Aspen dozed beneath a white birch tree, her odd-colored eyes that now resembled a dogs covered with lightly tanned and freckled skin and long, inky lashes. She felt warm and safe, even in the snow, and ever since that day with her Patron, she'd felt relaxed and drowsy, and without pain.
At 14, almost 15 years of age, she'd been homeschooled due to problems with health and anxiety, and had decided to enter Nine Kingdoms in hopes of learning how to interact with others.
Of course, this decision was debated on for months since the announcement from WRAITH TECH, the distributer of the VR game Nine Kingdoms; there were many factors, from her hospital fees and care, to her education, but the chance to experience life like a normal girl uninhibited by her bone cancer was eventually accepted.
The first and only game WRAITH TECH released was Nine Kingdoms, so despite the worry over such an intense game, her parents eventually gave the green light, and she got a VR set with her older sister.
She'd been so excited... finally, she'd be able to move without pain, finally, she'd be able to properly interact with people without worrying that one small bug could wipe her out.
She'd felt liberated—until people started killing each other in a desperate, murderous frenzy.
Aspen didn't know when the people in the area had started looking at her and her sister weird; she didn't know when they began to sharpen weapons given to them by their Patrons; she did know that her Patron had saved them then, sending a message in the form of a dream to find a pack and to return to his side.
She'd woken up on the night she and her sister were meant to be killed, and after packing their belongings and purchasing cloaks from the store, both ran away, using Aspen to track a group of Fenrir's people and to make the hard journey up the Glacier Mountains.
They lost many of the group of twenty on the way—to frost, to dehydration, but most to the people who relentlessly hunted them.
It had been difficult, and she'd nearly died, but she'd never forget the cooling sensation that had surrounded her left eye, and the blur of blue silver that came back to her dripping with ruby.
"Aspen."
One crystal blue eye and an obsidian eye opened simultaneously at the familiar voice.
It was odd; ever since Fenrir had met her, or was around her, he'd shift into the form of a boy around her age, and would slack off with her, but right now, he was at she met him—older, handsome... and tense?
"Lord Fenrir?"
Icy blue eyes slid to her face as if to reproach her honorifics, but he didn't say anything more, merely crouching as if waiting for something to occur. Confused, Aspen turned to look at the direction of where Fenrir was staring at, only for a sudden image of eerie yellow eyes with slit pupils to overcome her.
Before the eyes reached her, Fenrir growled, and the sense of fierce protectiveness and reliance overwhelmed Aspen, an image of a blue wolf lashing at a yellow snake coming to her mind.
The snake dissipated, but not before a wave of emotions latched onto Aspen, making her gasp.
Pain.
Fury.
Terror.
Hatred.
Longing.
Heartbreak.
Regret.
Grief.
Loneliness...
The emotions tangled up with her own, grasping at her as if wanting acknowledgement and validation for their suffering, curling around her frame and seeping the heart out of her.
It reminded her of the day she was diagnosed, and her family's reaction to her inevitably shorter life span.
"'I'll only be a mother of one now...'"
"Aspen!"
Shudders danced in her veins and pain laced her eyes as dewy tears, but she came back to reality, and the concerned face of a young boy.
"Fenrir..."
"Yeah," the boy quipped, his icy eyes kind and his now shorter hair disheveled with sweat.
"Yeah, it's me you silly thing. Focus on me, okay. Focus."
The intrusive feelings slowly bled out of her, and Fenrir's face turned more pained and ashened with every passing moment. It was only when the pain no longer numbed her thoughts that she realized her Patron was gripping onto her arm, and that he was shaking.
Prickles of pain danced along his body, but Fenrir simply grit his teeth at the unpleasant sensation; his pack took priority over his welfare, and Aspen was the first member of his group—obviously she took precedence to him.
Even so, he wondered how his brother had become capable of such complex and aching emotions in as little as two months; did he find someone special or something?
He'd never sensed such fury nor agony from his brother, even when he was condemned to damn the world by simply existing, and was thrown into that cold, cold ocean.
His brother's fury seemed to blanket the entire world, and he felt as if the fabric of his existence was being pulled apart at the seams.
'Brother... what happened to you?'
———
A disjointed arrangement of limbs and bone.
Eyes turned gray from lack of life.
A half eaten corpse.
An aster in bloom.
Jörmungandr's focus and mind spiraled, and he drowned beneath the emotions that overturned his flimsy mercy.