Nuqqatilli Ataaseq

*"Truly blooming health does not rest content within its due bounds; for disease ever presses close against it, its neighbor with a common wall."*

How I was brought into the world is lost to the times. I do not remember my father nor my mother, I remember no warmth, no mother's embrace, no gentle voice to sooth my slumber. I remember only the violence. I remember the snow, and the flurry, and around it all the howling noise; of the wind, and of the dragons. I remember the blood soaking into the snow, and the frosty southern storms that chilled those lifeless corpses to the bone.

How did I get here? Perhaps there was a young mother, who for whatever reason had managed to spare her child from the slaughter? Perhaps a well-intentioned stranger, had fostered and raised this babe as their own?

Whatever the case, they're gone now. There is only me. A blind daughter. An orphan with only the sleet-covered plains to call mother. I am born of death and snow. Darkness and frost. My path inked with the pale white snow and the blood-soaked souls.

Unlike the fire of dragons, ice is eternal. It does not burn out, it does not wither nor fade. It alone stands in defiance. Silent. Strong. Vast expanses of cold, empty fields would be the final fate of all these worlds, every one. The battles for dominance only delays this inevitable fate. Time is the one true winner, and with time, ice. Dragons can only cling desperately to this precipice. Burning, buring.

I remember what it was like to see. I remember the light, slowly fading as though that fateful dawn, creeping away until there was only the empty void. My eyes turning as pale as the crystal white snow from which I was grown. Slowly. My world encased by a blanket of darkness. But don't be fooled, my magic shines as bright as it always has, and I pick up the slightest whisper of breeze. Yes, I can feel your breath as easily as you can feel the cold winter winds. I cannot see you, and yet, here you are.

Where did I disappear off to this morning? Well aren't you just full of questions. I carry more than blindness. Sometimes I live with headaches so strong it is as if I could see again, my dark world replaced by bright, agonising flashes of colour. It's all I can do to find the still and the silent, to sooth the pain. I was born in violence. Though I may not remember, my soul screams out still.

I do not need your pity. The time for that has long passed. Where were you when I was young and alone, a stranger in a strange land? The South is a cold and hard place, and it breeds cold and hard people. So desperately do they cling to their sliver of life. I was sickly, I was weak. No matter how hard I fought, there was no place for me there. But though I might be lacking in many things, determination is not one of them. I'm still alive, aren't I?

The South... They don't see anything wrong with their way of life. They seem to respect the ruthlessness and brutality that had goaded me like a whip my whole life. "Building character", they call it. But I would never leave anyone to the fate they left me. Never. No child of mine will grow with only the snow and the darkness for company, alone on the snowbanks to fight for their lives.

If nothing else in this life, they would know love.

And perhaps, so will I.