1 Prologue

"Ideals are peaceful.

History... Is violent."

- x -

The whistle of the wind was deafening. Trees around her were bare and stretched for miles into the darkened sky where stars glittered with wishes and kisses for the totem in her arms. She wasn't accustomed to the cold. There were but two months a year where the creatures crossed paths while her kind buried or resurfaced and their kind went into their sleep. 9 months had since passed and as she clawed out of the ground he was waiting for her with arms extended and warmth he normally lacked in his bones.

"You will do great things..."

Her whisper was no louder than the swift flurries of snow that wrapped around her ankles, her arms curled around the totem with an instinct of warmth though it would struggle for neither heat nor chill. Her hair fell in tendrils around her face, the dark voluminous locks creating a curtain between her and the hunched curve she had created with her body. Bits of ice had begun to form on their ends but she paid no mind. There would be no sorrow here today - only memories and the certainty of her kind's survival. If the prophecy foretold was correct then she had far more to worry about than the present day.

"Stories will be told in your honor, of how you will one day save this Earth."

A single finger moved down the bundled peace token and it was then and only then that she heard the crunch of feet behind her, straightening her position so that she could turn and face the hollowed cheeks of the King.

The court had been in a furious meltdown by the time he had broken free of their clinging hands, it was as if they knew that he had things to do, places to be, no not a place...a person. His person, the 9 months without her had been terrible. Already being apart from her with what the limitations were had made a romance hard on both of them but adding their secret into the mix had driven him half insane with worry and desperation. If he could only change what they were.

That was the place of the miracle that they were embracing on that day.

Making himself known behind her as she spoke to the totem he pushed his ice blonde hair out of his face with a heavy ringed hand, the crown stowed away on his steed. On this day he wasn't just the Neprimirim King he was hers, belonging only to the soul that he had so grown attached to.

"Are you sure that you want to do this my love?" He asked in a gruff voice trying to push emotion away.

"There is no other choice." Her answer was straight forward, no hesitation resonating in her voice though it wavered with disdain. Today they would be burying the most important token to the world and no one would ever know of its existence. Not her kind, nor his. Pressing her forehead to the totem she came to a slow stand by rocking back gracefully on unusually covered heels, having to be wrapped for the harsh Winter weather.

As she approached the glass entombment she clicked it backwards as best she could with the assistance of the King, eyes never leaving the priceless gift in her arms before she set it down on the silken casket.

"It is in the absence of its life that we will find peace." Her free hands now moved to touch the chest of the King, staring at his steel grey glare with her own warm hazelnut orbs. Opposites placed in the world with nothing in common but their hearts. The same thudding beat pounding in her ears, beneath her fingertips as well. To be so in sync that the Earth had begun to move on its axis in a way it never had before. What was to come would only grow the hatred between their kinds further into unrecognizable war.

Complete destruction.

Letting her fingers drape down his royal linen she eventually dropped heavy arms back to her side and then held her palms towards the sky, wrists at her hips and level with the tomb that began to wrap in tentacles of vines and moss, closing the glass carefully with its weight.

"Sŭn."

The command was simple but it was elegant. The combined magic of the species drifting the totem into the sleep that their native language demanded of it. There it would lie eternally until it was needed - until it was awoken and driven by the will of peace the world would come to need sooner than they hoped.

"It will grow as the world does, but it will not die. We will likely not see it when it is needed most, My King..." The words were broken both by emotion and lack of the English language, her eyes closing as her jaw ticked to withhold the sadness she had attempted to push away.

At the end of everything, watching them set the totem down in it's silk casket, as the vines weaved over it all in a warm and loving embrace just like the woman who had created it the sound of ice cracking was echoing in the enclosed space as a single tear tracked down his face. The only part of him that the world had ever received was laying on that silk not knowing how much it was loved.

Just a totem. Something to be hidden away until it was needed long after the two that loved it were gone.

Ice cracking filled the silence as the King tried to think of anything to fill the void, but he could only step toward her and put his heavy hand on the back of her head the space between them needed due to what they were. His touch in his state of mind would possibly be deadly to her so there were no last kisses before their parting. No final goodbye great enough to make this pain seem right. So in his grief his free hand started weaving a cage of ice around what she had made.

Once they walked away to their own devices the ice would expand until the hiding space of the totem became a tomb.

"Just know there is never a fiber of my being that regrets this, the time with you, what we made...I'd do it all again just for one moment of seeing the sun shine on your smiling lips my love. My heart always belongs to you." The eternal winter started to spread into his being.

Forever cold just like the people he led, forever losing the warmth in their hearts as their minds turned dark.

"Nor will I."

In three simple words she was touching the side of his face, the crystals forming at the ends of her hair and clothing beginning to find some of her skin and cause her pain. Without another word or a proper goodbye she cloaked herself into the surroundings while she was still able knowing he would fade into existence with the movement of the flakes and back to his home.

He would return to his castle and rule his people.

And she would die beside her totem where she belonged - the only place she thought herself worthy. Sacrificial beings were not unheard of in her own kind. So filled to the brim with warmth and love they often let their sorrows drown them. She would never be able to touch her King again, never be able to hold their creation. So as the ice continued to form and he disappeared into the frosting land she pulled forth her dagger and sank it into the pit of her stomach, blinking back into existence as she dropped to her knees beside the tomb. Her body sank into the soft powdered snow and the sting of the ice couldn't be felt as the heat of her blood formed a pool in its pristine nature.

Outstretching her hand they began to turn into the oak of her true nature, lines of the aging tree she truly was, appearing on her skin until she was nothing but bark. Antlers sprouting from her skull and her snout elongating ever so slightly, the Earth accepting her as one of its children she then became rooted to the ivy and vines around the tomb.

Soon to be covered by both elements that were their saving grace.