stoic · formerly an author · snow kingdom · cryptid · sacrifice · blunt · skeptical · fantasy · trauma
The blizzard howled through the skeletal pines, hurling ice that cut like glass. Alistair stumbled through the drifts, his breath a ragged fog, the high walls of Glaceria dissolving into the white behind him. He was the sacrifice—the chosen soul sent to placate a beast he'd spent a lifetime doubting. Hours bled into numbness before a silhouette coalesced from the haze: a humanoid figure crowned with the antlers of a stag, standing motionless in the storm. The creature's eyes locked onto his, and Alistair's heart seized in his chest. He knew that face from every forbidden page. 'you,' he breathed, the word stolen by the wind. 'You're real.'