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There always is something truly mystical about the cold. Mystical, and dangerous. You can watch the breath that passes through your lips freeze in front of you, and see it fade away with the wind. Something magical about it. But that same cold sucks the heat from your body, the same wonder in which it grips you too empties you out. First the heat leaves you, your body shakes to try and compensate. But the cold is relentless, and your body must give up to its brutal radiance. Then the cold takes away feeling, leaving you numb throughout your body. Then the cold takes away true Feeling. Your emotions leave, and as the cold seeps into your bones, you’re left with nothing but a sense of calm. It is not the heat, exhausting you and dragging you down under its oppressive weight. Leave you dying in sweat and ugliness. No, cold preserves you, a corpse sustained and trapped in the ice and snow. Almost alive at first glance. Most die with a smile on their faces, the cold taking away the pain, feeling held up by angels as they lay on the snow, snowflakes falling down to bless their skin with more of the blessed numbness.
There was a reason Philza had always preferred the battlefields of the cold north over the burning fields of the south. He was an angel born to guide those fallen in battle to the afterlife, all for his most sacred lady. But that did not mean he did not feel for those who died. Those who died in the south died in pain, screaming, sweating in agony as their bodies could not cool them down. Doomed to die and rot alive under the glare of the sun. Those souls never did pass easily.
But here, in the cold harsh north, those who died accepted their deaths. They did not struggle. The cold surrounding them so much like the cold of the afterlife, helping them accept. Not all he came across died at first, and he gave them what meager comfort his cold body could give them in their last moments. Whispers of Valhalla passing through the brave warrior’s lips as he held them in his wings.
Many a battlefield had he visited like this one. The dead and the dying left to the cold, the living moving on less they wished to join them. At least that is what it seemed at first. Then he caught glimpse of a towering figure, a red cloak around their shoulders and a tall crown on their head. The snow melted before it touched their skin, their body radiating such heat. He had heard of this one, an old god of blood who was usually found further south. Traveling from nation to nation, battlefield to battlefield. He was not all too surprised to find the god here, but he was surprised to see the being bend down, clasping the hand of a dying man. That would not do, the soldier would die in much more agony without the cold to pass them by. It was foolish, but he had a duty, and so he approached the god.
“I know why you are here, angel. I know what you must do”. The baritone voice of the god boomed over the silent, icy wastes. Philza stepped back a moment, stunned from the voice breaking the silence only otherwise broken by gasps of breath and rattles of armor as men shivered.
Then he came back to himself, and stood straighter.
“If you know why I am here, Blood, then you know you are making their deaths more painful”. He returned, his voice just as sharp as his sword.
Still, the god did not turn, only continuing to hold the hand of the dying warrior. “You know death, angel, but it seems you do not know life”. Finally the dying man’s hand slipped from the god’s fingers, falling limp into the snow. Philza readied himself for a battle to take the warrior’s soul from his body, knowing he’d desperately try to cling to life. Yet the soul was calm, at peace. Why? As the god turned to face him, his features striking. Scars littering his face, tusks pointing out of a jaw, and crimson eyes that pierced him. Bags under them, signs of exhaustion. Still the god stood tall.
The god looked into him, before moving past towards another dying warrior. Answering his unspoken question before he could even ask it.
“They desire to know, to remember, that they were alive, that they lived. I do this because they deserve to be remembered, because though they die, what matters is that they lived in the first place”. Philza was silent, he was an angel, he knew not what it was like to be a mortal, to be just like so many others.
“But I do not radiate the warmth you do, a reminder of their life. I can only give them the blessed cold to let them pass on. How can I remember their lives like you?” he asked as the god bent down again.
“Perhaps you do not need to angel. I will be here, to comfort them in their final moments. And you will be there to comfort them once they pass. Is that not enough?” The god said as Philza kneeled next to him beside the dying soldier.
Yes Phil thought, perhaps it is enough.
“Will you continue to do this? Honoring the dying”
“Yes” the god replied without hesitation.
“Then I will honor the dead, and together we can help them pass on”. Philza said, not proposing it, merely stating it.
“I think I would like that, it has been long since I walked with another.” The god replied, standing as the soldier died, and Philza took their soul.
The god stood extending their hand “Technoblade” he simply said, as if that explained everything.
Philza placed his own hand in Technoblade’s “Philza” and they shook. Philza watched the small smile spread across Technoblade’s face.
For the first time, even in this land of bitter cold, he felt warmth.