Fire and Ice - Heart of Frost
He tasted like fire.
In my mind it still sounds ridiculous, but there's no other way to describe it. The heat of his breath was inhuman, and there was always the faintest tinge of ash lurking there. He didn't smoke. It wasn't like that at all. More like the living flame he held inside him was so uncontainable... to be with Lance was to let that molten essence pour into you, to be lost in the warmth of his eyes and the scorching touch of his tongue.
It began because he was in the right place at the right time. That simple. I couldn't even see him as a person, not at first... he was the avatar of rebellion, the symbol of all that I'd been hidden from my whole life. Beyond human. He dared me to answer his advances, and I took that dare so easily I think it startled him.
But I knew who he was. Lance had a reputation, one so widespread that even I'd heard of it. With girls. How he latched onto me, I'm not sure. But he latched, and he latched hard, and what in the world did I know about romance? I'd been protected. Sheltered. Always.
Try to taste the fire, and you'll only get burned. I remember thinking that the first time we kissed. And thinking, just as quickly, that it surely had to be worth it. That I would try to catch this flame in my hands for as long as I could, no matter how much it would end up hurting.
But it never hurt.
Not from his actions, anyway.
The pain came much later. When I was too weak to fight my way back to him. When I lost my grip on that blaze that owned my soul.
Growing up as royalty means you don't know what it is to be alive.
I'd never had a confidant in my life. The idea of speaking to someone as an equal, sharing our secrets out of nothing more than friendship... something in that flooded me with a warmth that was different, but no less pleasant, than the physical attraction we shared.
Which admittedly was so much more than friendship.
I could tell him anything. Everything. It was no use hiding anything he wanted to know, though there were so few things I tried to hide. Not from him. My heart and soul were his, unquestioned. Of course I trusted him with the deepest corners of my mind. Even when I was angry with him that trust could never be broken.
That happened often enough... I'd always believed I was unshakable. He took some kind of mad delight in proving me wrong, in showing just how many ways he could get under my skin, in pushing me to the edge and grabbing me back just before I could slip.
Somehow he always knew just where to stop.
I'd be two seconds from losing my temper, and suddenly he'd shut up and do something like run his lips down my ribcage or start licking like flame over my skin... and it would be gone. I'd spent my life nursing the ability to hate, and he could melt it all away in a moment. Whatever he'd said that nearly set me off would be off limits from that point forward, and I still don't know how he kept all the targets he'd already hit straight in his mind.
Let alone how he kept finding new ones.
Nobody else has ever made me feel vulnerable. I wouldn't tolerate it if they did. But with Lance I was always vulnerable, wondering where he would venture next, what new plot he had to send fire racing down my spine. And he never disappointed. Never.
I tried to ask him about himself so often. I wanted to know what it was like, having some semblance of a normal life on a normal planet. More importantly I wanted to know what it was that drove the eternal flame he held within. What made my lover's soft brown eyes flicker with that taunting, challenging light.
Questions usually got me the same answer. I can still hear it so clearly in my mind.
"That's for me to know and you to find out." So Lance. He spoke with that songlike, mocking lilt that made me want to either punch him or kiss him until he broke. But it was not a refusal to answer. Not if I paid the right price.
Is it still a price if you look forward to paying it?
Kissing worked at first. At least until he realized he could make a game of it, decide what he really wanted, wait until I figured it out. Very creative, Lance was... but I always got my answers. Sort of.
He was such a wonderful storyteller.
Those were some of the happiest moments. Lying up against him, soaking up the searing heat of his skin, listening to him weave tales of his past that I'm pretty sure were usually pure fiction. By that point it didn't even matter. I just wanted to hear him talk, watch that smirk dance over his face, drift off in the afterglow and awaken still by his side.
They ordered me to come back.
Did I not make it clear enough, when I left that hopeless wasteland of a planet, that I wanted no part of my role? How dare they call me back like some sort of pet to return at their whim? Forget it. I'd found... not where I belonged. But who I belonged with. And I was not going anywhere.
Anywhere!
I went to Lance to reassure myself. To cauterize my fury with his touch. To beg him to tell me I was right... maybe beg isn't quite the right word. But I pleaded with him so often. To make him see how much I needed him. Knowing I was sinking to such a level would have infuriated those idiots back on Crydor, who thought I should be above such things, and that was an added bonus.
Besides, he could never actually say no to me. His pressure points were my playthings, the only question was how long he could hold out.
But how the hell did he know I had a title? I don't think I'd realized how truly well he could read me.
I never did make much of a prince. There was no pride in the name, no glory. Only the crushing weight of a responsibility I didn't want to bear. Sit around and be regal. Learn diplomacy and live your life as a soulless figure of reverence. This is your duty, to the planet, to your people. To the monarchy.
The people and the monarchy can still rot in a frozen hell. At the time I was pretty sure the planet could share the same fate.
What really says how deep my disdain for that nonsense went... I never did tell Romelle. I let her believe I was nothing but a pilot, even tried to claim that might come between us. When I finally rejected my title, I rejected it thoroughly. Perhaps inconveniently so. But I never was one to make decisions out of convenience.
Obviously. Look who I was in love with.
This was Lance. He wasn't known for commitment. And here it had been three months... three months that felt like they'd passed by in three minutes, though every night had lasted a lifetime.
When he argued about my decision not to return, I couldn't help wondering. But no. This would not be the end. It couldn't be. I needed him too much, and I trusted him not to let me go.
I trusted him.
And this was Lance, and surely I should have regretted trusting him long before that moment, but if you have to regret it wasn't ever trust at all, was it? I couldn't stand it, and I wasn't waiting. I kissed him like I truly believed I would never do so again, and looking back sometimes I wonder if that was the truth.
Maybe he was testing me. Maybe, every once in awhile, he just needed to hear me say what he was already so certain of. His reasons didn't matter. What mattered was that he wrestled me to the sheets and dispelled any fragment of doubt I may have had.
The world always became... softer... after sex. Everything took on a paleness and quiet where I could pick out patterns and facts more easily. I was still tangled up with him when I came to fully realize what I'd just done. That I had committed to throwing away the only life I'd ever known, hateful as it may have been, after four months on an alien world. Three months in this hellion's grasp.
"Lance..."
"You've been holding out on me, Sven. That was even better than usual."
"Lance."
His gaze could go from teasing to concerned so quickly. "What's wrong?"
Remember how I wouldn't be vulnerable for anyone else? My greatest show of trust. "I'm... afraid."
The way he looked at me. Like he'd heard it all before. Like he'd been expecting that admission forever. Like he knew everything. He did know everything. And then he pulled me even closer, somehow. I was bigger than him, but he was surrounding me, his body ablaze, eyes locking me in place as if I might never move again, and that would have been just fine.
"I'm here."
He didn't say anything else. He didn't have to.
That hothead always did know how to get himself in trouble. Taking on Haggar alone though, really? That was a little beyond the usual antics.
I had a shot at her. Could've taken it. She didn't notice me charging in, trying to find him, wondering where on Arus he'd gotten himself lost this time because he couldn't stick to the castle where he ought to have been. And there she was, her back to me, all but begging for me to strike. She didn't notice. But she wasn't alone.
Somehow I knew the cat was something more. Knew I couldn't let it touch him. So I passed up the chance to end the witch's threat and threw myself at Lance with all my strength.
I've always been selfish like that.
Later on, in the hospital, they would try to tell me the details. Which veins the bite had pierced, how much blood I'd lost, how lucky I was to have survived that before the robeast even came into the picture. How they had done everything they knew to treat the infection and thought they had it contained. But I didn't care about any of it.
Only him.
I saw the shadow. Coming for us. No... coming for Lance. But it wasn't going to touch Lance, because Lance was mine, because I couldn't live without him and if I couldn't save him there was no reason to exist, and then the shadow drew up and...
Everything.
Burned.
The force of the strike drove me painfully into him, mocking all the intimacy we'd shared before that point. For a moment it was as if my whole body was trying to quench his flame. He was smothered by my embrace, drenched with my blood, soaking up my tears.
Of course I cried. I cried like I never had before, like I never have since. I cried because I thought I was dying... not because I feared death. No. Only because death was coming and my voice had already fled. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak.
Couldn't tell him for the last time that I loved him.
Is that implicit when you die for someone?
My body was stronger than my mind. No... maybe it wasn't that. I refused to die until I knew he was safe. But when the blackness set in I knew no such thing, and so I did not die. Not on Ebb, where a patient from Arus raised eyebrows because the worlds barely had any contact. Not on Doom, where I remembered how to be alone and moved through the caves like a frozen ghost. Not on Pollux, after regaining contact, where I kissed him so fiercely and drank in his warmth and told him I couldn't come back quite yet.
Not on Crydor... where there is nothing left to live for.
I wish I'd just died protecting him. Faded away in his arms. I could have been happy with that.
My son's name is Geir. It's a good name. Powerful. Fitting for the last son of Crydor.
It means spear.
So does Lance.
I wish I'd had time to tell him... he would be so embarrassed. That makes it better, though. I can almost imagine his reaction, and it makes me laugh even if it's only a dream.
Honestly there's so little but dreams to laugh at anymore. Ever since I had to flee Pollux with my child... my child! It still sounds so unnatural. So impossible.
How could that have come about?
Simple, really. I was doing Romelle a favor.
That sounds so arrogant Lance would probably approve of it, but I don't mean it like that. My relationship with her... how to explain it? I loved her so strongly. And I still do. Never as desperately as I loved Lance, but still, the bond between us is as unbreakable as it is indescribable.
But it is entirely platonic.
She knew I could feel nothing physical for her. I would never string her along like that, allow her to think otherwise. She knew and accepted it.
Still we loved. We confided. She's only the second person in my life I could trust like that, and we shared our darkest shadows.
What Lotor did to her... was terrible. She couldn't bring herself to speak of everything, but she told me more than enough. Enough that whenever I think of that miserable creature, I embrace every bit of my infected rage, with nothing but his death in my mind. It doesn't seem to stick, does it? But if he keeps coming back, I can keep killing him. In a few hundred such deaths he might begin to have paid for his sins.
Those shadows never fade.
But Romelle was a princess, and she took her duty seriously in a way I never took mine. There were practical concerns. Suitors would come. An heir was required. And she could not stand the touch of any man.
Except me.
That was the favor. To try to purge those hateful memories, to erase Lotor's torment and write a happier story to replace it. She trusted me deeply enough to ask, and I loved her deeply enough to agree.
I could not have anticipated...
She screamed. God, how she screamed—not in ecstasy but in pure terror as the flashbacks were reflected in her eyes. Love is not supposed to be that way! The first time I nearly ran, but she wouldn't allow it. Wouldn't let me abandon her, no matter how painful it might be. And so I became the ice, locking out the screams, my heart impenetrable to all but the flame.
Romelle never burned. Not like Lance.
We were careful. Very careful. And yet somehow... there was a child. Such a scandal could not be allowed. And so I fled Pollux, taking Geir with me, promising to keep him safe.
I failed. Of course I failed.
But he's safe now. And far closer to the one I love than I am.
I think it was her screams that woke the infection. That sparked my rage until it became uncontainable. But I can't be certain. It might have been something far darker...
I betrayed him.
The child I'd taken with me was a political nuisance to Pollux, but to me he was so much more. A tangible symbol of my unfaithfulness. No, he was not conceived in that spirit... but the fact remains, the boy is mine. And dear as he is to me, the guilt is crippling.
I hate myself far more than I could ever hate Lotor.
Either way, the rage overwhelmed me. My people are predisposed to such berserker fury, and I'd thought I had it contained, but clearly not so much as I'd hoped. The old wound surged with a terrible life of its own, and my plans to find sanctuary on Earth faded as its intensity grew.
The only thing I'd never told Lance was the name of my planet. I told him I would not speak it, my hatred ran that deep. He didn't challenge that. Sometimes I think—no—I know that was Lance's most powerful display of love. Those rare moments where he simply agreed not to press.
With the infection as it was, I had no choice. The chill of that world which had once nearly broken my soul might save it. But just as I abandoned my people, they abandoned me. When I returned to Crydor nothing was left but ruins. The Fifth Diaspora was over... they had moved on.
I don't know where they are now. I don't care where they are! They abandoned their own world as well. To hell with them.
I feel quite comfortable wishing for others to go to hell. I've been there.
I'm still there.
Crydor is mine now. Some irony there... when it became a lifeless and shattered world, I finally came to see it as a home I could be proud to rule. And for a few months I even had some hope. Perhaps I was driven by the madness of the infection, perhaps by the madness of my own hated past. I thought maybe Geir and I might rebuild this planet. Make it a place of healing rather than misery, glory rather than rage.
Foolishness. But I held onto it because it was so much easier than admitting I'd exiled us to a dead world.
Perhaps Maahox and his broken deal really did cure my son, in a way. He saved him from me.
The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him. Damned hothead. If he'd just stayed still... if he'd just listened... no. I know I attacked him first, but I couldn't help it! How could I possibly try to explain what I was doing when my body was screaming for blood?
I can double cross as well as any Drule. My mistake was in not thinking they would beat me to the punch.
At the time it seemed so easy, so clever. I promised to give them Blue Lion. I said nothing about its key. Crydorian black ice tech is very precise, but its products can't hold their form outside the arctic winds of this world. I had the false key all ready for the trade. Geir and I would be healed, and Maahox would be going nowhere.
With the infection gone I could help the team again. Reveal the deception. Get Blue Lion back, and leave this miserable place forever. But only after being cured... I'd be a liability otherwise.
And I was.
I know perfectly well I'm not rational like this. But knowing it isn't enough. There's only so much to be done, to fight it when the searing malice seeps into my mind.
Searing. Yes.
Whenever the infection flares... the pain is one thing. I've known plenty of pain, once even dared to think I was beyond it. I can handle that. The daggers stabbing out from the wound, the way my blood suddenly stings the insides of my veins. An inconvenience, no more.
But it burns. It always burns.
Damn it! Go ahead. Corrupt my mind, twist my body. But do not defile the fire! Leave me at least that much. I will gladly watch myself break, helpless against this malignancy, if only you leave me the pure memory of that flame.
Of course it isn't so simple.
Of course it isn't so merciful.
Every time the wound burns, I let it reign. I will not shroud myself in the cold. Will not let this vile inferno become a mockery of past love. My ice is for him alone to melt away.
I... I want him to come back. No. He must not come back! But I just want... one more time. Touch me once more. Remind me how it feels to burn with pleasure rather than agony, and let that last moment of redemption be my funeral pyre.
I still love you, Lance.