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I don't feel the cold.
Mortals fear cold above all else, they instinctively escape it by hiding beneath the covers of their bed or wielding fire and brimstone to chase away the icy hold of cold. It is omnipresent, much like myself and yet— no cold entities exist, no deities, it is a primal primordial force that exists with or without mortals... unlike I.
Regardless, mortals fear the cold... Because nothing is more cold than death.
But despite that truth, I find myself sitting across from a man with bronze skin and a hairless head inside of a blizzard with no end in sight. The wind beats against his loose toga, his bones stick out and draw the outlines of his skeleton. A deathly appearence, this man was on his last legs.
At times I think he's Greek, sometimes Spanish, other times Indian or middle eastern, not even my eyes can tell as this man froze upon the ice cold white.
So here I was, but I could hardly take him yet. His shut eye smile and warm visage confused me to no end, he did not greet me with words but a mere acknowledgement that I was there.
Steam releases from my nostrils in a chuff, I release a hum. Whistling for a moment, and then I sit still. My large avatar towers over the man even as I sit, the darkness cloaks my being as I stare through the almost suffocating flurry of snow falling all around.
Chuckling, my eyes flicker with amusement. "Hm, don't you have anything better to do on your last night alive?" I ask the man, his warm smile hardly shifts and his eyes open only a little.
"What else would I do?" He says, almost rhetorically.
"Oh I don't know, it just seems odd to me that a son of man would seek the cold willingly."
"I don't find it so odd, I'm a man like any other, I feel like any other. The difference is that to me is this world will end when I do, so I face that end with a smile and embrace the cold willingly. I will not resist."
The man draws a bony finger through the snow, picking up flakes between his fingertips and letting them settle there for just a moment before melting. "And when I am gone, my death will fuel a new world, a new existence."
"You're wise, for a son of man. But you could easily have let yourself die in comfort and bliss."
"I do not see this as any different from that, friend."
"You experience discomfort, you experience cold, your hands are shivering and your body is turning blue. Or was that meant to be a joke?"
"Life... Is suffering."
"Then death is not?"
"Death is the lack of life, the lack of suffering. The reward for suffering."
"Then what makes this is good? This death you court?"
"Because I affirm myself."
"Come again?"
"I affirm myself. If I have done so, then all of history was meant for this one moment where I have affirmed so. My heart leaps in joy as I experience this discomfort and suffering, I can face death so calmly because of this."
"I see this will of yours, interesting. You chose this death of your own violition, out of your own agency."
"Yes, I do not sooth myself and convince my heart that it is wrong to fear what comes next— what meets me is not important. I choose this end."
"My life is my own, I could not call it such if I died at the wrong time."
"Interesting, you think there is a 'right' and a 'wrong' death?"
"Possibly, I am an old geezer so don't take my word for gospel— however, if I were to die, I would die at my own pace. Amidst this snowy hell, I die alone."
"And that does not bother you."
"No."
"..."
"Death is my company, Death is my friend. Rejecting death is the same as rejecting life, it is common for the young to fear death because they've not yet embraced life. They fear losing the chance to live life, so they fear death."
"But I have lived long, and I have touched many with my words. If I must die to inflict the power of my words on more, to extend the echos of my affirmation."
"Then so be it."
Not just an acceptance of death, but a will to power...
My eyes flicker with amusement, I wonder if his body will stop shaking eventually. "I can see that much. The machinations of you mortal men are pretty amusing, but I wouldn't go so far to say I'm convinced."
"Believe as you will, the fact is I remain here in the cold as my body dies. And yet I am numb, I feel no pain and my mind is at ease."
"You feel cold."
"To die while feeling, that is how I affirm myself, wolf."
"I see."
I took his life the next moment, not out of anger. But because I wished to give him what he desired, a death. But not just any death, a right death, not a correct death, but one he considered his own. He chose this, he welcomed it with open arms.
He welcomed me with open arms, not as an escape from a life filled with sorrow, but as if I was an old friend he'd wearily accepted once again.
The old man's name was not important, his past, his history, his life. But he was a teacher, a teacher of some kind— I could gather that much even without my knowledge. His actions in death did not betray that truth, It all led up to a right death. A death born from his own affirmation, a death of his world but the birth of a new world where a new life would feast.
An echo born from his actions in life will no doubt find another person, and perhaps with his death those echos will expand and grow and give fruit to new life. A new life and a new world to share, and if that life shared a beautiful golden world, if that life is yours.
Then you will be a God.