I wish I could indulge in distant memories that would take away the cold and the biting hunger. But I cannot. Every minute I spend walking down these icy paths I focus only on the way forward - not because the past would be a dangerous thing to dwell on, but because there is no room in my head to think of anything but each step, each foot I laboriously put forward.
I was a Hunter, but then I tired of the job. I tired of watching ice spill from veins that were sometimes innocent, sometimes evil, and sometimes unaccounted for. I was told that I was ungrateful, that I had limitless opportunities to climb up the ladder and become something that I alone had the potential for. And yet, I chose to waste it? They could never understand, because their whole lives had been carefully mapped out for them, drafted in the form of psychological implants that controlled how they saw things and how they chose to live.
But as for me? I was a rogue as much as I was brilliant. I was ruthless - oh of course, they were, too - but my ruthlessness and my heart of unbreakable ice gave me an edge, a power that many others lacked. I wasn't the best Hunter, only because I chose not to compete, but I was good at what I did.
For all my cold manner and my apparent arrogance I was actually sheltering a sliver of real substance, the antimatter of ice, deep within a locked crevice that even I had no access to. There were days when even I forgot about it; I forgot about those days when the world wasn't a mass of burning icy solids - a wretched time, a blessed time, with real muck and substance and feeling.
For now, the most I could do was place my palm against my chest as if to feel some absent beating, or perhaps to soothe the dull ache inside, but no, those weren't the reasons. My hand would let me connect with the substance, the Kradaf that fueled my being. In an instant, my eyes were blinded to the world around me and I existed in some other place, some other time. Flashes of highly colored scenes played at lightning speed and I was locked in the whirlwind of color and sound that were mine - her memories.
I watched myself lift her up high in the air, releasing my grip on her for a second and then catch her again, her joyful 3-year-old laugh echoing loudly against the blurred edges of the dream. In that moment when I had let go and she seemed to fly, her short dark locks airborne with her, her face a mask of beauty, childish yet beautiful, I felt a pull deep within. At that instant, the dreams faded with a snap and I was again hard, cold IceWarrior.
I took a deep breath, then faltered as I noticed my hands were balled into tight fists. I slowly unclenched them and realized they were shaking, ever so slightly. It was her, the dream-child, who had come and awakened my long-hidden Kradaf, that had changed my life and exposed me as one to be Hunted.
The roles had been reversed - I was no longer the Hunter, but one of the Hunted.
And prophecies said that I would run, for a very long time, until the end of the Hunt. Until she found me, and melted the IceWarrior.
Linked to Carry on Tuesday
*I always escape into poetry with prompts, so thought I'd try something different this time*
I was a Hunter, but then I tired of the job. I tired of watching ice spill from veins that were sometimes innocent, sometimes evil, and sometimes unaccounted for. I was told that I was ungrateful, that I had limitless opportunities to climb up the ladder and become something that I alone had the potential for. And yet, I chose to waste it? They could never understand, because their whole lives had been carefully mapped out for them, drafted in the form of psychological implants that controlled how they saw things and how they chose to live.
But as for me? I was a rogue as much as I was brilliant. I was ruthless - oh of course, they were, too - but my ruthlessness and my heart of unbreakable ice gave me an edge, a power that many others lacked. I wasn't the best Hunter, only because I chose not to compete, but I was good at what I did.
For all my cold manner and my apparent arrogance I was actually sheltering a sliver of real substance, the antimatter of ice, deep within a locked crevice that even I had no access to. There were days when even I forgot about it; I forgot about those days when the world wasn't a mass of burning icy solids - a wretched time, a blessed time, with real muck and substance and feeling.
For now, the most I could do was place my palm against my chest as if to feel some absent beating, or perhaps to soothe the dull ache inside, but no, those weren't the reasons. My hand would let me connect with the substance, the Kradaf that fueled my being. In an instant, my eyes were blinded to the world around me and I existed in some other place, some other time. Flashes of highly colored scenes played at lightning speed and I was locked in the whirlwind of color and sound that were mine - her memories.
I watched myself lift her up high in the air, releasing my grip on her for a second and then catch her again, her joyful 3-year-old laugh echoing loudly against the blurred edges of the dream. In that moment when I had let go and she seemed to fly, her short dark locks airborne with her, her face a mask of beauty, childish yet beautiful, I felt a pull deep within. At that instant, the dreams faded with a snap and I was again hard, cold IceWarrior.
I took a deep breath, then faltered as I noticed my hands were balled into tight fists. I slowly unclenched them and realized they were shaking, ever so slightly. It was her, the dream-child, who had come and awakened my long-hidden Kradaf, that had changed my life and exposed me as one to be Hunted.
The roles had been reversed - I was no longer the Hunter, but one of the Hunted.
And prophecies said that I would run, for a very long time, until the end of the Hunt. Until she found me, and melted the IceWarrior.
Linked to Carry on Tuesday
*I always escape into poetry with prompts, so thought I'd try something different this time*
