Chapter Three
The Eden of North
“I left the horrid care of Dias and the iron fortress the True Bloods lived in, though I was relieved to have left in time to be able to keep my teeth I was still upset, as I would rather have my father alive and all my teeth gone then have him dead.
Though I was able to keep my teeth the fact still remained that I had attacked and wounded a True Blood, the first place I was taken to was a lock smith, who after taking measurements made and fitted me with an iron muzzle, a lock that was built on its side extending the muzzle just enough when unhitched for when I needed to eat and drink, the lock pulling the iron muzzle tight and keeping my mouth shut for the rest of the time, a chain that attached to this muzzle what the True Bloods would use to drag me around by or tie me to a post or wall.
For a week I fought with the muzzle to try and get it off, I would pull and claw as it, even slam myself into the iron walls of the fortress in hopes it might break, but no matter what was done I could not remove it, after much fighting I gave up, and accepted the fact that I was now doomed to wear this.
After I had calmed down from the panic the icon muzzle had put me in I was placed in the back of a truck once more and transported back home to the rest of my tribe. On the long way there I wondered what it would be like to be back home, would I be used to the cold any more after staying so long in the True Blood’s well heated fortress? Would anyone I knew as a child recognize me? Would I recognize any of them? It had been so long since I had been home, and I was only a very small child when I had lived there, everyone would certainly look different over the years.
When I did arrive back home and saw it, it was if I was seeing if for the first time, it had greatly changed from what it had once been, it was so much bigger than before, with much more people both True Blood and Wild alike, their iron homes and towers filling the area. My homeland had become the Iron Fortress I had just come back from, the only thing that was missing was the iron sky and heating.”
Shiya stares in disbelief at what had become of his village, the chain attached to his iron muzzle pulling tight as he is yanked into moving again. “Come on stop holding us up.”
Shiya slinks behind the man that lead him by the chain, he still walking on all fours, that the only way that he had been allowed to move when living with the True Bloods, everyone staring at him as he passed, some whispering about the way he walked, others whispering about the iron muzzle, and several commenting on how much he looked like Amarok, the powerful and strong warrior that had recently been killed in battle.
Soon his destination is reached and Shiya is brought into the home belonging to the chieftain of his tribe, the chieftain lounging comfortably on many pillows and comforts. He was a lot fatter than Shiya remembered him being, looking to lead a rather easy life compared to how things had been before the alliance with the True Bloods.
The chieftain looks over to Shiya, letting out grunt while shaking his head in disgust. “An iron muzzle… I should have expected no less from the son of Amarok. Attacking and bringing harm to a True Blood, what were you thinking? I had hoped that I would have myself a Healer returned to me as so I could replace your mother, but clearly you’ve inherited your father’s poor judgment and vicious manners. One that has attacked and cause harm on another cannot be a healer so say the spirits. You are useless to me.”
The man that had brought Shiya to him questions the chieftain. “What do you want me to do with him?”
A white wolf that is in the Chieftain’s house with him speaks up, he the chieftain’s son. “If you had him cleaned up I think he would be very pretty, my wife is seeking someone to help her with her chores while she is with child, but she’s very picky over who she is seen with. I think she would settle for someone as fine looking as him.”
The chieftain is appalled to hear this. “You would have someone who has attacked a True Blood serve your wife and child?”
His son doesn’t think that to be that large of an issue. “If he attacked a True Blood then it was for a reason. Amarok was not vicious without reason for being so, I would suspect that his son would be the same.”
The chieftain looks back to his son. “Why must you always direct suspicion towards the True Bloods Nanuk? They saved your sorry life when you were a boy do not forget this.”
Nanuk narrows his eyes. “No father… I will not forget the time they ‘saved my life.’ It will always be burned within my memory.”
“How can I expect you to continue on my work when I die when you hate the very people we work with for no reason?”
“I have my reasons, just as I’m sure Amarok’s son did.”
The chieftain makes a frown as he looks to the man that had brought Shiya here, ignoring the request his son had made. “Throw him to the sacrifices, he can at least play his part in that if nothing else.”
The True Blood that leads Shiya takes him from the Chieftains’ home, leading him toward a building that is filthy and much less kept than the others, taking him inside where he ties and then locks his chain to one of the many bars that made up the cells holding many wilds within them, all these wilds not members of his tribe but enemies, members of groups that had tried to attack his people to stop what was happened but failed to do so.
Several of the prisoners begin to speak up upon realizing Shiya’s presence. “A wolf? So now they are sacrificing their own kind?”
“Serves you right wolf, for trusting the furless visitors that think themselves to be gods and your power hungry chieftain.”
“I bet the source will take it’s time killing you, I bet it will want to punish you for betraying the trust it gave to you and your people.”
“You’re in for a very slow and very painful death wolf.”
Shiya turns away from them as he lies down upon the ground, trying to ignore the words of the other sacrifices as they howled and insulted him for what it was his tribe and the True Bloods were doing.
“The muzzle I was given kept my mouth shut tight, so I was unable to tell the prisoners that they were wrong, that I had never trusted the True Bloods or even followed the orders of my chieftain, I had done nothing to betray the original task that the Ice Source had given me and my people, all I had done become so frightened that I had bitten someone, nothing more evil than that.
It was weeks before I was taken from the prisons and to the caverns where the Ice Source resided, I did not know what was going on or why they were bringing me, but I did know one thing, the prisoners that were brought to the caverns were never brought out alive if they were brought out at all. I, like the others before me, was being sent to my death, that is why they called us sacrifices after all.
I did not fight or try to run away as I was lead to the caverns of ice myself, I accepted my fate, I even looked forward to it. My life was pitiful, painful, held no purpose and was a torturous existence that throughout the years only hurt me, I wanted to it be over, I wanted it to end. I did not want to live in pain anymore and I knew the only way someone as small and weak as me could free myself from it was through death.
When my body died and my spirit was reborn hopefully my next life would be less horrible than this one, one where I could be happy, where I was treated with respect and not like a disobedient pet, perhaps I would even have someone to love and even a family, perhaps my spirit would be reborn in one of those places covered in the green plants my mother told me about once during her lessons, if such a place still existed, if it ever did at all, hopefully his next life was different in every way possible to this one.”
The men that lead Shiya come to a stop, they having reached the deepest part of the catacombs, it a large room filled with crystals of ice, the room capable of being absolutely beautiful if it were not littered with the many bodies of those that had entered before Shiya, the corpses frozen solid to the ground and even in the ice pillars and walls.
The man holdings the chain attached to Shiya’s iron muzzle lets go, dropping the chain to the ground, he then motioning for Shiya to continue moving forward into the cavern of ice.
Shiya moves forward as told, his hands and feet stinging with a biting pain from the cold ice upon the ground. His fur not thick enough to keep him warm in this place like it was the snow outside, the cold air sharper here than he had ever felt it, biting into his skin and stabbing deeper and deeper into his body the further he entered.
Finally Shiya reaches a large structure of ice within the center of the cavern, he reaching up and placing his hand upon the ice, no longer able to move or feel his fingers and hand anymore, this crystal of ice must have been cold though, as the ice was already starting to from around the hand he had placed on it, building itself around his hand freezing him solid, the ice continuing down his arm.
Shiya closes his eyes, there no doubt about it, he would die here and this room of cold ice would be his grave.
A voice that sounds much like his own begins to question Shiya. “You are not like any that has been sent to face me.”
Shiya opens his eyes as he looks around him, he surrounded by a soft blue light. The voice that spoke to him continuing, seeming to echo around him from all sides. “You are like a frozen surface of a river that has shattered, broken by the strong rapids, sinking beneath the surface of the water and melting away until there is nothing left.”
“You have no will to continue, no strength to fight, you have accepted how broken you have become. You have the heart of warrior and spirit much stronger than many I have seen before you, so why do you come here not to face me, but to give up and have me kill you? Answer me boy, why do think you should remain shattered? Why do you want to disappear?”
Shiya does not answer, the voice questioning him on his lack of a response. “Why will you not answer my questions?”
Shiya shakes his head there not much he could do about it. “I can’t-” He stops talking as he lifts his hands to his face, the iron muzzle that kept him silent no longer on him, it having disappeared when the caverns had.
“Well boy? What is your answer?”
Shiya holds his head down as he begins to answer the questions that had been asked of him. “I’m tired of being hurt, my existence has no meaning, there’s no reason for me to struggle, I don’t want to continue.”
“Your father fought hard for many years to keep you alive, he sacrificed his freedom, his loyalty to me, and in the end his life to keep you alive, and you would throw everything that he has worked for and given you away?”
Shiya frowns at the reminder. “My father was a fool! He should have let me die! He had the strength to fight the True Bloods and the Chieftain! He could have attacked and killed them all before everything went this far, but because he was so worried for my safety he didn’t! My life was not worth that!”
“No father who puts his own life before his child’s is a fool.”
“It was in doing that he made himself weak!!”
“Family is what makes you strong boy, it does not make you weak, you are a foolish child for thinking that it does.”
Shiya wildly shakes his head before yelling out in anger. “I do not need to be lectured! Just kill me already! Kill me like everyone else that has come to challenge you and be done with it!”
The voice becomes as angered as Shiya’s. “It is the spirits who decide when you will die! Do not demand things you hold no rights to! You will live and you will be my vessel.”
Shiya lowers his head, that going to prolong his horrible existence. “Why me…? Please can’t you choose anyone else?”
Shiya falls silent, the voice easing to a lower tone. “Shattered boy, I am tired and I am weak, I have not recovered from the great destruction and re-birth of the world, and my moments in which I was supposed to rest were instead spent fighting off those who wished to control me, because the people whom I trusted to watch over me while I was vulnerable betrayed and turned against me. Even if I wanted to kill an ungrateful and broken boy as you I could not.”
“My fate is either to disappear from this world or take you as my vessel, and I know what will happen to the world if I am to disappear, I have no intentions of leaving and throwing the world into chaos, I know what it is my purpose is, and I know where my responsibilities lay.”
“Remember this shattered boy, the ice cannot be stopped by breaking it, the cold will reform the rivers surface and the ice will cover it once more, you are broken today, but you will heal, no matter how many times you are broken, how many pieces you shatter into, you will always form once more, such is the nature of cold and ice.”
“I’m not sure what happened after that, I know that my body went as cold as ice, it felt as if I had died, I lost all sense of what was happening around me, and then my mind went at war. Memories of two beings fought against one another, I saw things that no one else had, from when the world was created and the Six Sources began to fill it with life. I saw many generations of life grow, and I saw life change and evolve into huge beasts that I had never seen before, I saw the world destroy these creatures, and then saw life reborn as new species, this process happening time and time again, until it came to the era of humans, a being of life far more intelligent and prosperous than all others before it.
I watched them grow from a simple race to a complicated one, I watched them destroy one another, I watched them destroy their own planet, I watched them try and fight their end once the world was on the very of being re-born once again, I saw them parish is masses, and struggle to survive, I watched the survivors evolve and change from human to half beast as to survive with the land, and I saw them grow once more, vowing not to make the same mistakes that had been done in the past, yet in the end making them anyway, though they were more mindful of the destruction to the planet I still watched them divide, hate, and destroy one another the same as they had done in the past.
As I saw these things the memories of my own life began to become fragmented, I found myself not remembering whole events, only bits and pieces. Conversations became broken, I only able to recall pieces of conversations and sentences, even the memory of how people in my past looked, details that I never thought I would forget were disappearing.”
Shiya opens his eyes as he slowly lifts his head, the sound of the chain from his muzzle dragging across the ground getting his attention, making him realize that he was back in his pitiful reality, he look around him, he no longer within the ice caverns, he also not in the prison. He now in a room filled with glowing boxes that held words and numbers, several True Bloods in long white coats reading over information as they monitored him, several of them making comments when they see that he has woken up.
Shiya moves forward to get a better look at the strange devices in the room, his head bumping into something and bringing him to a stop, Shiya rubbing his head as he looks around not sure of what he had hit it on, he taking his hand from his head from a moment and holding it forward, his hand coming to a stop against glass, this being when he had run into. He takes several steps back, he divided from the True Bloods that were in the room by a thick sheet of glass.
Shiya takes his eyes from the glass and looks to his left hand that was clenched shut tightly, Shiya lifting his hand to his face, it feelings as if he were holding something, the white wolf slowly opening his hand to find a strange blue crystal that he had never seen before resting in the palm of his hand.
He stares at it taking a closer look, he swearing that he could see a moving image within it, an image that was familiar to him that he had recently forgotten all about.
“You’re finally awake, we couldn’t get near you because you were screaming and lashing out for days, turning anyone that got near you to ice, eventually you finally stopped, and we were able to take you out of the caverns and place you back in here where you ended up sleeping for days, we were starting to think that our attempts might have ended in failure again.”
Shiya looks over to the scientist on the other side of the glass that had spoken up, he a True Blood that he had never seen before, an older man with glasses and white hair, the scientist continues to speak to him. “That’s right you can’t speak with that thing on you when it’s closed can you, of course whose fault is that? You don’t get yourself stuck in one of those things unless you attack someone. You’ll be working closely to True Bloods from now on so we’ve no intention of taking that thing off of you while working with you if we don’t absolutely have, as it would be dangerous for us if we did.”
He looks over to a scientist near him. “Are we ready to run some tests with the weapon?”
“As soon as he’s connected to it we can start calibrating the machine.”
“Very good.” He looks back to Shiya. “Well, we managed to be successful in trapping the Source, so let’s see if we’re successful withdrawing from this power and using it.” He looks back to the other scientists. “All right let’s get moving, progress doesn’t happen on its own.”
The scientist’s all move quickly, Shiya watching them work from his glass cell, he unable to make any sense of what exactly was going on right now, the door to his cell opening as two guards make their way through, grabbing to either of Shiya’s arms and dragging him out, taking him with him down a long hall filled with doors to other rooms until they reaches their destination, the door to the room opening for them to enter.
A man that was already in the room looks Shiya over. “The bath is ready and waiting, make sure he doesn’t cause trouble, we can’t have any outside contaminates inside the device, let’s hope we can get this filthy thing cleaned on the first try.”
“I was stripped of my clothes and cleaned, it had been years since I had taken a bath, this really this first in a the long time I had gotten one, it took them three tries before there were satisfied with their results, after that I was taken to another room, where the guards unlocked and removed the muzzle from me and then took the small crystal that I still had clenched in my hand, after that I was taken to what they called a decontamination room, and then after that placed inside a strange glass capsule at the center of the room.
I stayed within this capsule for hours, it wasn’t comfortable in the least, it was bad enough that I had woke up in an unknown place with me having no idea of what was going on, but I was also huddled naked in a transparent capsule propped in the center of a room where about a hundred True Bloods ran around from computer to computer, making notes, calculations and calibrations concerning me and the apparent machine I was in.
This work of theirs continued long into the night, and it was very early in the morning when they finally decided to call it a day and get some rest before the continued. For days I was brought to this room and made to sit for hours inside the capsule while they worked.”
During one of these procedures the chieftain of Shiya’s tribe enters the room, his son Nanuk following him. “We would not be able to do all of this without the True Blood’s help, you understand this right?”
Nanuk sighs as he looks around the room. “They haven’t even gotten it to work yet.”
“Give them time, these things do not happen overnight.”
“And what if they never figure it out? Everything you’ve done would have been for nothing! You are a fool for ever thinking that such a power could possibly be contained and furthermore controlled by them.”
The chieftain laughs at the comment. “The Ice Source has already been contained, it’s only a matter of time before we are able to control it as well. The True Bloods will make a believer out of you yet.”
The chieftain’s eyes fall to Shiya when he sees him, he now approaches him with a grin on his face. “Ah, son of Amarok, you look so different cleaned up like this. I hardly recognize you.”
Nanuk stares up at Shiya. “Are you sure that’s him? Amarok’s son had brown eyes not blue.”
“The eyes reflect the soul, they’ve changed in colour to show now that the Ice Source now dwells inside him.”
Shiya stares back at him, the chieftain continuing to speak. “Who would have thought that out of everyone that we sent down there that you would be the one we ended up trapping the Ice Source inside.”
Shiya looks around him at the men that filled the room. “What’s going to happen to me…? What is all this stuff?”
The chieftain looks out to the machines. “A lot has happened since you have been gone son of Amarok. The village has changed, and in doing so we have prospered, no longer do we so easily get sick, freeze to death in the cold, and never do we lose in battle.” He frowns. “But there are still things to be done, though we have always beaten our enemies we have not been able to completely wipe them out, that is where you come in.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you, son of Amarok, play host to the great and powerful harbinger of destruction, the Ice Source. You are a powerful weapon that will one day show its power to the world and make all who see me tremble in fear!”
The True Blood in charge of the project looks to the chieftain. “Instead of him one day showing you what he can do, how about he show you on this day?”
The chieftain turns back to him. “On this day? He can be used now?”
“We’re ready for a field test I think, we don’t know if it will work or not but we’ll never know unless we try.”
The chieftain nods his head. “Then show me.” He looks to his son for a moment. “You will now see what it was this tireless effort was all for.”
He looks back to Shiya. “So then? Are you ready to kill my enemy?”
Shiya shakes his head no. “I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“Weapons are for killing, you’ve no choice now that you have become one.” The chieftain looks from Shiya and to one of the True Bloods. “Show me the power the Ice Source is capable of.”
A large screen lights up, Shiya frantically looking around him as frost starts to form on the inside of the capsule, this rapidly turning into ice that was starting to fill the entire capsule, Shiya making a fist as he pounds against the glass to try and free himself, his struggle stopping when the ice completely engulfs him.
Shiya lets out a gasp as he looks around him, he no longer in the room with the True Bloods, he now in a village, one that was small, with homes not tall and made of iron like his village had grown to become, the homes instead built out of snow, animal bones and skins, just as Shiya had remembered his own village to be before the alliance with the True Bloods.
He stares at the villagers, a tribe of polar bear decent who went about their lives just as ordinarily as they always did, none of them paying notice to Shiya, as if they could not see him there. He looks toward a group of children as they play in the snow, this game being the same one he would play with his own friends as a child.
Shiya’s attention is taking from them as he lets out a cry of pain, Shiya wrapping his arms around him as his whole body begins to ach, the villagers now beginning to take notice as the air suddenly begins to grow colder, snow starting to form and fall around them, the children stopping their game as they watch ice beginning to form on the buildings they were by.
Shia grinds his teeth as the pain continues to grow, the sharp and stabbing pain continuing to grow worse and worse until he finally lets out a scream of pain that everyone in the village could hear even when not seeing him, the earth opening up as shards of ice break through to the surface, everything around him beginning to freeze solid into a cold and lifeless state, until there is nothing left and everything was engulfed by ice, slowly being buried beneath the thick snow that fell from the sky until they could no longer be seen, the village and it’s people disappearing into the white icy landscape.
Shiya slowly opens his eyes, his breathing heavy as his body trembled, he no longer within the village and back within the glass capsule the True Bloods had placed him inside, the voices calmly congratulating one another over the success of the test while at the same time talking about the calibrations and adjustments that needed to be worked on in order for this to go more smoothly the next time.
One of the True Bloods scrapes the forest that had gathered on the equipment, while others blow warm air on their hands to warm their freezing fingers. “We’ll have to better insulate the Source to prevent this from happening again, we don’t need him accidently taking out our own equipment.”
“Forget the equipment I thought I was going to freeze to death.”
“It’s not perfect but at least it’s working as intended, we’ll fix the problems we ran into today and go from there.”
“The Source’s life signs are good, he seems a little worked up but that’s to be expected.”
“We didn’t kill him, another step in the right direction.”
“The capsule is frozen solid though, we’re not going to be able to get him out until it thaws.”
“We’ll have to look into doing something to prevent that too, for now someone get some heaters in here so we can get him out.”
Nanuk walks up to the casual that right now held Shiya. “Such frightening power…” He stares at Shiya through the layers of ice that had formed on both the inside and outside of the glass.
The chieftain nods his head. “Yes Nanuk, and he will be yours. Though he is right now sloppy and filled with problems the True Bloods will see to working those out, by the time you take my place as chieftain he will be perfected. With this you will be the most powerful person alive, none will be your equal.”
Shiya looks back at the chieftain’s son as he stares at him, Nanuk shaking his head to what his father ad said. “I don’t care about being powerful… I just want our people to survive, and the best way to assure that to defeat our enemies.”
“After the True Bloods thawed the ice and where able to get me out I was clothed once again, my muzzle fitted back on me and the strange crystal returned to me before I was is placed back within my new glass cell. Though much more elegant that the other places I had been locked up it was still a prison, I don’t know if it was because of the Source that now dwelled within me but I yearned for freedom more than I ever did before.
Every day I would stare at the strange crystal that would show me the memories of my past, I always clutched it tightly in my hands not wanting to lose it, and I never could understand why. Though some of the memories it would show to me were pleasant most were not, the memories of me being taken from my parents, of Diaz’s cruelty, of the village I had been made to destroy, it felt as if those memories would play more often than the good ones.
I started to wonder what would happen if I didn’t not have the crystal to show me these memories. Would I forget them? And if I did would losing the few good memories I had be worth sacrificing if it would make me forget the seemingly endless amounts of bad ones that I had?
I was brought many times to that room and made to destroy many enemies, and each time I was made to do such things I would get more and more disconnected from myself, I hated what it was I had become, I was responsible for taking so many lives, and I would be responsible for taking much more.
Though I cast an unfathomable power when within the machine I could never do it on my own, from time to time I would try, thinking that I could perhaps use it to try and escape, or at the least remove the hateful muzzle, but whenever I tried nothing would happen, I could not do anything special or different from anyone else unless I was in that murderous machine, unlike the True Bloods I had no control over the power within me.
The True Bloods were smart and innovated, finding other ways to use the power that was trapped inside of me, one such thing they did was drive the ice and cold back from the village while surrounding it with a blizzard more fierce than any other, the people lived inside a paradise, with no one on the outside able to touch us. The village had gained the power that it had sought out, and any enemy that dared to rise against them was crushed in only a matter of moments. Everyone took to calling this place a new name, the untouchable Eden of North.
The Chieftain’s son Nanuk had not the greed that his father had, never the less he was still interested in the power I contained, of the things that I could do. At the same time though he was different from his father, he held a sympathy towards me and the situation I was in, this triggered by the muzzle that I was made to wear. Though others would jump to the conclusion that I was dangerous he was the only who thought me not to be, he was convinced that the True Blood that had been bitten by me had done something to deserve what he got, unlike his father and the rest of my tribe he did not trust the True Bloods, and I suspect it was because he had gone through something similar to what I had.
He would come to see me often, though he was opinionated and vocal around his father he was quiet and wouldn’t talk much around anyone else. I knew that he had a family, a wife and a daughter, I knew he didn’t get along with his father and I knew that he hated the True Bloods that his father had created an alliance with, and that he had the heavy burden of replacing his father as the chieftain. Other than that, I knew nothing about him.
The only time he had any kind of real conversation with me was about a month before he died.”
Shiya is being walked out of decontamination room, having just been removed from the capsule after another round of testing, he and his guards coming to a stop upon finding Nanuk in the preparation room.
Nanuk looks to the two guards that lead Shiya giving them orders. “Leave us. I wish to speak to him alone.”
The guards seem reluctant to do so. “It would be irresponsible for us to leave you alone with someone so dangerous.”
Nanuk raises his voice. “You will listen to me or you will be punished. Is that understood?”
The guards shake their heads before doing as they are told, they uncertain about this action. “It’s your fault if he attacks you.”
Nanuk looks back to Shiya. “It’s not easy to find you at a moment you don’t have that thing on your head that keeps you from talking.”
Shiya looks to the side, though talking had been easy enough for him as a child over the years he had ben both taught and forced to keep silent, speaking up feeling like a strange and even frightening thing to do now. “Yes…” He looks back to Nanuk. “Why do you trust me not to harm you?”
Nanuk smiles back at him. “Amarok was my mentor, as the other warriors in the tribe did I followed him in battle. He saved my life more times than I can count, much more than the single time the True Bloods claimed to have saved mine when I was a child. I could never picture Amarok’s son as being dangerous when his father was as good a person as he was.”
Nanuk holds up the blue crystal that had been taken from Shiya before he was placed in the machine and left in this room until the True Bloods were done with him. “Where did you get this?”
Shiya shrugs his shoulders, Nanuk continuing to question him. “Was it a gift from someone? A friend? Family member?”
Shiya seems unsure. “Not given to me by anyone I don’t think… but I don’t know where it came from… I’ve been forgetting a lot of things lately…”
Nanuk seems confused, he hardly seeing Shiya without it, it not making sense to cherish something in such a way if it were not special somehow. “Why is this little crystal so important to you?”
Shiya looks over toward the white wolf that had spoken up, the memories that played within that crystal the only thing for him to fall back to, he treated as both a prisoner and experiment with no freedoms of his own and no contact with anyone aside the True Bloods that worked with him. “It keeps me kind…”
“How do you suspect that?”
Shiya frowns at the question. “It reminds me of the memories I need to remember, reminds me that my father told me to never lose my kindness.” He looks to the side. “There is a rage deep inside of me, my heart aches with betrayal and of loss, and I am angry at what has happened to me, of everything that I’ve had to endure, I want vengeance for what has been done.” He lowers his head. “But I must remember that I am kind… that I am not the sort to do those things.”
“I see.” Nanuk keeps the crystal in his hands, taking a thin hide and beginning to work with the gem. “My father has announced that he wants to step down and allow me to take his place, to take over this mess he has made with the True Blood’s alliance.”
He lets out a frustrated sigh. “I want nothing to do with the True Bloods, but my people will not survive without their help. Gone are the days when life was fraught with death, where we feared death from starvation or the cold, our numbers are too large now, and my people too changed by progress to go back to the old ways. Because of this change the tribes around ours see us as an enemy, and relentlessly attack. They have both strength and numbers and have killed many warriors, many of which were my friends. You, are the only defence and weapon I have against them, and the True Bloods are the only ones that know how to use those powers they have locked up inside of you.”
Nanuk shakes his head. “As much as I want to break the alliance with the True Bloods I cannot, as it would mean the death of my people… every single one of them.” He looks back to Shiya. “I hate the True Bloods, I hate them with every bone in my body, and yet I am being forced to treat them as my friends, to welcome them to my village and home, to let them near my people, my friends, my family.”
Shiya stares at Nanuk. “Why do you hate them as much as you do?”
Nanuk lets out a grunt. “You are the last person I would have to explain why to, you know why it is I hate them without me having to explain, you would not be stuck with that muzzle if you didn’t.”
Shiya looks to the side. “You’ll be the leader of your tribe soon, how can you not drive them out?”
Nanuk closes his eyes as he holds his head back. “You do not understand my position… and I doubt you ever will… very few do. A leader is not as grand and many think them to be… I am just as trapped as you are. I must stay within the cage I am limited to, if I dare step out of bounds it will be not only me that suffers but my people as well. My father crosses those boundaries and look at what has become of us, how I have suffered, how you have suffered. I cannot fix the damage that has been done by him without that suffering happening all over again, all I can do is accept and work with what it is my father has left me.”
Shiya seems confused. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
“To somehow apologize I suppose, and hope that you can understand. I know that you do not like what it is you made to do, you do not like being made to kill our enemies… I wish I could make it so you would not have to… but I can’t… the wars and fighting will not stop unless either we or our enemies are defeated, and I have no intention of being defeated. Perhaps if I were a better man I could find another way… I fear though that I am not.”
He motions for Shiya to approach him, Shiya timidly walking towards him, Nanuk holding out the crystal to him, it now tied to a string that Shiya could wear it around his neck so that it would be much harder for him to lose. “Your father was right to tell you not to lose your kindness, perhaps if I had such a trait I would not be doomed to live the same role as my father.”
Shiya takes the necklace from him staring at it for a moment before putting it on, he then looking back to Nanuk. “You are more kind that you think…” Nanuk grins at him before leaving the room, the guards entering as they return to preparing Shiya to be placed back within his cell.
“After that, unless he was arguing with his father, Nanuk hardly said a word. Though he said there was little he could do about my situation I knew in my heart that even if it took a long time he would find a way to change it, if he would have lived long enough to I’ve no doubt that he would have been a good leader, unfortunately Nanuk’s time was cut short.
The chieftain, though old and wanting to soon pass his title to his son, outlived the life of his son when Nanuk was killed, his father and the members of my tribe thought one of their enemies to be the culprit, though many if the True Bloods would whisper among themselves, they saying that it was one of the True Blood soldiers that did it under orders from higher up in the chain of command, the action having been taken because the True Bloods were worried that Nanuk would break the alliance with them once he took his father’s place and keep the Ice Source from them.
Though I could not prove that these rumors were true I somehow knew that they were, I spent many years among the True Bloods, and I saw the memories the Ice Source had when they were humans.
Nanuk’s death made me bitter, and angry. I started to dwell over the memories of the others that I had known that had been lost because of the alliance my tribe had created in its search for power, Adina, my mother, my father, and how I had suffered and would forever live out my days as a prisoner, never to be free again.
I began to doubt the way I acted, why did I have to continuing be kind? I was already muzzled and treated as if I were more violent and dangerous than my father, I was used as a weapon to kill the homes and families of those that had or might attack us, I was treated as a prisoner locked away from everyone but the scientists that worked with me, I had to life, no purpose of my own, no reason for being kind. I began to think that no one here deserve anything but destruction, True Blood and wild alike, why should I listen to the memories of a man killed by the very people that were keeping me captive, why should I be kind to and prolong the lives of power hungry and evil men?
I stopped looking toward the crystal, I stopped carrying it with me, and as I did the rage and the hate inside of me grew. Everything that had happened to me was because of these people, my parent’s deaths, my horrible childhood as a beaten pet, the damn muzzle I was force to wear every day! If not for my chieftain, for the True Bloods, for the tribe that had forgotten and betrayed our original goals I would not have had to endure any of this!
I became bitter and fierce, and as I became more hateful and raged the cold followed me wherever I went, no longer contained to the capsule when the machine drew the power out of me, the whole building I was within became frigid, and the glass cell I was placed in filled with ice and frost. The True Bloods could see that I was losing control of the power held within me and they worked desperately to see to it that I contained it.
Despite their efforts I finally found my moment to escape, and I took my vengeance out on everyone.”
Shiya is being walked down the halls by several guards, the ground freezing sold beneath his hands and feet with each step he took, frost forming on the walls as he walked past him while the breath of everyone who was near him clouded like smoke.
He is taken to the preparation room before the decontamination chamber, the guards starting to remove his muzzle, Shiya looking from them and back towards the metal sliding door of the room, it having not closed all of the way, the ice and cold having stopped it from closing and locking.
As soon as the muzzle is off of him Shiya makes a lung for the door, slipping past the guards as he runs to and comes to a stop in front of the door, placing his hands between the small opening between the door and the wall and trying to push it open, it too heavy for him to move.
The guards call out warnings as they move to get him back under control, Shiya looking back to them yelling out as he swings his arm at them, ice rapidly raising from the ground and freezing them solid in their place.
Shiya stares at them for a moment, he looking down to his hands and then towards the door that kept him trapped inside, he swings his arm forward a tower of ice rapidly forming and slamming into the door, bending and forcing it open enough for Shiya to get through, Shiya climbing over the ice and out into the hall, quickly racing through it as he looks for a way outside, everything around him freezing solid as it’s rapidly covered in ice.
He spots a window, his direction turning as he races toward it, the ice that formed around him forming in front of him and smashing through the glass, opening a way for Shiya to escape the building through, Shiya picking up speed as leaping through it, his body falling for a moment from leaping out of the second level of the building before hitting the ground.
Shiya pushes himself up as he quickly begins looking around him, several members of the village staring at him in shock while speaking to one another. “That’s Amarok’s boy isn’t it? I didn’t know that he was still here.”
Shiya grins his teeth while letting out a growl, hearing his father’s name reminding him that he had died protecting these ungrateful people, died following the orders of a corrupt and power hungry man, of how this same man tried to kill him but instead killed Adina and then sent him away to live under the care of Diaz who would hurt and bruise him even if he did nothing wrong, and then after doing all that turning him into a weapon and using him to kill the families of those who might stand against them.
His claws dig into the ground as he raises his head in the air and lets out an angered scream, the air rapidly growing colder as the ground surrounding him turns to ice, snow forming in the air and beginning to storm around him. “You want destruction? I will show you destruction and more! I will show you pain and lose like you have never known!!”
