Moonsong Glacier Dreams of what I once claimed to know.

idfk what this is.

There was pressure against his skin and a youthful voice stabbing at his ears. The rush of blood in his veins was the loudest, it throbbed, but nothing could drown out the pleading of that child; he tried to lift his head. Eyes rolled in their sockets. The universe spun.

Then a piece of the glacier broke away. It swept towards him as well as the boy, though he did not know it was a boy. He thought his blood was willing him to rise—a difficult thing to achieve considering it was mostly on the exterior of his worthless body now.

He could focus for only the smallest intervals of time. The glacier spoke to him with the face of the woman he'd hurt, but there was his father's voice again; no laughter now, only the gale force of anger.

You want to die, Revui? More words came, but in his current state they mutated, merging with memory: Your instincts will tell you to run. Yes. Yes, they did. He ran from everything, but always towards death. He had always been this way, and for the longest while it had been praise he'd received from his family.

There was movement but not from his body — his blood ran along the earth, redirected by the orders of the glacier. No, that was wrong—he knew that was wrong. Someone was here with him, sweet-smelling, like dew on new grass, like the rain; yes, the rain.

You were cruel to me. Hummed the wind. The cold deepend around him, and the wind pulsed sharply against him, as if to push him in to the dirt. It rumbled, and he imagined gathering storm clouds fat and ready to burst. If you want a death, I will give you the red plant...

Is that what he wanted? All this time he ran in to danger thinking he was being a warrior, for the sake of the mountain, for Hydra, for his parents, for glory—so many reasons and none of them were for himself first; and now he was without alliegance to any but himself. Is that what he wanted? To bleed his last drop and freeze here, or be fed death willingly without contest?

If he died here he would become everything he loathed. Lacking any such blood-bond or fealty that made him a true warrior, stripping him of the very blood in his veins—that last vestige of what made him an Ostrega. Hydra could take his name from him, banish him for his choices, but he would be forever bound to the mountain and to the family, even so. Not here, not if he bled out and let himself die. No; he was better than that. He had to be better than that.

His breathing had lulled, but something in his thoughts (or perhaps the voice hissed in his ear) brought a change: a spasm of the lungs, something nearer to a death-rattle than anything. Revui opens his eyes and sees the blurry shape of Kukutux there, so close.

Nuh... I'm s..orry, Kh... Blood in the throat aspirates across his teeth, splattering upon the crushed winterfat at his chest, and he struggles between swallowing it and breathing through it.