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The Frost watched as the sky started to lighten, hearing the little mortals in their little houses start to stir at the start of the new day.
He heard their sharply drawn breaths and quiet curses: the cold he had brought them making them hurry from their beds into their clothes to avoid the chill nipping at their skin. It wouldn’t matter much – of they thought it was cold inside their homes, they’d learn a new meaning for the word when they stepped outside.
Whilst they had slept, the Frost had painted the whole would with a thin, glittering layer of white. And until the layers of frost nature had been leaving as the nights had gotten colder, this frost wouldn’t melt. Not while he was here.
It was his job to plunge little villages like this into winter. Freeze over the pond, turn the air icy, and leave the ground glittering with frost crystals. So, until the spring chased him away, that was what he would do. It may make the humans curse his name under their breath as they hurried from building to building, but the Frost didn’t care for their curses. They were mortal: here for the blink of an eye and gone in the next. He was the Frost.
He was eternal. Frozen in time. Unchanging. Immortal. Cold.
Content with his nights work, the Frost turned away from the village below and towards the woods that surrounded it, planning to spend the day hidden amongst the trees, only to come face to face with a human woman emerging from them.
The Frost wasn’t sure who was more surprised: her, or him.
Of the two of them, though, she was the one who recovered first: “Oh my, please tell me you haven’t spent all night out in the cold?”
“I…well…” the Frost stuttered, unused to humans questioning him – especially with some unknown tone in their voices: “…I’m afraid I have.”
The human almost dropped the bundle of firewood she was holding, her face painted with…something the Frost couldn’t identify: “No wonder you’re almost blue! You can’t go back into the woods; there’s nothing that way for miles except more cold. You best come down to the village.”
“That’s not necessary,” the Frost insisted, trying to sound as firm as his surprise would allow him – but he human was determined to press her advantage:
“Please, I insist. You’ll catch your death out there.”
She didn’t know what he was, the Frost realised. Didn’t know he wasn’t human like she was. He should tell her; humans didn’t comprehend what it was to deal with eternal beings, for all they knew that they shared their world with them, and that incomprehension often turned into anger…
…only he found himself swallowing his explanation of his true nature.
He couldn’t explain why; he was only prolonging the inevitable moment she learned the truth…but for some unknown reason, the Frost wanted to put off that moment for as long as he could.
Perhaps it was curiosity. It had been so long since he’d spoken to a human…the last time he had, they’d been running around in tunics and cloaks and boots they’d had to tie onto their legs with narrow strips of leather. Though not extravagant, this woman’s clothes were far more complicated: shoes with buttons, long skirts, a narrow skirt covering the front of her dress, and a strange head covering. Clothing had changed so much – what else could have changed since he last spoke to a human? There were so many possibilities; it had been so long…
…So very, very long.
The Frost pushed the unwanted thought away, and nodded his acquiescence to the human woman.
She positively beamed in response, and the Frost was assaulted with another unprompted thought: this one of a long forgotten memory from…before.
He couldn’t remember the details. He didn’t know what the memory was or where it had come from – but he did know that the mortal woman had a smile like the summer sun.
It was a very odd assertion from a being who had never seen the summer sun in his immortal life.
Pushing the thought aside just as he had the last unwanted thought, the Frost instead offered to help the woman carry her firewood back to the village. She was a slight thin: and as pale from cold as she had accused him of being. The difference was that the Frost was strengthened by the cold, while she was obviously struggling with it.
After the third time her shivering hands dropped the bundle of wood, the Frost was struck by the odd desire to take her hands in his own to try and warm them…but one glance at the thin, almost invisible, of ice that covered his skin, and he squashed the desire. Touching her skin would chill her to the bone. All he could do was insist on sweeping the bundle off the floor before she could reach it…and smile mischievously when she glared at him playfully:
“I’m supposed to be letting you in from the cold, not putting you to work.” she insisted primly.
If anything, her primness just made the Frost smiled wider: “I couldn’t possibly allow your kindness to go without recompense. Kindness given out should always find kindness returned.”
“I wasn’t being kind to get something in return.”
“And yet something in return you are getting.”
The human grumbled, but it was good naturedly. It wasn’t usually an ability the Frost had, to know what was in the hearts of humans, but this woman’s innate kindness was so obvious that surely even her fellow humans saw it. It glowed around her like the light of a candle in a window: illuminating her with a soft inner light.
A light that made something inside the Frost crack so loudly he was surprised the human didn’t hear it, the sound like a hunk of ice separating from a glacier.
The human didn’t hear it, though, and so it was easy for the Frost to pretend he hadn’t either. He followed the human into her home: a small cottage with only one room inside, dominated by a large fireplace that was merrily burning away.
Something else cracked inside the Frost’s chest…but it was quickly forgotten when the human smiled at him:
“I’ll get some tea on; it’ll have you warmed up right quick. Best thing for if you’ve been out in the cold too long.”
The Frost didn’t believe it would make much difference…but this human’s concern – because he recognised it now, had seen it on the faces of other humans when they were talking to their own kind – made him smile and accept the offer: “Thank you.”
Somehow, her smile was even brighter than before – and there was a third, deafening crack inside the Frost’s chest.
Distantly, he knew he should be concerned…but there was something about this human, something enchanting and intoxicating. Something that made him want to stay in her presence, even as painful pins and needles started prickling his flesh.
The human ushered him over to a chair in front of the fire, her hand brushing over his shoulder as he sat down – increasing the pins and needles a hundredfold…but the Frost still made no move to distance himself from her.
It had been so long, so long since he’d company, so long since he’d felt…
Warm.
It had been so long since the Frost had felt warm.
And even if it was unnatural, even if he knew he shouldn’t feel this way, it felt good. Even if he melted away to nothing in this seat, he wanted to stay and experience this for as long as he could. So he bore the painful pins and needles in his flesh even as it started to become agonizing when the human presented him with a mug of dark, steaming, sweet smelling liquid, content to bear it if it meant feeling the warmth he did in her presence…but he should have known the human would defy any expectation of not noticing his pain.
“Pins and needles, hm?” she hummed sympathetically, setting aside his tea and offering him a reassuring smile: “Don’t worry, I get it all the time when I come in the cold. Sometimes it feels like the ice is melting out of my skin.”
If only she knew how close she was…of course, the Frost couldn’t say that to her, not if he wanted to continue to pretend he was merely human: ”I know exactly what you mean.”
“It’s okay; I have a quick fix for it.”
She reached for his hand, catching it in her own before he could think to pull away, gently massaging in an attempt to rub some warmth into this skin.
Skin that was no longer coated with a layer of glittering, un-melting frost.
Skin that looked…human.
She didn’t flinch when her warm – no, not warm – hot, almost burning – skin came into contact with his, as if she was simply touching any other mortal’s hand…because it felt like she was. Because for the first time since he remembered looking at his skin, it didn’t look inhuman…it looked like any other man’s hand.
It was unbelievable, but before the Frost could marvel at it, he was caught off guard by the human suddenly looking embarrassed:
“Oh, how rude of me; I forgot to introduce myself before I dragged you into my home and started manhandling you! I’m Angelica.…do you have a name, stranger?”
The Frost looked at the human, the aptly named Angelica…and the last of the ice encasing his heart melted away into blood that, after centuries, was once again flowing around his veins.
And he remembered.
“I do.” he smiled, just as warmly as she did: “It’s Remington.”