the snow.
Beautiful and tender on the outside, but so common. A commoner's dream of white snowflakes and grey blue eyes. A dream he could not have, could not claim, but taunted him as an everlasting nightmare. And jealously had burned, and when her gaze had turned the flame cold he had been in fear, and slashed the silver wing into his arm and flown away.
Now he watched her, laughing and talking with the vile betrayer. Her cheeks were pink but her skin was white, and he shuddered, metal wings rattling as he drew himself further in from the dark and cold.
Gods, he hated the snow.
A/N: woo. In thanks for all my wonderful reviews to my first TP fiction, I present you another drabble. Slight Daine/Numair here, but mainly one sided angry Ozorne/Daine. Oh beautiful Ozorne, how insane you were. Its set in the third and fourth book of the immortals series in case there might be some wonderers. R R as always!