Chapter 9
The cold press of ice in her palm feels foreign, and she watches dispassionately as the long glassy rope moves to fall on Damon's flesh, cutting it in ribbons.
The red against white is a contrast she doesn't care to remember, and yet, it makes her think of that day, ages ago, when she marched inside the Hall of Gods and blinded Rebekah.
He is curled around his stomach, hands raised to save his face as she whips him mercilessly.
The pieces of her son's frozen form lie beside him. He broke her son.
Damon pushed against the statute and it tipped, and shattered against the floor with a tinkling sound.
Why are there no tears in her eyes?
Why isn't she crying?
She wants to cry.
And kill the human who took what was left of Jeremie.
But he whimpers when her hits land and the sound reminds her of Jeremie's final moments. Her hands shake and the rope dissipates, but she doesn't know what to do.
Damon is crying and chanting apologies under his breath.
He has been her shadow since the moment she told him he could stay. He walks behind her when she ventures in the markets, eyes narrowed and staring at the people who approach her. He even punched a man who was leaning a little close to Elena when they went to watch the new play.
As if Elena needs saving.
As if she can't punch assholes on her own.
It was endearing.
She looks at her hands, the skin pale and smooth, capable of wreaking havoc over cities and countries, over heaven itself. These were the hands that had cradled her son. Put him to sleep with gentle pats on his back.
Where has all that gentility, compassion, and kindness gone?
Not once did Damon beg for mercy, she thinks. Not once did the boy plead to spare him. He only apologized and took the lashes as if he deserved them.
Did he deserve pain?
And the question startles her like a bolt of lightning touching her skin, jolts her awake from the hazy, sleepy fog she has been in since Jeremie's death.
Her son has been dead for years and years. Her feet move towards Damon's prone form. Jeremie's dead and she avenged him. His body, she should've let it go.
She sits beside his shaking body.
She willingly inflicted pain, she thinks in disgust. How is she different from those bastards up in the Hall of Gods?
A wave of her hand and a hole opens in the floor, the pieces of Jeremie's body disappearing in the space.
She will lay him to rest in a meadow, she thinks. She will do it after she has dealt with what she has done in her apathy.
She gingerly touches Damon's arm and he flinches, tries to move away from her touch. She deserves it.
"I am sorry," She says as she maneuvers him on his front, head cushioned on her thigh. The wounds run deep, flesh parted and gaping and she wants what she has always wanted in the moments faced with human and godly fragility: for her hands to wield anything but ice.
Maybe, in this moment when his body lies bloody and broken, she finally understands her godhood.
She is a God, she thinks. She isn't supposed to hold on to things. She isn't supposed to covet, want or need. She is a God, and a God can't give into grief, can't let longing creep into her heart.
She is supposed to be eternal, unbothered by human tendencies.
She is a God, she thinks with resignation.
She isn't supposed to feel too deeply.
She gently lays his head on the floor, and stands up, shrugging the thick fur cloak to wrap it around him.
She picks him up easily and ice morphs around her, shortening the distance to the main door. His struggles are feeble and she holds him tightly, paying no heed to his whispered protests.
Elena owns up her mistakes. She did this to him, and she isn't so full of pride as to not take him to the apothecary to hide her deeds.
"I have been a terrible mistress, haven't I?" She talks as she walks, arms full of his weight, warmth making her uncomfortable. Despite the cape he is wrapped in, she can feel his temperature and it makes the ice want to cover the bundle in her arms to extinguish the heat.
"I have never before wielded my whip on a human," She confesses.
"It's… it's okay, mistress," He whispers. The sound of his labored breath moving in his hollow chest is too loud.
"It's never okay to hurt someone, Damon," She says sadly.
The memories of her small form bundled in her father's lap while he combed through her wild hair are exceptionally vivid today.
"It's never okay to hurt someone, Elena… " She doesn't remember the context of the conversation, the story that perhaps preceded it, the cause that left her with mud on her cheeks, scratches on her small arms and hair, a crow's nest. "Not even when they hurt us?" Pipes baby Elena in her memories, eyes narrowed and lips in a pout.
Her father's reply is lost in the disappearing haze of her memories. It has been so long that only instances remain now, and a vague feeling that she once had a father who adored her the most in the world.
So, this piece of memory is a surprise.
"I had a son," She says. "He died. The statute you bumped against was his body."
His repeated "I am sorry" is just a faint impression now.
"I should have let him go," She says, crossing the unmarked boundary of thinning trees that marks the borders of her realm. "I was holding on to the wrong things. I should have kept the memories and let go of the guilt… "
He doesn't say anything, and the sound of breath rattling his chest is faint at best.
"Open your eyes, Damon," She commands softly and the wet lids move to present blue eyes that are more the color of the bruise than the sky.
"I will try not to be a barbarian from now on," She promises softly as she crosses the threshold of the apothecary.
Next hour passes in a flurry of activities. She waits outside, according him his privacy and when she is called inside again, he is bandaged across his torso and upper arms, his eyes closed in an exhausted sleep.
Carrying him back is no bother. His temperature is still running on the higher side and the man who dressed his wounds and fed him medicine told her it wasn't anything to worry about.
The rhythmic movement of his chest is assuring and so is the falling snow.
"Tatkan missed us, Tatki. He came to us as snow… "
Jeremie would have loved the snow, she thinks as she walks inside her palace, moving towards the nearest door that ice opens. It is a moderate sized room with a crystal platform. She lays down bundled up Damon gently atop the cool, shiny surface and walks out, taking a right to the Hall, where she has stored the remains of her son…
~TX~
The humans who reside in towns near the Goddess' woodlands witness an amazing phenomenon that evening.
On one side of the sky, sun slowly sinks beneath the crystal blue horizon, slowly reigning in the burst of orange and yellow, while on the other side, snow keeps falling like peach blossom petals from soft azure sky.
In the heart of the forest, in a meadow carpeted where wildflowers run riot, she lays her son to rest, humming his lullaby for one last time.
The Ice Goddess bids her son her final farewell…
~TX~
Wish I had those ice powers. Summer is whooping my ass. Finished watching "King: the eternal monarch". The end could have been better. Currently moving my arms awkwardly in a facsimile of dance on " Milky Way between us" by O3ohn.
This one is coming to an end. Two to three chaps max, I guess.
Be on a lookout for a brand new Delena where Damon and Elena eyefuck a lot.
Love y'all.
Stay safe.
