Chapter Text
the winter bites against kai’s bones as he treks up the mountain, body and flesh warring against each other with every step. his palms, alight with conjured flame, shiver and sway with the icy snow, the fire flickering in and out. he fought to keep the fire going, shielding against the wind, and grimaced as each gust would send him back.
as he often was, kai was alone. he did not ask if anyone would accompany him, as he knew the answer; in all the old hustle and bustle of being a ninja, brother often forgot brother. their free days were few and far between, sparsely given and quickly taken, and the others were all preoccupied with their partners or friends. they’ve lost the closeness they once had.
he grumbles about this as his teeth chatter, violently biting up and down against the snow. his coat could not help him here.
‘no,’ he thinks. ‘but zane could.’
zane, like most other elemental masters, was a tragedy from the get-go. forced into an occupation from creation, never allowed to differ; he was a legacy hire, just as the rest of them were, but unlike them, he could never escape. an immortal being, locked into being a master until a death that will never welcome him.
a robot with no desire to procreate or create, he has chained himself to his element, and has embraced it.
which, of course, is why kai is climbing the mountain. he hasn’t seen zane since the final battle over twenty years ago; a famous martyr hidden in the abyss that was this mountain, and nobody ever thought to look for him.
the mountain had a monastery at the tippy top, crafted and encased completely in ice. although it has been there long before kai’s time, it’s known to his generation as elsa’s peak. wu, for decades, had lamented over the name change, grumbling about the lost meaning and respect. this is where zane was. this is where zane has been. this is where zane would likely be, long after kai’s death.
as he takes the final step up the staircase, he’s hit with another round of icy daggers, staggering him. he pushes his hand up to his masked face, guarding his eyes from the assault. immediately, he’s taken by the sight of the monastery — or, he guesses, the castle .
it’s built from ice, just as the legends told, but it’s not at all transparent. giant, white-blue peaks top the towers that surround the main portion of the architecture, looming over him, designs intricately etched into every brick. it is not smooth. it is not fully intact. cracks litter the walls in a kaleidoscope of damages, each telling a different story lost to time.
a giant, foreboding sign lingers and sways above him, attached to posts on either side of him, but the weather is too harsh to make out the words. he can’t even see most of the castle, most lost to the endless white that surrounds him whole.
he’s so enamored with the beauty and depth in front of him that he almost misses it.
in the eye of the hurricane, it is not quiet. it is not loud. instead, it is filled with humming echoing off the walls, enveloping the entirety of elsa’s peak.
‘zane,’ he thinks, and ventures forth.