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At first, Bellroc at least had the comfort of heat: cradled by magma, they’d spent an eon entirely devoid of fellowship. An eon pitifully clinging onto a mere resemblance of parental warmth.
But soon, the option to even reach for comfort was dashed away. The Earth, once a glowing bed of basalt, had been smothered, suffocated in blinding white that seared Bellroc’s retinas. A barren, frozen wasteland. The Earth - everything they had ever known - was completely unrecognisable. In fact, it had seemingly become its inverse.
They’d learned to trudge through the seemingly bottomless blanket of powder - made all the more difficult by its forced obligation to melt under their feet, as if the Earth itself withered under their touch. They would sink down to solid ground within moments, surrounded completely by walls of snow twice as tall as themself. Cloaked by the vapour of their evaporating environment, they roamed endless corridors of white until their retinas blazed. It’s not like they had better things to do.
Countless months passed in this fashion, this forward migration having become their sole worldly purpose. Bellroc’s fears had been confirmed - they would spend an eon more in utter desolation. This is what they had waited for?
This realisation strikes them frighteningly suddenly one day. After an era of dormant expectancy, Bellroc is now overwhelmed with feeling: at once, their throat tightens with immense force and a piercing shriek comes erupting from within. Fingers desperately grasping in their tangled mess of hair, they double over, possessed.
How is it that natural forces see that something once entirely adored becomes the sole fixation of one’s hatred?
As they explode violently with their volatile emulsion of emotions, they are a lone supernova in a vast, empty universe.
And yet…
A gentle frequency brushes Bellroc’s ears. A whistle. The smoke that billows around them, their pall of despair, wanes ever-so-slightly, as if it, too, is quieting to listen. But its desperate plea is met only with silence.
Yet…
…again, a faintly creeping whistle travels across the distant glaciers and meets them where they stand, knees bent slightly in their shallow self-fashioned crater of snow. Bellroc becomes aware of an ancient instinct, a feverish pleading inside that urges them to listen. Their jaw is clenched tight as a drum.
Like an avalanche, a sudden fierce wind from the north forces them onward, stumbling, flailing, and yelling. Though they are hurtling towards an unknown destination, there is not a trace of fear within the young demigod’s being. In fact, the corners of their mouth rise upwards and wrinkle their cheeks, their lot of crooked and oversized teeth on full display. It becomes unclear to Bellroc whether it is solely the wind that propels them or a sudden sense of purpose in this bleak whiteness. They race the wind as it trails their heels; they are a comet blazing through an endless glacial landscape.
After some time, the wind wavers, and Bellroc is left surrounded by a far thinner snowbank. The crystalline landscape sparkles under the incredible rays of sun coming from above. And the centrepiece: a colossal wall of shimmering blue ice.
They crane their neck and stumble slightly walking backwards to take this vision in; this is by far the largest iceberg Bellroc has ever laid their eyes upon.
Without waiting another moment, they cross a short distance to the face of the iceberg, spurred on by a combination of their own impatience and again by that unfamiliar primordial instinct. Their dark eyes examine the ginormous blue mass, scanning for anything interesting that may have been frozen within.
Then, there it was. That something that they had been searching for, perhaps not just now, but rather for their entire existence of meaningless isolation.
It appears as a smudge, a shadow. A slightly darker blur of cerulean encased within a colossal, translucent reserve. Bellroc kindles a small flame within their palm, thawing a path towards this mysterious artefact. They move, unbothered by the melting ice dripping upon their head and rolling down the feathers on their back, transfixed.
After several minutes traversing the icy behemoth, a flicker of red and orange surrounded by endless blue, they reach their destination.
Entrapped within the ice is a tiny bundle of fragile blue curves - living. For a moment, all Bellroc can do is stare, but they quickly get to work on carefully releasing this small unknown being from its prison of ice.
Though they don’t know quite what a baby is, they feel it should be cradled in one’s arms. As this new creature shifts in Bellroc’s hold, his gentle yet incredibly cold breaths tickle their skin. The sensation is mildly irritating - the clash of hot and cold is certainly unpleasant - but they are unbothered, preoccupied taking in this entirely new experience. His skin is of the softest and smoothest texture, cold and wet, yet somehow comforting despite the uncomfortable clash in temperatures. Upon his head are four small and slightly translucent stubs - soon to grow into larger horns, Bellroc guesses…
It feels so right to be with this fellow being. Like an unknown hunger has at last been satiated. Like something frozen inside has finally thawed.
It seems my search for companionship may have ended, Bellroc thinks, holding who would eventually become their brother.
Bellroc has been surrounded by unending cold for many days and nights. And yet, despite holding something… someone that emanates a frigidity unforeseen, they are now feeling warmer than they have ever felt, even when the Earth was once a glowing bed of basalt.