Her Winter Wonderland

[phaedra]

The Ice Maji confined herself to her throne room, the most magnificent room in her abode. The high, cathedral ceilings reached toward the roof of the cave, the crystal that hung from the dome, where sunlight leaked into the cave, absorbed it and cast it all about, lighting the entire castle within its cavern, the splendor of the aurora borealis itself, singing through the halls in rainbow waves.
Tall, carved columns lined the walls, and they framed the frozen prisons of some of the rarest beasts, the like that no longer walked the world of Yviex. Extinct creatures, beautiful, hideous, large and small, all along the sides, they made their frozen poses in the walls of ice. The pinnacle was reserved for the wall behind Anaphina's throne, and he was by far her greatest capture, a frost dragon, much larger than most in existence, arched back as if about to strike, with a gaping mouth and hateful eyes, frozen forever behind her throne, making up the entire back wall.

She sat atop the platform, upon the single, plush cushion that rested upon her icy throne, with a hundred icy stairs exactly, separating her from the hall's gleaming, crystal floor. She eyed her reflection in the polished silver of a long, ornate hand mirror, with a smooth, shapely handle, like a woman's calve, spreading into a beautiful oval, where the carved shape of her frozen face reflected upon the glistening, silver skin.
The amulet around her neck radiated an aqua glow, as it hung from beneath her tight, collar, laced around her neck like a corset, and blooming from her shoulders in a queenly manner, lined with frilly, black feathers. Her body was adorned in a form-fitting, satin dress, with a square neckline, it was patterned with diamond shapes of inter-changing blacks and pale aquas. The sleeves were bunched on the shoulders, and the slid tight along her arms, bunching again at the elbows, before slimming against the forearms.
She stared vacantly, while her servants, two black goblins in bulky fur coats, shivered with misty breath by the double doors at the end of the hall, watching, waiting, and wondering if she'd frozen again. But Anaphina was awake, and her mind churned with the beautific vision of her countenance, following the pleasing, angular lines avidly, judging the striking sculpture, as if chiseled from marble. And then, without warning, the Maji stood, towering upon her pedastal, the mirror falling to her side, limply held by her gloved hand.

She strode down the steps slowly, moving the the leisure pace of a freezing pool, one step at a time, her high, sharp heels echoing off the walls with each step, putting the icy spikes upon the ceiling in a state of uneasiness from each resonating click. The goblins watched her slow descent with fearful anticipation, and what would seem like hours, hit them like seconds when she crossed the hall, and dismissively handed the silver mirror to the one on the right of the door. The one to the left opened the double doors, and they both bowed lowly, quaking in their boots.
“I shall return.” Anaphina said coolly, slipping through the door and into the narrow passage from her throne room.
“Where is her grace going?” One of the goblins said, clutching the mirror tight to keep his hands steady.
But Anaphina said nothing, and her statuesque silhouette vanished into the darkness of the passage.

----------------------------

The years of Anaphina's absence had made the Forsaken Lands soft, and even upon the dismal, perilous plains of snow and dark beasts, the journey through had become far less forbidden. The filth of nomads, traders and vagrant scum infested the icy slopes, and to Anaphina's disdain, the callous reign of the Ice Maji had become nothing more than a bed time story, something grandmothers told their grandchildren to keep them in their beds.

A band of nomads made camp in the snow. Night was approaching quickly, the sun was beginning to fall beneath the hills, and dusk was upon them. The tents were erected, and they huddled around the fire, and a pot brewing hot stew, and the aroma to all but Anaphina would've been pleasant, a perfect mixture of spices, meats, and broth. It carried on the wind, with the light snow fall, tiny speckles of snow fluttering from the heavens, and when it reached the top of the hill that over-looked them, it was sucked into Anaphina's nostrils with a disgusted curl.
She couldn't stand the sigh of them. Warm, flesh and blood, parents, children, elderly, dogs, horses, wrapped in filthy rags, hoping to overcome the powers of the elements... her element. Ice. No mere human could dare to over-come her freeze, and the nerve of their presence was quite enough to crunch her nostrils with disdain.
“Hear your child, Itreib, aid your child, Itreib...” She began to chant from her perch above the hill, raising her hands to the sky, and her eyes emanated a misty glow, as cold, icy winds picked up with the snowflakes becoming larger and larger and more dense as they fell from the clouds. The sun had set, and in the cold darkness, they wouldn't have a chance.

[menelaus]

"It wasn't much of a surprise to find you here Mi'lady. What bothers you, loosing control? It appears your icy hand doesn't extend as far as you once thought,"

Menelaus materialized from the shadows behind a large ice out cropping and the illusion of the family on the ice vanished. He strolled up to her, the wind and cold seeming to not affect him as the delicate flakes of snow swirled about his legs, "I knew your guards wouldn't grant me an audience with you your Majesty. So I had to draw you out, I hope you are not too peeved with my deception but I felt it was necessary. I hope I didn't ruin your night,"

Menelaus wore an arrogant smirk, cocky, and sarcasm was laden in his voice like vipers venom. He didn't want to be here, that much was obvious. Tormenting the Ice Maji seemed to lift his spirits though.

"Do tell Anaphina, that spell you were conjuring, what might it have done?"

Menelaus snorted in disgust, "The torture of innocents isn't very becoming for a lady, if that's even what you can be called now. I think you may have become something less thousands of years ago when you froze your flesh. Your fear of death is amusing."

Menelaus was close enough to touch her at this point and he lifted his hand and flicked her amulet, "Fear not sister, I have not come to deprive you of your precious toy,"

Menelaus turned his back to her, clearly showing he saw her as no threat to him. The air seemed to distort around him as though massive amounts of heat were rolling off of him into the frozen night air.

Turning his head to look behind him at her, "Maddening, isn't it? Knowing that you're out matched in your own land," Menelaus sighed, "As much as I enjoy tormenting you my dear that isn't why I have come. A darkness is rising, a darkness that isn't going to care who assisted it in its rise. A darkness that cares not about its heralds. I come to warn you, do not believe what you hear of this Army of Darkness, the heart of lies, and deceit are they. Sweet words describing a quick and easy ascension into power, they will forget you when it is all over."

He paused a moment and considered, "And your lands," He said gesturing broadly to the harsh yet beautiful landscape around him. He may not have liked snow, ice, or cold but he could appreciate its beauty, "All of this, will be Forfeit. And quite frankly, I believe all of Yviex is better off with you being the queen of ice here than some dark nameless prince."

[phaedra]

Anaphina heard his voice, and she knew immediately to whom it belonged. Even before her victims disappeared, a petty illusion, she knew they weren't real, but she stared on anyway, refusing Menelaus the dignity of her attention, and they melted away, into the snow, like flakes falling upon a ground too hot to carry snow.

The snow steadied in its descent, a light fall, with the breeze taking with it beautiful wisps of snow, like little ballerinas, twirling in the air, and the long, dangling crystal earrings that hung, chimed like little bells in the air. The music of winter was a beautiful thing. The harshness of the wind, blowing over the snow scape, and the silence of the falling snow. Silence. Was there ever a more beautiful music? None. No violin, no siren's song, no instrument could compete with its fearful wonder, and in the dead of winter, with the coming of the cold, and the frozen wastelands of Eiteria, silence was the music of Anaphina.

Her lip curled with disgust, shaking a tinge with a glimpse of her pearly teeth, as he dared to touch her amulet, and her hand clasped it delicately, the long, talon fingertips caressing the crystal that was once her heart. She watched him, the heat moving from his body, and the snow beneath him melting into trickling water, and she wondered if he realized in this frozen land, his heat could be his own undoing, with water racing down the slopes from his flagrant disregard for sense and insistence on always causing a blaze. How cold does one need to make it so that fire can breathe no more?
He'd gone behind her, turning his back in a ridiculous show of confidence, and she felt herself tempted to stretch her fingertips like tentacles and pierce his back with her poisonous barbs, while the skin around froze and cracked.
She finally moved, after the long moments of her frozen state, and she revolved to face Menelaus, her towering stature high with the combination of her staggering height and the long, sharp spikes of her heels. She listened to his speech, ever silent, brooding, and stoicism in her cheeks, as merciless and unfeeling as the cold that surrounded her and froze the ground beneath her.

The sun was set, and the only light to be seen was the pale blue glow that emanated from her flesh, like a shining star of fading light, in the darkness of the falling snow. Eiteria became as dark as the underdark itself, when the sun had gone.

She folded her hands across her bust, and her toe tapped the frozen floor, and she arched a slender eyebrow, with a muted face. "And what makes you think this... 'darkness' will have any effect whatsoever on myself? Don't tell me, brother..." She spat the word poisonously, but she conceded that the maji was indeed kin, an equal in the craft, and although not by blood, all the maji had ties, for they were each the most powerful in their art of choice. "...you have come here seeking my allegiance? Hoping, that somehow, Anaphina would deign to set aside her differences and join your cause?" Despite her cold, callous tone, laced with a demeaning sarcasm, she did want to know. The thought made her laugh, inside. Or perhaps, he feared she would join with the darkness and use her prowess in the frozen arts against him and the others.
The coming chaos did indeed concern Anaphina, but she found it sickly infatuating, the idea of conflict again. The rising of heroes and villains, new kings, new warriors, new beauties, new prizes for her to collect.

[menelaus]

Menelaus' glare was icy, as the snow falling around him, "No sister, I came to warn you so you wouldn't make the same mistake so many others already have."

The Fire Maji turned to the Ice, He no longer looked so heated as before, "You must understand, I have watched as people slaughtered their own families. I've seen wealthy lords hand their land and all they own to these dark forces, all for a helmet and a vest of crudely crafted chain mail. This is not how people promised the world are treated.

No, what I fear my darling sister, is that before all is said and done. If the forces of light loose the coming war, then I fear it doesn't matter how far north you hide Anaphina, they will find you, and when they do. They will take your land, your dignity, every vestige of humanity you have left, and then if you are lucky and they do not enslave you for your power. They will kill you.

I respect you Anaphina, as grudgingly as I say this. I do, and as a colleague, and a brother I can honestly say I wouldn't want to see some thing as powerful as what is coming, catch you alone and off guard. I am offering you alliance sister, and if you don't desire it. Then you have been warned,"

He paused a moment and his eyes slid over the Icy woman standing before him. She supposed she was beautiful, but it was hard not to imagine her in her true form. He had never seen it, but he had heard stories from his former master who was there when Anaphina ascended to power.

"I can't say how long it will take for this coming war to effect you if you are not involved from the start. But I can tell you for certain, that it will. It could take years, but I guarantee you. You will be sucked into this conflict, it is inevitable. I implore you sister, think on it,"

Menelaus ran a calloused hand over the stubble of his newly growing goatee and let the cold touch him for once. It truly was frigid here.

[phaedra]

Anaphina looked away from Menelaus as he spoke, allowing his words to penetrate. He spoke of a darkness, but he failed to specify what. And her curiosity was peaked. Her eyes had seen the world change, seen men rise up in conquest, kingdoms crumble and kings arise, new cities, new towns, death, and plague.
Her eyes searched through the darkness, along the white slopes, and the dead, petrified branches that clung for the surface of the deep, icy tomb that encased them. The clouds parted, and the crescent moon shone from the sky, and the frailest of moonlight glimmered upon the winter wonderland... her winter wonderland.

"These lands..." She paused, and her frozen face slowly turned, looking to Menelaus with her back still turned, just the corner of her face. She gestured to the snow-swept valleys below, with a spanning of her arm. "...They do not remember a time when Anaphina was not here. Many have tried to pass through these lands, rid them of Anaphina. All have failed..."

She turned fully to Menelaus, with her lengthy fingers strapping around her hips, and with an upward tilt of her jaw, she looked down on him. "...And what, pray tell, makes you suppose, oh lord of the flame, that this force will succeed? What is it this time that stirs? An undead legion of a disgruntled Necromancer? Hissy elves? A flock of orcs? Decadent humans? The dregs of the underdark? All of them filth, utter rodents, not worthy of a single foot upon the snow. Do you actually think that these... disgusting roaches stand a chance, while Itreib brews her storms in the north?..."
Anaphina cackled, a low, drumming laughter echoing through her vocal passages and reverberating off the frozen tissues. "...No. I see no threat to me...."
She held out her hand, the palm facing down, and the snow lifted from the ground in a swirling fury, and it compacted, forming a silvery chair of looping curves and arches, a smaller version of her throne, made of frozen crystal. She sat down, hands sliding along the armrests, and she sat back, with a wicked smirk.
"...Let them come. Let them come and learn why elves should stay in the forest, orcs in their primitive huts, humans in four walls, Necromancers in their sanctuary, and drow where they belong, in the darkness, where no one need look upon their repugnant skin."
She grinned, with a tainted curve, and her eyes illuminated with an icy blue sheen.

[menelaus]

Menelaus was not surprised by her answer, she knew her to be far to proud for her own good. She would see in time, despite her cruelty and power within her magick she was still but one being. One being that was just as vulnerable to an unseen arrow as he or the poorest peasant.

"You have been warned sister, I will take my leave of you."

Slowly Menelaus turned and walked past the ice maji as she sat on her miniature throne.

"But sister, you must also realize that a single person can still dethrone you,"

Menelaus smiled as he vaporized the throne beneath her, causing the Ice Maji to be fall into the snow.

"Have a nice evening, Mi'lady,"

And smirking from ear to ear Menelaus disappeared.

[phaedra]

Anaphina scoffed at his warnings with a disregard. Him, warn her? Of what? Petty ramblings about a rising darkness. Did he expect shivers to run through her spine. The fool.
Her face contorted with his final words, his assertion that someone could dare dethrone her, and in the blink of an eye, her solid, frozen chair was turned into nothing but a rising mist. She fell back into the snow, like someone attempting to sit into a chair that simply wasn't there, and just as her form was about to hit, it exploded into a mass of snowflakes, carrying upon the wind.

By the time she'd reformed, in a whirl of wind and snow, Menelaus had already vanished, delighting in his victory. Anaphina's eyes spat daggers at the last spot the fire Maji had stood. She could tell by the way the ice was in that area... a patch of melted snow. His insolence infuriated her. These lands had been hers before he had even been thought of by whatever great deity had the idea for his creation. And he approached her, with the same impudence as all the other Fire Maji, haughty, fiery and able to fill her with contempt.

The winds rustled her silvery white hair, and she looked up to the sky, now over-shadowed with furious clouds of sparkling snow. Itreib. The Ice Elemental's callous fury was not unlike her own. It seemed to be a consequence that the temperments of the elements witches and wizards pursued became so ingrained into their hearts. Anaphina's was quite literal; her heart was frozen.
With the Fire Maji's absence, she pondered his words more rationally. Was there actually a threat that existed that could steal away all that she had? Take from her the lands she'd thrived upon for more time than any other. The seas were foreign to her. The lands below, vacations during the winter. She knew nowhere else, and for a brief moment, the thought of something taking her land, her home... frightened her.