Chapter 65: Icy Dream (1)
He was drifting downward.
That was the first thing Reinhard became aware of. He was not plummeting but floating through endless black. His limbs hung suspended in a void so absolute he couldn’t tell whether his eyes were open or closed.
No sound reached his ears, no chill or heat touched his skin, only the gentle sensation of sinking through emptiness.
Then came the change.
A whisper of cold brushed his left side, barely perceptible at first. Simultaneously, the faintest warmth caressed his right. His descent gradually slowed until he stopped and became suspended in this strange realm.
He glanced around and still saw the darkness, but he felt that this was similar to it.
Reinhard blinked before he recalled he also fell when he just met Odin and found himself in a place of darkness as well. He then looked down as he wondered if roots would begin appearing or maybe Odin would again.
But it’s then his mind blurred as his thought faded as the cold rushed over and intensified, spreading through the void like frost creeping across a window.
Reinhard then saw a pale blue light emerging from the infinite distance. It wasn’t bright, it was similar to seeing the light from a campfire a long distance away, but in this darkness, it stood out like a beacon.
From the opposite direction came red and orange hues, flickering and moving aggressively. Heat began radiating outward, pushing against the encroaching cold. Reinhard floated between these two forces, watching as they crept toward each other with the inevitability of crashing into each other.
The gap between them narrowed. Then Reinhard blinked as he saw more of the pale blue light, which was a landscape of jagged ice formations that stretched endlessly, their surfaces gleaming with a blue tint.
Massive glaciers rose up like the mountains, and between them, valleys of frozen waste spread out in desolate beauty. Everything there looked silent and still, no movement or sign of any life.
Then he looked to the crimson hue to see flowing magma and burning stone. Rivers of fire moved through blackened rock, sending up pillars of flame that illuminated and touched the darkness above.
The ground itself seemed to tremble and bubble, constantly reshaping itself with destruction and creation. The roar of the flames should have been deafening, but here in this dream, even that sound was muted and distant.
Then, the two forces met each other in the middle, and it was violent.
Frost reached out like fingers, extending across the void. Flames leapt forward in waves, seeking to consume and drown all it touches. When they touched, the hissing and sputtering began. Steam erupted in massive clouds that rose and swirled through the darkness as ice melted and fire was dispersed.
The collision created a zone of constant change where neither element could fully dominate. But it was then he could see, at the zone or boundary, a swirling mass of purple, black, and white. He didn’t know what it was, but it looked so amazing yet so odd.
Reinhard watched in awe as droplets began to form from the melting ice. They didn’t fall in the traditional sense since there was no ground here, but instead they began gathering together by some invisible force.
The water droplets merged, growing larger and taking on a shape that seemed almost deliberate.
The shape expanded rapidly, growing from a small mass into something enormous. It took on a vaguely humanoid form, but its proportions were all wrong.
The figure that emerged from the confluence of ice and fire was massive beyond anything he had ever seen, with its body composed of half-melted ice that constantly reformed itself.
Where the heat touched it, the ice would melt and leak down before refreezing moments later. While anything the cold touch would gain a new layer of front, and build upon what was already there.
Reinhard, even in his daze and dreamlike state, trembled as he stared at the finished existence.
A Frost Giant?
The giant opened eyes that shone with brilliant blue-white light. It had two massive horns curved up from the sides of its head and spiraling toward the darkness above. Its beard was a cascade of icicles, clinking softly against each other with every movement. The body itself was translucent in places, revealing internal structures that resembled cut crystal or ice formations, with sharp angles and flat planes.
The giant stood for a long moment, as if processing its own sudden consciousness. Then it moved, taking its first step away from the boundary where it had been born.
Reinhard felt the scenery shifting as he felt himself being pulled and then stopped, as he found himself hovering near the giant.
It walked toward the realm of ice first, each footstep causing tremors that rippled outward through the frozen landscape. The giant’s body reacted immediately to the environment. The constant melting that had plagued it at the boundary slowed, then stopped.
New layers of frost began forming across its surface and building up like armor. The carvings in its ice body became more defined with odd patterns that stood out.
The giant lifted one massive hand before examining its flesh and then clenched its fist. It seemed pleased, or at least curious about this transformation, as it nodded before it continued deeper into the frozen realm.
It left behind massive footprints in the ice that didn’t melt in this land of eternal winter.
But then it stopped before turning around to look back toward the boundary. Then it looked beyond the boundary at the realm of flames.
The Frost Giant tilted its head as it stared for a bit before fully turning around to Reinhard’s surprise. The giant began retracing its steps and passed through the violent boundary once more.
Once it stepped into the fire part of the boundary, its body began reacting. The carefully accumulated layers of frost started melting away, and water fell down its body like a river. The on its body patterns blurred while steam rose from its shoulders and back as the heat worked its way into the ice.
But the Frost Giant seemed to not have felt anything as it kept walking forward. Reinhard watched as it stepped into the realm of fire and ignored the rivers of lava that swept past its feet.
The giant pressed forward into the land of fire, and the change on its body accelerated. Whole chunks of ice fell off its body before crashing to the burning ground below, where they exploded into steam.
The giant’s movements became stiffer as it gradually got used to its slowly collapsing body. Its brilliant white eyes narrowed, and it raised one hand to shield its face from the intense heat.
The Frost Giant took perhaps a dozen steps into the realm of flames before stopping. The discomfort was evident in every aspect of its body language. Where the cold had solidified and strengthened it, the heat was destroying it piece by piece.
The giant stood there for a long moment, as if conducting an experiment and testing its own limits.
Then it turned and fled back toward the ice.
The journey back through the boundary seemed to take forever. The giant’s form had been reduced significantly, much of its mass lost to melting. But as soon as it crossed back into the realm of cold, the process reversed.
Frost accumulated rapidly, leading to the Frost Giant rebuilding what had been lost. The giant continued until it was deep within the frozen land and far from the dangerous heat.
Then it finally stopped and stood still, allowing the environment to work its restorative magic.