{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/frozen-dominion",
  "description": "|",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/frozen-dominion",
  "publishedAt": "2022-12-29T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "Winter seals the land. Ice has fallen, beneath black clouds that close\nover the sky and stars. Rank upon rank of snow falls, as if to unfurl\nan all-enveloping flag. Like this, the valley is claimed. It lies a\nworld frozen and dominated by the will of the blizzard.\n\nIn this regime, the air is not silent, but echoes with the sharp plinks\nof hail, the harsh whirling of winds, and the creaking, cracking\nprotests of the trees assailed by each. But the snow muffles it all,\nlike a law of quiet enforced.\n\nShe watches the snow descend from atop the last upjutting rock as the\nmountainside leads to the valley. That rising stone could be her\nthrone. The cold certainly doesn't rebuke her claim, the ice and her\nflesh are of like kinds.\n\nShe lifts a clawed hand. It glows faintly white with gathered power and\nit commands the the snow around it. The snow that fell and froze around\nher has affixed her to the rock, but now by her will it releases her.\n\nSnowflakes have gathered around her glowing hand like moths. She closes\nher hand, and all of it bursts outward. Then momentum slows off the\nejected snow, and now they fall alongside the rest.\n\nBourne by the wind, the snow is almost suspended, the white crystals\nmade to dance in mid-air. She rises from her rock, and her levitation\nis true. No origin of her flight is visible, except the too-meager\nwinds rippling waves in her white kimono.\n\nIn the snowfall, she travels. Ice flows freely off her skin, and behind\nthe protection of her mask, her eyes remain unperturbed. Still, the\nsnow is thick enough, the night dark enough, little is left to see. But\nthe snow speaks to her, and she feels where it falls around her.\n\nShe belongs in this blizzard, and it belongs around her. If she could\nclaim a throne over it, there would be no one to challenge her. Indeed,\nthere would be no one.\n\nShe could travel with it as the clouds fly, follow it and one day sit\natop a mountaintop where the snow remains ever unevicted, and reign for\nan era. Audience only to a court of frost, listening to the crack of\nhail and howling of wind, and a whimper of pain ---\n\nWait. No, that's not a sound fit for her kingdom. And with that, the\ntrance is broken, and the timeless moment that could have stretched\nunending instead becomes a transient thing. She turns to the source of\nthe sound, and floats forth, red ribbons trailing behind her.\n\nThe one who whimpered, they are almost buried by the snow, frozen in\nplace. The first thing she sees is a pile of cloth, and realizes the\ngarments swaddle a pale, shivering thing. A leaf hangs frosty between\ntwo orbs that shimmer wetly in faint light.\n\nThe thing jumps suddenly, as if it had seen a ghost.\n\n\"Do you know,\" her voice is a crystalline chiming, impersonal, \"what\nthey say my kind does to pokemon who get lost in a storm?\"\n\nThe response is almost unintelligible, quiet and stuttering. But she\ncan feel the words touch the snow. \"You're --- a\nfroslass).\"\n\nNothing at all of her should be visible in the snowy nothing ---\ncertainly not enough to identify her --- but the grass-type could\nclearly see her body. It is an illusion.\n\n\"And you are delectable,\" she says. She is swaying in the air.\n\n\"Are you... feral? But then --- you're talking to me.\" They shake\ntheir head. \"Please, help me!\"\n\nShe giggles, two pure tones as a resonating warble. \"Why should I?\nYou're lost. No-one has come to find you. And now no one ever will.\nBut I can keep you for-ever!\"\n\n\"You... please? You're Awake. That means you're good, friendly. You\ncan... choose to help me. The town, it can't be too far away from\nhere. Please?\"\n\nHer response comes before they've even finished talking. It's not a\ngiggle this time, but something harsher, if associated. \"As if the\nAwake aren't still capable of the worst.\" But her tone is less rebuke\nthan resignation.\n\n\"Good pokemon can still make mistakes. It doesn't mean they aren't\ngood.\"\n\nShe stops swaying. \"I could kill you. Seize your body to put on\ndisplay. And laugh about it. And you call that a mistake?\"\n\nA nod, though it's hard to tell between the shivers. \"It wouldn't make\nyou happy.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"You said display. But... there's no one out here to show except\nyourself, is there? You're alone. And if you decided to kill pokemon,\nyou'd always be alone. And you don't --- no pokemon should be alone,\nnot forever.\"\n\n\"That's what you think,\" she replied, quietly.\n\n\"It's true.\"\n\n\"I've heard it before.\" She shakes her head. With a careless wave of\nher wing, there's a pale glow, and then ice is rushing in toward the\ngrass-type. Shivers intensify, as snow covers them completely, and they\nscream. Cold, cold, cold.\n\nThen she tosses back her wing-arm. The new snow has stuck fast to that\nwhich had covered them, and now it all comes off with a cacophony of\ncracking. A freeing chorus.\n\n\"I didn't think I'd hear it again,\" she said quietly.\n\nMore ice is pulled off, freeing the pokemon. Still swaddled in cloth,\nthe body obscured but with more of the face free, she sees a\nbayleef)\nsmiling at her.\n\n\"I knew you wou---\"\n\nNot all ice was free of their face. She pinches some that remains,\nshutting their mouth.\n\nUnable to speak, they lift a leg and point off into the distance. Not\nfeeling like interpreting, she releases them just a moment later.\n\n\"Would you --- do you think you could escort me to town?\"\n\nShe stares, frowning at them. \"I have one condition.\" They tilt their\nhead, so she explains: \"I want your leaf.\"\n\n\"My... leaf?\"\n\nShe's looking at it and they cross their eyes trying to look at it too.\nShe says, \"I will freeze it and put it on display in my cave.\"\n\n\"You --- do you even know if it will grow back?\"\n\n\"That doesn't concern me.\"\n\nThe bayleef frowns.\n\n\"Do not refuse. I think you would owe me, if I freed you from the\nstorm.\"\n\n\"But you already freed me.\"\n\nAll of the snow around them, for a moment, stops falling. The bayleef\nswallows.\n\n\"I... guess. It's better than all of me?\"\n\n\"I don't agree.\"\n\n\"Ha ha. Um.\"\n\n\"It won't hurt.\"\n\nThe froslass floats closer. The bayleef flinches back, then stops\nthemself. \"Okay.\"\n\nShe brings her wing-arms together, focusing. The forehead leaf sits\nbetween them. Falling snow gathers there, pulled in like magnetized iron\nfillings. Snow melts and refreezes under her power.\n\n\"I feel... numb.\"\n\nFroslass glances at her work, the block of ice forming on the bayleaf,\nand blinks. Giggling, she says, \"You have a horn, now. But I still\nhave two.\"\n\n\"H-heh.\"\n\nShe swipes suddenly with one wing, tapping the new block of ice. It\ncracks, and the crack spreads. Froslass takes the block of ice.\nInside, through a gleaming mosaic of snowflake impurities, is bayleaf's\nleaf.\n\nFroslass smiles.\n\n\"You'll take me home now?\"\n\nShe looks up, lowering the frozen leaf. One nod.\n\n\"I hope you --- I hope you enjoy it.\"\n\nFroslass makes a sound.\n\n\"Do you, well, do you have a c-collection? Of things like that?\"\n\nA moment of quiet. Then, \"Did you mean it?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"When you said a pokemon can make mistakes, and still...\" she can't\nrepeat it.\n\n\"You're good, mysterious snowstorm ghost. You, you wouldn't have helped\nme if you weren't.\"\n\nShe looks down to the frozen leaf she holds. \"This will be the first,\nin my collection of things like this.\"\n\n\"Can I ask that you don't, uh, make a habit of exacting bodily tolls for\npokemon stranded in blizzards? I don't think that would be very good.\"\n\n\"I'd like to grow my collection.\"\n\n\"Do you think... what if you had a collection of pokemon, but they\nweren't all frozen and they weren't there all the time and they were\nyour friends?\"\n\n\"That doesn't sound like much of a collection.\"\n\n\"But does it sound nice?\"\n\n\"How will I organize them if they keep moving.\"\n\n\"We'll... work on it.\" Bayleaf breathed out, breath fogging. \"Do you\nsee those lights off in the distance? That's where we're going.\"\n\nFroslass floats on in silence beside the bayleaf, whose footsteps leave\nthe only trail. They're still shivering.\n\n\"Also, um, if you can control the snow... could you keep it off me?\nPlease?\"\n\nIn the land surrounding them, the grip of winter was no less absolute,\nin its frozen dominion, but if froslass were its ruler, perhaps she\ncould spare a subject. With the snow she keeps off the bayleaf, she\nswirls it around her, virtually extending the length of her kimono.\nBayleaf sees it and smiles, and she smiles back.\n\nThe last jutting rock, which she might have been throned upon, lies\nbehind her, in the night-darkened, snow-obscured distance. In front,\nthe lights shine like beacons from windows of warm homes, from a town\nfull of pokemon. Froslass looks back, and then at what lies ahead. She\nkeeps looking between the two, a frown of consideration beneath her mask\nuntil she makes her decision, and moves forward.\n\nThe snow is still falling around both of them.",
  "title": "Frozen Dominion"
}