Cold As Ice (Closed for Luna_Wolf72)

Her knight was a simple man.

That was never in doubt. He'd been a simple man when he was merely a mortal, threshing his fields, cutting the heads from stalks of wheat. Then when he became her Knight and found that scythe cut heads from more than just wheat. For years and years, he had been simple. Efficient, the fields of battle no more than the leisurely strolls through his own farm. Enemies of the queen like chaff, to be ripped apart and discarded. Simple.

It had been years since he'd been a mere man though. And the courts of faerie are cunning and complex. Simply because one is called queen, does not she does not need to govern as much as rule. And simply because one is the strongest, does not mean she can ever afford to look weak. Simple men don't understand such things.

It was the beginning of winter. And the stone table was set. There had been a squabble, he could not call it a fight, between a summer champion and himself. A pitiful thing truly, the loud braying of an angry goat, and the quick flash of cold iron that pulled his heart from his over sized chest. Scythes seemed large but truly they were precise. One had to place the tip just right for the desired impact. A squabble nothing more, and the seasons changed. His queen didn't care to invade or encroach upon any other time. Winter was long enough, and people remembered it. Cold and controlled. Not cruel, simply controlled. It was another in a long line of victories, another heart to serve to her. Another head for her wall, another corpse on the pile. Simply another.

It was the court who clamoured for his reward however. That insisted his mortal humility was cloying. That his utter refusal of gifts or favours did nothing but embarrass his matron. That for his many years of excellent service, for his long list of victories and his triumphs. They insisted, no matter how often he would tell them that all victories were hers. that every triumph was little more than her hand wave. The extension of his arm swinging that battered old scythe, was merely the twitch of her finger, and he little more than the extension of her whims. No. They had needed him to have something, to accept a prize. It was a masterstroke really. Precise, and cold, and capricious and cruel. The court all over.

"We would like to present you with a gift." How could he know where it came from?

"And we understand your reticence, but something such as this you simply cannot refuse." Why not? It had been one of the easiest lessons from his old grandfather. Never accept something from Faeries, because you will owe them something back.

How they had cajoled, or how they had manipulated the situation he would never know. And that was in essence what they were counting on. "We present to you Neves. Daughter of the Queen. With your blessing we will create this union, and she shall produce your issue. That should you one day fall; your line will continue." The hook, that gliding silver piece waiting, for him to merely open his mouth. So he did.

"No."

It was flagrant disrespect they said. That he would throw such an offering back into the queens face. That he would deny even the Queens daughter when she was stooping so far down. Really a union with a filthy mortal, should they be so surprised? Or only surprised he didn't fling his feces at them while he hooted in his own stupidity. They demanded a trial, a punishment, discipline and order among the court. They demanded a lot of things, from their one position of strength. From his only failing. Love.

Love that left a single chink in his Queen's armor, that showed how vulnerable her Knight might make her look. Only look. But looks were enough to call everything into question. In his case he stared at the cold frozen ground of the old stone table Watching the nobles around it. Cavorting, whispering or laughing to one another. Accusing him of treason it seemed, for refusing to play their game. Or refusing to bed his Queen's daughter. For something.

He didn't need to look up to see them laughing.

He should, so much could be learned from simply raising his head. But he did not need to. So much might be saved by the simple inclination of his neck. But it lay, outstretched waiting for the axe. Waited for judgement with his head bowed. if this was the only way he could see for her to save face, he would gladly have it happen. And it would whether he allowed it or not. Still he looked down. He didn't need to look up to know how much he displeased her.

"You stand accused of treason, and betrayal of the good faith of the Unseelie court. Of abusing the position of trust given to you, and disobeying the word of our dark queen." there was a pause, but he didn't need to let the magistrate finish his speech. It was true that the Courts prided themselves on pomp and ceremony and grandeur. The spectacle as it were. His voice was clear. If small. A mere mortal in the court of immortal winters.

"I plead guilty." A single tear froze in his socket. As his breath made a mist for the first time in almost a century. He was cold, so cold. And bereft of the protections he once had. "Now let's get on with this."

Once more, Simply a Man.

There had been many times when she had waited for him to come back from his toils, her too warm heart in her mouth. There were too many times she had expected to hear, "He is gone and you must choose another." She dreaded that day, the necessity of it. She would want no other in his place, but the court demanded it. She would have to choose~ ff he died on the field of battle. If he lost. If he grew above his station. If he became both less, and more, human.

After all, what Winter gave, it could take away. THAT was a lesson one must never forget. Not even a queen, especially a queen.

So, many a year had passed and things had been~easy. Simple. She ordered and he went. She commanded and he did. It worked because she knew he would give nothing less than his best. It worked because she harbored a spot deep inside that was just for him and she knew that he would do, would give, anything to see that cold sliver of smile that meant she was relaxed, pleased.

It worked...until it didn't.

What had gone before

"We have been quite content to let things go on as they are, but enough is enough, my liege. He does not bow to anyone but you. He has no give. He will not relent. Your way does not make him understand his place."

The speaker was one of her top commanders, an old, and very dear, enemy. His voice echoed with casual cruelty and it wasn't hard to know that they contained a trap. A trap for her, a trap for her knight. Even so, she listened. After all, without knowing the shape of the game? She could not plan, she could not win. She could not maintain control.

Control.

For over four centuries of human life, control had been her watch word. Under her auspices, the Unseelie court had thrived, had learned to play the game in a way that won converts from those pansies in the Seelie court. Cruelty had meaning. Coldness held depression in abeyance.

It worked.

However, some of her court needed the old ways~ back. They wanted to ravage and terrorize. To hurt and hunt for nothing but the sport of it. While she was strong? They could not move. They could not spread out. They could NOT be what they desired. Therefore, each century brought a new ploy, a new scheme.

Usually, she headed them off at the pass.

She just hadn't seen this one coming.

"The truth of it is simple. He should be replaced. Allowed to retire and stay with us here, under mound. Imagine the strength of his blood line mingling with yours? Imagine the children? It is past time for your daughter to be corralled. You know it as we do. Why not gift him with her? Strength for strength. You can have him close. Captain of your family's personal guard."

Cloud gray eyes narrowed in affront. Full lips pulled down, in a frown that would cause all but the mightiest hunters to tremble, in fear. To allow her daughter to have physical congress with the mortal she had chosen for her champion so long ago? To offer him a gift he would not accept, ever?

She thinks, 'I have no choice. If I say no? They will use that against me. If I say yes, they will use it against him...but I may be able to take some of the pain away. Or at least, stop the pain from wrecking him completely. I can keep him safe, until these upstarts are taken care of.'

She thinks, 'He will not say yes, never in a million years. I know him.'

She thinks, 'I will just have to hold out, hold on, and keep him near me. I will just have to do what is needed. I am his queen and eventually, he will understand.'

Now.

Conner~magistrate of the dark court, not any happier about this than his queen, speaks the formalized words that will begin the trial. He states the beginning remarks with a lack of tone that bodes ill for those who surround the Stone Table.
They are just too stupid to hear it.

She hears it.

He says, "You stand accused of treason, and betrayal of the good faith of the Unseelie court. Of abusing the position of trust given to you, and disobeying the word of our dark queen."

Her knight, his protections removed, lays there. His head is placed upon the table, his hands are bound behind his back. Her too warm heart breaks. He is a broken man, just a man, and it is not fair that he should have to pay this price. It is not fair, to either of them, though he knows not how much this aches. He knows not how much she burns.

Her knight speaks.

"I plead guilty..." He pauses...and in that pause, she hears despair. "Now let's get on with this."

Silence descends. Those nobles who had plotted for this, who had waited for this~all turned to look upon her. They want to smile, she can see the laughter in their eyes. They want her to weaken, to fail. She will NOT. She can not. Losing now? Is unthinkable.

"Then, as you say, we shall get on with this. You are found guilty. Guilty of blatant disobedience, guilty of treason, guilty of causing unrest. For your crimes, you should be put to death. Drawn and quartered."

She forced herself to rise, to leave her dark throne and walk to him, to raise his head from the table, to look into his eyes with her own.

"However, that would be too easy a punishment and you deserve much, much more. Three different crimes require three different punishments. As you have already lost my protection from the cold, you will now lose your memories of what you have been. You will be allowed one hour in each day to have your memory returned to you but that hour shall be of my choosing."

She paused, swallowed, focused.

"Your second punishment? To be the plaything of any and all who want you. Since you love the word no so much? Your voice will be taken from you. It will be returned for one hour a day, again at the hour of my choosing."

Her hand tightened in his hair, jerking his head up so that all could see the pain, the abject misery, in his gaze.

"Your last punishment? In the courtyard, at sun up, and again at sundown? We will break every bone in your body. We will maul you, hurt you."

A smile then as she looked to each and every noble Lord and Lady who had plotted this, planned this. A cold smile as she allowed her eyes to mark them~him and him...and her...and those two. Her eyes blazed as those pairs of eyes dropped. They knew that she would kill them. They knew that they had overstepped.

"Do not worry, little man. Your punishment does have an ending. If you survive one year. Without my protection, being used, abused, mistreated? Then I will consider this good enough and your power, your memory, your voice will be returned to you...and you may have your revenge...on all that you see here, myself included."

She let his head fall forward and turned away. Gray eyes focused on her magistrate.

"See that this is done and remove him from my sight. Enter my ruling into the books. I shall carry out the breaking of his bones, starting on the morrow."

Silence, once more, as the horror of what she planned hit each one of her enemies in their cold, cold hearts. If the punishment was placed on the books? If her knight could withstand the treatment? Well~ then? She had given him free reign to return the favor. Any who harmed him would be cataloged when his memory returned. Any who took advantage of him could expect to be repaid in kind. It was elegant and controlled. A cold solution.

She saw the ones who had forced this upon her~ shudder...and she smiled.

"Get out."

It was far too frightening, the control of this woman. Her cold callous cruelty. If he were an observant man, a truly fantastic observer of the fae condition, he would see the rending of her own heart as she passed judgment. But all he saw was this beautiful alien woman, pronounce him guilty of things he had never done, of crimes he had never committed. Offer him to the fearsome and flagrant people of this courtroom, and lastly offer him revenge if only he would survive the ordeal. Revenge for what, why was this happening?

The book closed and frost grew instantly in his beard, he shivered and a tear froze on his cheek. He reached, somehow believing that the icy queen who'd pronounced his fate would show mercy, would take pity But all he saw, all he felt was Cold. The hood covered his face and he screamed, as he was dragged away. Fingers scraping and bleeding when frozen patches of skin left his clawing hands on the icy floor. Trails of Steaming hot blood, slowly growing cold, hard, the path of misery. They stripped him, tearing cold metal from his shaking flesh before the shouts started. Cries to break him there then. hurt him. But they vanished as he saw the Box. Too small for his size, but he was forced in anyway. Cold, naked

Alone and afraid, blinded, chilled. Demonic echoes followed, gauging his insignificance. Jeers, killed last minute nuances of protection. Quiet reigned, settling tense underneath. Vicious xenophobic yells zig-zagged. But he could not hear them. Alone in his cell. In the small locked box his jailers placed him in, the wood seeming to shrink him away, cutting off light sound and all other sensation but cold. And the feeling that just outside these enclosing walls, lay enemies, ready and waiting to tear him apart.

He attempted to cry out but his voice was gone, only the animal cry of distress keened in his mind. The sound lost, Absorbed by the wood, killed by the cold, or simply stolen from his throat. he shivered, and in his box, he wept, somehow knowing that this was the safest he would be, for the next year.

The Queen's Bed Chamber

After the punishment was written down, after those who had caused this particular episode departed, once the silence was deep and completely pervasive? She retreated into the safety of her personal chamber~away from prying eyes.

The shakes came not long after the door closed. The tears fell~ like rain from winter gray eyes. For all of her emotion? She was silent. So very, very silent. Her pain was not for others to hear. Her hurt was NOT for others to know. It was a private thing. A personal thing.

Finally, when the shaking, the crying, the inner turmoil had stilled? She sat on the padded vanity bench and gazed into her own eyes and allowed herself to think long thoughts.

"I do not understand why he is not dead!"

'Ah here comes the offspring.'

The queen turned so that she was facing the door and waited for her daughter to enter. The door was flung open a few moments later and the female did just that. Except it wasn't just an entrance, it was a production. There was flouncing and huffy sighs and wide eyes and everything.

"What seems to be the trouble?" Wide gray eyes focused on the woman who had flung herself down onto a near by overstuffed love seat.

"You know very well what the trouble is. I am the laughingstock of the Mound! And then~instead of putting him to death like he so richly deserves for denigrating my offer? You take his voice and his memory and vow to break his bones? He deserves DEATH!"

The queen listened to this with eyes that grew narrower, the longer her daughter spoke. Even if Neves was next in line for Mound ruler ship? She did NOT have the right to demand anything from her mother. She was simply a buttress against the 'what ifs'. She was not important enough to be allowed impudence.

The queen rose from her vanity seat and moved toward her child, one hand out as if to stroke the girl's hair. When only a few inches separated the two of them? Her hand shot out and tangled in the long, auburn weight. The hair was YANKED, brutally and her daughter's mouth closed with a snap.

"Do you forget your place? Has everyone forgotten their places?"

Her voice was soft and did not match the grip on her child's hair, at all.

"He is not dead because I do not WANT him dead. He was MY knight. The fact that you are still breathing, after allowing yourself to be pulled into this, only underlines the love I have for you. You allowed others to try and use MY knight against me."

The empty hand came up, snake quick, and struck Neves, twice. The smacks were negligent, back hand blows that caused the girl's hair to pull out from the roots. The queen paid it no mind. After all, it wasn't her face nor her hair.

And she was angry. Very angry. A red hot inferno of rage.

"Do not question me. Do not EVER question me. Now. Get out."

Her daughter rose, curtsied, fled.

The queen?

She resumed her seat and stared into the silvery depths of her vanity's mirror. She had to get focused. She had to be calm. Only the coldness that surrounded her would get both herself, and her knight, through the next year. She needed the coldness.

She needed the strength to be unfeeling.

At least in public.

The queen, once a young Unseelie named Maeve, bowed her head. She didn't want to watch the fresh spate of tears fall from her eyes.

The Box

It was not that he forgot the cold. That was what it did after all. It was simply that you stopped feeling it. That your body tried desperately to stop feeling it. Going dead, slowly, dying by inches. His breath came out so hot it burned his lips, blue and frozen as they were. He shivered still. He thought he might not, in the box. His body heat might warm it eventually. The space too small even if it was bigger on the inside than the outside. But it was always so frigidly cold. The grainy splintery wood scratching at him making him prick his skin. Hot blood freezing almost instantly, bleeding heat more than blood. He was scared. So scared. So frigidly cold. Opening his mouth his breath froze in his throat, and he screamed.

But no sound came out. An icy hand reached in to take his voice, and laugh at him. The complete lack of sound from him, from his actions made him rage and cry out. Quiet greeted his angry blows. The third silence, so profound it swept all other sound away. Leaving him alone, and impotent, and naked. Scratching at hard frozen wood until his nails chipped and his fingers bled. The expense of his energy warming him only enough to feel the bitterness of cold again. He cried. he cried and his tears froze, and cut their way out. The deep crimson welling of bloody tears dripping on the stone floor of a wooden box. Alone, utterly alone without even sound or form for company. Just his terror and misery.

It wasn't better when the box opened though. He gazed bloody faced and choking on his own tears into the savage feline face of the woman he had rejected. The queens own daughter, a red blush in her cheek that had nothing to do with heat, and everything to do with fury. There were tears in her eyes. Mad ones. Ones that actually fell freezing on the floor. Blinked from golden cat's eyes, that shined with as much vengeance and violence as he had ever seen in his humble life. This girl would kill him if given the chance. And she had so many. He had to lift his head, bear his throat and let her claw it out. He had to look her in the eye and glare, and she would beat him until he never rose again. And he would not.

He never would. To die like that. to simply give in might have been simple. But it was too shameful to bear. It would be to give in to the terror and the crushing hopelessness. Hopelessness that wasn't true. One was never without Hope. So he dropped his eyes, tilted his head to cover his neck, and showed her the frozen crimson streaks from his eyes. He sobbed, soundlessly. And she threw him to the ground in disgust.

"How did I ever want to give myself to you."

She took his hair and pulled tight until he tried to rise and failed, the cold strands breaking in her too tight grip. She would have made a terrible farm girl. Wasting so much wheat. Fields of gold flooded about him. And she took his hair again, pulling him to his knees so she could kneel on his leg. Denying it blood. Making him try to cry, As pins and needles attempted to penetrate frozen flesh. Awakening it to fresh pain all over again. "I would have given you all. Everything. You, you pitiful waste of flesh and life. A barely burning candle of life next to my bonfire." She spoke, and spoke. At length. Grabbing rudely at him. licking his face, and grabbing his cock in too cold hands. Stroking it painfully and unskilled, as she groaned into his ear. The fires were too hot in this girl to be queen of winter. Like she claimed, like she spouted she should be, would be. She wanted too much. Even him. She had wanted him. He however, Limp and alone and afraid. Still did not want her.

When she left he felt dirty, and embarrassed. Like his nakedness was more than a simple way to ensure his death. That even alone it was a mocking statement to any who might care. that he could not afford himself even the smallest protection. Not from weather, or word, or even sight. H sank back into his box, and the lid closed. He was not Hopeless. But his visitor had certainly exposed him as helpless.

In dreams

Those who believe that Fae don't dream are stupid. Immortals dream. They can not help it. The nature of their make up requires that they sleep, slip into the dreaming, slip into the abyss that beckons whenever immortal eyes~close.

The Queen is no different than the many others who make up her court. She dreams. Those dreams shatter anyone sensitive enough to pick them from the ether and study the designs that can be found within.

Winter dreams are cold. Cruel.

Much like the female that dreams them.

He is hiding from her yet she sees his hair, free and blowing. Whipping about with a force unknown in nature. She stalks toward him, her eyes gleaming, pale skin reflecting the low Winter light that caresses her flesh. Turning her into a beacon.

She arrives and reaches for him...but he is gone. The hair is attached to a scalp, not a knight, and blood feeds the snow and the primroses that guard the Mound's entrances.

She screams.

And in that scream is loss and inhuman sanity.

She screams.

Morning.

"I want him. Bring him to the rock. Not the cross. No food for him. Healer on stand by. I can break him twice a day, but only if he is healed before he slips away, each and every time."

She stands, her eyes fierce in the early morning light. In her hands are the first set of tools~ an old fashioned ball peen hammer, a pair of hedge cutters. a small vial. She is dressed for her duty. Leather from neck to toes. Crimson and black to swallow up his mortal blood, blood that she knows she will wear before the next hour is over.

Her eyes are frozen.

No tears.

No thought.

She turns. Walks away. Heads for the rock. Slim fingers caress the stone and the smell of copper and musk rises. The stone will ease his distress...or at least as much as it is able. Broken bones will hurt, will ache. But the rock will deaden some of the pain.

'I won't kill you, my knight. But I know that you will wish I had...and I can not let that stop me.'

She shakes away that thought, shakes away the pain.

It will be done. It has to be done.

Morning.

He had survived the night. Purple fingers. Purple toes. Lips almost sealed shut where the moisture of a kiss was a thin veil of solid ice. Nostrils almost clogged with the thin trail of cold mucus. The only fluid still available to him. Moving had become almost impossible. Only shivering and the huddled mass of his own pain, kept him awake. He had not slept a single eye blink. But he was wide awake now when the box opened. When light assaulted his body. Even the meagre rays of torchlight, and the beginning embers of the burgeoning sun a blessing of heat. And a scalding reminder of the things he'd already lost. Father's admonition when he was a child. Fingers that turn purple get cut off. To prevent the rot taking the rest of the body. What kind of man would he be without hands? Without feet? Would he ever work the fields again. A scythe tied to the stumps of his hands and sitting on a cart. Pulling himself through the harvest lines, by the long staff. Until he could attempt and fail to swing. Would he crawl on his knees, and carry messages in his mouth? Like a dog.

Better to die. Than to live like that. He had spent all night attempting to die. And only the sunrise made him want to live again.

They dragged him out, and he weakly attempted to flee. He only managed to fall back into the box before the dragged him and threw him to the floor. One grabbed his hair, and it broke, sending him face first to cold stones. Rimed with frost. His lips stuck, peeled when he was pulled away. Left blood to bubble on cracked lips and him shivering as he tried to make the walk to the rock. He knew it would be a rock, they always brought their sacrifices to one. These creatures.

He remembered the stories he had heard as a boy. How the winter fae would bind a stag to a great rock, and with a cruel knife cut it's throat, and the blood of the great stag turned the leaves to red, and marked the beginning of the fall. Time to store up, and thin your meals. Winter would be approaching once the leaves turned red. Here he was then, the sacrifice for spring's ascension? Or to keep six more weeks of winter. His heart beat faster, vainly attempting to warm him, or attempting to flee as he imagined seeing a beautiful naked priestess, curiously untouched by the cold waiting with a long handled obsidian knife.

He was sorely disappointed. Not by the lack of a priestess, or the knowledge that he was right, as he was chained to the rock, but she was not nude. She was beautiful and terrible though. More than he ever could have imagined. The most gorgeous creature in all creation. And so cold. the wind blow across him, and even the night in the box paled before her chill. Simply as he stood in her presence he knew to kneel. To weep. To attempt to speak, to say sorry for anything he could have done. And what must he have done. His voice cracked and was silent, a simple exhalation of warm air against the bitter impossible crushing wave of cold.

She was still so beautiful. Like a tempest, an elemental force. Beauty in power, in fierceness. The unbridled ferocity of the storm, and the chilling persistence of the winter air. The frozen stillness of the pond in January, and the perfect icy disdain of a god for a mortal. He had never believed the parish man's rambles of the man of thorns on his cross, but this woman had power enough to make him truly tremble. To gasp out the words 'My Queen' in exquisite frozen silence. For what else could she be. Fingers frozen so stiff they might break or shatter were pried open while he soundlessly screamed t be tied to the rock, his hand curled around it, his legs lashed, His cock scraping on the rock as his chest tore against it's jagged surface.

Words came in the distance but he could not hear them for the wind buffeting and beating him against the impossibly hard surface. It was only then he saw her tools, the hammer, hedge clippers. he was a sacrifice. The rock calmed him as he leaned into it. His back to her. His eyes closed with her in sight. It would be enough perhaps to die by her hand. A good enough ending to a simple man's life, and a mercy after the night of terror he had endured. She was winter. Winter was not cruel.

Cold, though. It took what it wanted with no other regard. She would as well. And implicitly, implacably, immutably.

Simply. He knew that was right. He breathed deep and waited for her to begin.

He comes before her~a wild man, unable to fathom the torment he has endured, will endure. He comes~beaten, bowed, but still something within him remains unbroken. He comes~a dispossessed knight, a simple man made fabulous. He comes.

He kneels.

He whimpers out words.

His voice is as haggard as he appears. His teeth chatter. His appendages are blue fading toward purple. Fingertips, toes. Lips are bloody. Hair is ragged. He looks like what he is is~ a mortal in Winter's realm.

She watches~cat's eyes monitoring the way they bind him. The way they position him. Chest down. Cock and belly and face pressed to rock that is not as cold as it should be, not as hard as it could be.

She watches.

And when it is is done?

She speaks.

"You and you, bring the healer and the judge. Get those who have a vested interest in this man's punishment. Bring my child. I will not start until all are here. I will not begin until they can watch. I want them to watch."

He is far from her now. Lost in the dark. Lost in the cold and the pain that will soon pull keening screams from his throat. He is gone. Away. Not to return to her any time soon.

And that is how it has to be.

She blinks slowly and settles the galloping of her heart. The minutes, moments, seconds~drag on and on. Yet, she does not, will not, betray the worry this causes. He deserves all that she can give. He deserves the best of her.

So calm.

Cool.

Frozen.

Until the court arrives and the pain begins.

They file in. Filling the small meadow that surrounds the rock with their muted whispers and the sounds of rustling cloaks. Each and every one of them, marked for death. Not now. Later. Three hundred sixty four days from now.

They file in and arrange themselves.

She looks to each face, noting the paleness, the wide eyes. Even her child is silent and terrified. It is why she will never be queen of this court.

She shows fear.


"Watch and learn of a queen's justice. Remember it."

Turning away from the crowd, she stalks soundlessly to the foot of the rock, to the place where his ankles are bound. The small heavy hammer is swung with all of the force at her command.

Winter is strong.

The crack of bone~ankle to be exact~ is heard. Her eyes do not mark which ankle. Only that it is the one closest to herself. She settles and switches hands, attacks that delicate bone from the opposite direction. The crack is louder.

He screams.

She swallows.

Bile, hurt, fear, anger.

She swallows...and continues.