The Ice Maiden

The cold, biting winds of the North bit into the man’s skin through his cloak and thick winter clothing as he climbed through the mountains. It was so cold that the very stinging tears rolling down the man’s alabaster face were freezing in the wind, dropping off as small, frozen crystals. This magician had been travelling the world, searching for something that he could use to truly leave his mark. He had used his magic for both good and ill, but neither brought him what he yearned for, so he continued travelling.

He was a talented magician, but inside he was empty, a bottomless void from which his soul could not escape. He hated this feeling, this abyss within his heart, but he could not fathom what it was he was missing. He could only move forward, driven by this hunger for something he could not identify. Atop one of the mountains he was travelling through, he came across the most curious thing he had ever seen. The ice atop the mountain began to shine with a bright, comforting aura. Not sure if his years of solitary searching had finally cracked his mind, the magician carefully approached the ice.

As he approached, he heard someone begin speaking to him in a hauntingly melodic voice. "You have travelled long and hard, weary wanderer. You have lost much in your journey, but have gained a knowledge of the world unlike any other before you has ever had. Why do you continue your journey?"

The man replied, his lightning blue eyes flashing rebelliously, "I seek something with which to fill this void in my heart. No knowledge as yet has done so, no creation which I have put upon this planet. Nothing I have learned, nothing I have done has brought me satisfaction. I continue on because it is in my nature."

"A learned answer, if nothing else." The ice retorted. "Yet you miss the point entirely. You are unhappy, only because you choose not to see the happiness you are capable of, with no outer aid." The ice began to take shape before him, becoming a woman, a spirit of the ice itself. "You have long mastered the elemental properties of your magic. Ice, fire, lightning, and earth all bend at your beck and call, yet you know not how much the very element you favor... how much that element favors you."

The man’s first love had been the elemental magic of ice. He had always been drawn to it, and had a nearly preternatural ability to control it, even from a young age. "What do you mean, spirit?" he asked. His eyes shone with wonder even as he beheld her. For, no matter how much he had seen in this world, he had never laid his eyes upon a spirit of any element. The very appearance of this graceful being was enough to send shivers up his spine, not of the cold, but of pure and unimaginable adoration.

"The very same ice which you command loves you in a way that you do not even yet understand. You have always been drawn to the coldest places, and have managed to craft the most beautiful things out of ice in existence. We..." the spirit paused for a moment, as if to gain composure. "We, your faithful servants of ice, wish nothing more than to see you happy. Thus, I have come to speak with you."

"You... you have?" he asked, unsure of himself. He had never considered himself special to anyone, spirit or mortal. "I do not deserve such an honor. I thought I had merely chanced upon you, spirit."

"And such we wanted you to think, sir. The spirit said. "For as you love the ice, so too do we love you, and now we shall prove ourself to you." The spirit floated toward the man and caught him in a long, loving embrace. "Forever shall we be with you, our master." The spirit seemed to fade away in his arms as he attempted to hold her close to him.

Left behind, in her stead, was a silvery-white cloak, translucent and shimmering in the sun. The man could hear in his head the voice of the spirit. "We exist within you, master. Our souls are as one now, and this cloak is the symbol of our eternal union." At the spirits words, the magician picked up the cloak and tossed the one he had been wearing to the side. He wore this new cloak with a smile upon his face. It protected him from the sheer cold and made him feel warm and loved. He hummed to himself happily and descended through the mountains and back into civilization. He had found what he was looking for. He was loved, yet he hadn’t even realized that was what he wanted.