Chapter 8

Elena spends her mornings sleeping in the blessed dark of her Hall where ice doesn't let a ray sunlight pierce the shadow.

Her ice has taken a life of its own. When Elena passes out in the woods while returning inebriated, the ice drags her to her palace by foot.

It combs her hair, rubs against her face to wake her up, pinches her to buy new clothes for the sake of her modesty.

It tries to do everything her son would have done, and some nights when Elena cries in her sleep, thin protrusions of frost fall from the ceiling against the hard floor in a symphony to lull her back to sleep.

Elena knows she is falling, that grief has now become an excuse to lose herself in alcohol. She knows that her heart doesn't hurt the same way when she thinks about her son. Years have passed and she has almost stopped hurting. And that realization drives her to drink more.

She hates herself.

What mother forgets the pain of losing her son?

Maybe the people are right. She wasn't a mother to begin with.

Ice has covered her wounds and hardened her heart. She is the Ice goddess. She is no longer Jeremie's mother. Even the cursed tears don't fall from her eyes when she stares at the frozen form of her son.

She is heartless.

So, she drinks.

At Least, when everything is hazy and her mind muddled, she can pretend that her frozen boy is alive…

~TX~

When she opens her eyes one morning, she is not near her son's feet. She is lying on her bed. Covered with sheets, her cloak nowhere in sight.

And there's a human sitting on the floor beside her bed.

A human.

Sitting on her icy floor from who knows how long.

She hastily throws away the covers, intending to rouse the human who may or may not have died from exposure to cold. The human shifts probably as a reaction to the noise, and raises his head from where it has been lying on her bed.

His eyes are scrunched and waves of hair fall over his forehead, long enough to touch the cheek. He is pale and he has a nice mouth, Elena thinks, surprised by the line of her thoughts.

His hands move the hair away from his face and he rubs his eyes, trying to shake off the last traces of sleep.

He opens his eyes-

And Eena promptly closes hers…

They are blue.

The human's eyes.

They are blue.

The kind of blue that is left in a sky on a sunny day.

The kind of blue reflected in her eyes when she shallowly freezes a lake.

The kind of blue that her son looks like…

It is quite some time before her lids move and her gaze falls upon him. He is staring at her.

He is pale, and angular, sharp bones softened with skin, his jaw curves to form a face which is haunting in its beauty.

Elena thinks she is still drunk.

There is no other reason for why her eyes hold his gaze and she sits staring at him, unmoving.

If it weren't for the icicle that drops from the ceiling to shatter against the foot of her bed, she thinks they would've sat there looking like fools.

"Who are you?" She croaks as she swings her leg to the side. Ice crawls from beneath the bed to mold itself into slippers of snow. She huffs as she pushes her feet into it.

The ice is temperamental. It likes wrapping itself on her body like a blanket she can't shake, in forms that it deems are necessary for her. In mornings it's a sheer stretch so thin that it almost resembles a fabric when it moves over her cheeks, then it morphs into a comb as it painstakingly works out tangles she doesn't give a damn about. It's always some kind of footwear before she steps outside her palace. Her ice doesn't like her bare feet on brown earth, her skin over stones, leaves and thorns that litter the streets.

"Your name, human?" She questions again, as she moves to round the bed to get a good look at the boy who is somehow in her palace and still not dead.

"Damon," He whispers. He has folded his body on his knees, head bowed in supplication, palms flat over his thighs.

Oh.

He sits like the boys at the brothel she passes sometimes on her way to the next town, awaiting instructions from their master.

There is something vulnerable in the lines of his body, a fear that she notices when she's near enough that her snow shod feet are inches from his knees.

His hair is unruly and it curls. Unbidden, her hands sink in his locks, and she grabs a fistful to tilt his head up.

His eyes are still on the floor.

She gives a harsh tug and he whimpers as his eyes meet hers.

"What is a human doing in my palace?"

"I…I found you… p-passed out in the forest."

His eyes are glassy, and she is sure if he blinks one more time, tears are going to make a perfect track on his pale cheeks.

Her hold is probably too strong, she thinks, but her fingers don't ease up.

"And what were you doing in my forest?" She asks softly, but there is a sinister edge to her voice that makes him flinch.

He doesn't answer, but his eyes, they are wide and pleading.

She waits for pity to well, for her heart to hurt, but even after countless moments, she doesn't feel a thing.

She grips his jaw so tightly that she knows it's bound to hurt. He cries out softly and the tears that run down one of his cheeks wet the tip of her index finger.

She doesn't feel a thing.

Frustrated, she let's go of her hold on his hair as well as his face, and he sinks, spine bowing as if he's a puppet and she's cut off the strings.

"Why were you in my forest, human?"

"I was running away," He confesses softly.

"From?" She picks up one of his hands that's lying in his lap, turning it to examine his palm. There are calluses at the base of his thin shapely fingers, scars of cuts long healed.

"My master… "

Ah, a runaway slave then. But he's too pretty to be a common one.

A whore, perhaps?

"Tell me, boy," She drawls as she drops his hand, "how come you aren't dead from the cold?"

"I have spent many a night freezing outside my master's door," He replies bitterly, raising his head to look at her, expecting her to see his suffering in his eyes.

She doesn't care for his pain, she thinks in resignation. She is the Ice Goddess. She is eternal and unchanging. She has no use for softness or feelings.

He's pretty and hurt, and used to receiving pain, she thinks in surprise. He is the kind of toy she wouldn't mind having for herself. She knows gods have pets. She can have one too, can't she?

She tried for a companion, and got a good man killed. She wanted a son, but got a frozen statue of her boy in return. She can have a human pet. They aren't envied or frowned upon in Heaven or by Mad Goddess.

Pets are allowed. You don't hurt when they die. You bury them in a corner of your garden, shed tears for a moment or two and then, you move on. You get a new one and you lavish all your shallow affections on it. It doesn't demand anything, is content with whatever scraps of feeling you are willing to throw it's way.

A pet won't hurt.

"So, would you like to serve me, human?" She asks. The tendrils of ice twine around her arms like baby snakes, coming to rest around her wrists in a thick band.

One rope of it twines around her throat like a choker, another moves over her forehead to settle as a circlet of ice spikes.

Were she someone else, she would've been red from mortification, but she has grown used to the displays.

"May I?" The naked hope in his eyes, in those damning blue eyes makes her want to hide.

She should turn him away, she thinks again. She might not feel anything, but those blue eyes, they are trouble. And Elena doesn't want to care again, doesn't want to give grief another chance to pull one over her.

She simply won't care, she thinks resolutely. He's just a pet.

"Come now, human, let me show you the place where you will stay…" She calls out.

The walls in front of her move to give way to a columned corridor.

She is bored enough to give a tour to a human. Where is that blasted Immortal General who was to fight and defeat her?

She has been waiting for years for that fight and that God still hasn't come calling at her door…

Watched a really cool movie, "Divine Fury". My song of the moment is " Valentine's Day" By Linkin Park. So, you people were really awesome with the words that you left for me in reviews of the last chapter. Come say hi to me on Twitter or Facebook, the link is in the bio.

Stay safe. I love y'all.