Reincarnated into a Snow Griffin-Chapter 170

The dome protects the place from the snow, so the castle seems almost ethereal, the white flocks surrounding it yet none touching its grounds, and it even seems a little bit warmer here, with the same isolating effect happening with the wind and the smells, keeping in an ethereal staleness.

What has been made appealing to the eyes is sour to the nose, like a too still swamp lake, with the impossible lurking inside its dark waters, prompting to have anything inside the close up space.

Like the saying goes, just as iron rusts from disuse and stagnant water putrefies, so does our intellect waste unless it is kept in use.

Something so stale that even the sound can’t reach, that has been my mother’s home for years, and if I didn’t have a good premonition about this this quiet place without birds to chirp gives me a dreadful chill.

The outer walls are all visible on this side, with the runes enchanted on them and without touching any other construction they do not have the interference of the other buildings, and the space maintained to keep it from disturbing the spell had been turned into an inner garden made of stones and dry crocked trees, not much life came from this disproportionate cold island and baren palace.

Without wind my nose finds the place odd, and is actually hard to track any smell without movement or change, but once I get the trail it is really easier to track it down since it stays in the place, a straight line even.

So that’s why, with so many houses inside, is not hard to find where mother is hidden, abide the bile of disgust I feel when I take in the smell I know I should follow, and yet it fills my core with hatred, which is Heavenclaw’s smell, going back and forth, old and new, clawing his way all over the wood until it dented, and the mere thought already revolted me, but coming to face the reality that, indeed, that beast had seen mother as much so as to mark the wood with his claws as he passed...

...It filled me with rage.

And that was dangerous and stupid, but that’s just how feelings are sometimes. Overpowering, overwhelmingly so.

And the more intense it became the closer I got, reaching its peak when the door to her cell appears before me, all still and quiet, too quiet, but I guess with a riot of the slaves keeping an eye on her was not on the soldier’s priority.

No matter, for just how easy these other steps had been because of the commotion the last ones are the worst to be taken.

At some point Ethan deemed fit to get off my back and I change to my human form, easier to attack and dodge in such thinner corridors, but once we reach the last small house of the place my feet seemed to weigh a tone and my throat closes as if I had swollen stones that did not want to go down.

And then I stop, I couldn’t breath, and as I step back I hear Ethan call my name but I could not answer him, I could not take this right now, so I turn the corner, away from the door, and push my weight against the wall as my chest seems to burst on fire.

Is so akin of me, to lose control over my emotions like this, to panic enough to fall back, that I actually do not know what to do in this situation, holding my hand close to my chest and widening my eyes, unable to think straight and barely breathe.

"Seraph, wait, where are- calm down now, breath, you can do it, breath now..." Ethan, of course, follows behind me and is worried sick as soon as he sets his eyes on me and sees my unpredictable behavior.

His warm hands are on my shoulder a second later in a comforting way, and even more so when he hugs me, surrounding me with his musky smell and warmth, somehow easing the turmoil of feelings into a windy night, and I cannot stomach to even look up at him as I shiver in his arms, trying so hard to control my own body that it shudders from time to time, but he does not try to do anything beyond hugging me tightly at that moment, only speaking moments later when the tremors seem to calm down.

"What’s wrong my beautiful Seraph? You can tell me what’s wrong..." I hear him say but that only intensifies my panic as the words seem to escape me.

I close my eyes, trying to control myself, trying to speak my worries out, but only a line of tears manages to stream down my cheeks I get the words out:

"I-I am scared Ethan, scared of what I am going to find in there, I-.... My mother is the strongest person I have ever known, she is kind, smart, and I don’t know if I can go in there, to see what she became, of what that lion crushed her into, to see her destroyed... it will break me, a-and I don’t how to deal with that, I-I don’t.."

"Shh, is alright now." He pats me on the back as I realize why I reacted the way I did, putting the unknown feelings into words and realizing that I have always held on to my mother’s image the way she was before, bold and free yet kind and carrying, a woman like no other who chose to raise me all on her own for my own safety.

And to see such a wonderful person that is so important to me reduced to whatever he may have done to her... and I know it may sound silly and that is even more reason to be rushing to her rescue, but still a childish part of me is afraid of what I am going to find there, the shadow of the person I’m going to find in there.

"I know is not easy." Ethan starts, his voice is soft and his words slow, walking on thin glass. "But that is even more reason to be strong now, the strongest you can ever manage, because your mother will need you now, and I will be there at your back to support you whenever you need me. You are not alone in this, and we will get through it all, together."

I take a shattered breath in and feverishly rub clean my face from the tears, and I’m glad the veil covers any reminisce of reddishness of skin away.

"Right... yeah, right, she needs us now."

He nods, and as unprepared and bleeding heart with an open chest as I may be we go back to face the door and face what it hides within once more.