Nixie: Icebreak

It took four weeks to get from the Sanctuary to the Frozen
Wastes.

The air was frigid this far north. It bothered Kelpie; she
wrapped herself in furs to ward off the chill. Nixie, however, did not even
have to bother wearing a cloak. She wore only her breezy white dress. She
stepped barefoot off the gangplank into the snow.

The sailors on the dock shifted uncomfortably, looking at
her.

There was only one small village here, with perhaps a few
hundred resident, subsisting mostly on ice-fishing and hunting. Many had the
slanting features, fair hair, and white skin of high elves.

Nixbixitus checked herself over carefully. She stopped on
the dock to pull on her white leather boots and do up the laces. Her hair had
grown long and thick; the dark red dye had come out in patches. She had fixed
it on the ship, mixing chemicals to make it white again.

She had taken care in her appearance today.

Soft black khol to line her eyes. A thick, soft gray dress
Mishka had given her with black hose to go underneath. She wore gold rings on
her tail-tip and her horns, but left the silver bell behind, where it would be
safe.

Her mother had always hated the jewelry and the khol, and
hated the dresses and the high heels, and Nixie thought: *Fuck you* as she walked down the dock to her mother's home.

. . .

Sometimes Nixbixitus thought of her life like a fairytale.
Not the nice kind parents told their children before bed, but the old kind,
where fairies kidnapped children and ate them.

It felt more—abstract, that way.

Like one of Mishka’s grossly exaggerated stories. Yeah. Like a Mishka Story.

. . .

Once upon a time, a witch had three daughters. Kelpinus was
strong, and Selkizinus was sharp.

But her third daughter, Nixbixitus, was born four weeks
early. She was small, and pink, and cold to the touch, and did not open her
eyes. At first her mother tossed her into the snow, thinking the child was born
dead—but when the witch went outside in the morning, she found the baby still
alive, curled in a pile of snow.

And so she took the child inside and named her Nixbixitus.

The girl was completely mute until she was four. She was
basically an ornament; completely useless, probably deaf of or stupid, but…
pretty to look at. So the witch kept her daughter locked in her room, out of
the way, so she wouldn't be underfoot on the ship.

It was fucking awful in her room. Boring, and alone. She
didn’t know how to talk to people.

But... the witch meant well. Really, she did. She didn’t
realize she was hurting her daughter; she only wanted to protect Nixie.

She must have.

All mothers loved their children, Nixie thought. Yeah. God.
The witch—meant well.

She fucking… *must* have.

At some point.

Right?

. . .

Nixie walked with Kelpie down the road, through the snow.

Tricksy Smirnova lived in a fortress where the icy cliffs
met the frozen sea. The surface of the sea constantly froze, but the waves were
too strong to let it settle. Instead, the current threw the ice against the
rocks-- the ice froze, and broke, and built together. Jagged spikes stuck out
of the water like teeth.

Nixie made her way through the fortress.

Tricksy Smirnova, the Banshee Queen, was ready to receive
her. She sat, legs folded, on a thick pile of furs and broken bones in her
hold.

She looked up.

Nixie had rehearsed this moment in her head a thousand
times.

But it didn't fucking matter, now. Her words froze in her throat.

. . .

Mishka loved to tell the story of how he'd met her mother.
It was his favorite Mishka Story.

"Once," Mishka always said, "There was a
witch known as the Trickster. A woman sharp as a knife. But she didn't want to just be a witch anymore... she wanted to
become immortal. She wanted to become a goddess, I s'pose you could say. Wanted
to do typical goddess shit: control the very ocean itself, shatter her
opponent's ships with ice, suck them down into the sea. The usual stuff. Kill
her enemies, then raise their bodies to crawl out of the sea and drag down
their own crewmates.

"Now, when I met this woman, she was weak," Mishka
said. "Sickly. She suffered from terrible disease. It was slowly killing
her. She only had another year or so left. So I took pity on her... and I
helped her. I killed her, see."

And then he'd laugh. He always laughed at that point in the
story, that delicate tinkling noise of his. He'd wave his hand, and he'd say,
"Ah, that's a joke. I didn't literally kill her, I just helped her become
dead. Y'know. Made her a lich." And then he'd down his drink. "It's
not as exciting as I'm making it sound. Honestly, she was already mostly there.
Just helped her gather a few last pieces."

The story was always different after that. Sometimes he'd
describe plunging a magical dagger into her chest, then describe how the dagger
sucked her soul into the blade. Sometimes he described reaching into her chest
and ripping her heart out, then helping her bind her spirit to it in her last
moments of life; then he put her still-beating heart into a box and buried it
on a forgotten island.

That was always the theme: he ripped out her soul and
made her dead. He put her soul in a gem-encrusted crown, he said. He put her
soul in a wooden locket and burned it. He put her soul in a pebble and threw it into the sea.

Nixbixitus wasn't even sure which parts of the story were
true.

She didn’t think Mishka helped Tricksy do the soul-binding
thing at all.

She just knew that her mother was dead. Fucking dead. And
Mishka told the story like it was a fucking joke--

*Did I ever tell you about the time I killed a Trickster god?* he told people.

*Let me tell you a story,* he told people.

. . .

Her mother had not changed one inch since the time Nixie had
seen her. It was as if she was frozen in time. Her eyes were dead and and cold,
glowing with an eerie light. Her hair was a thick mass of black curls. Her skin
was gray and white. She wore thick captain's clothing, though she had no need for warmth.

Tricksy Smirnova liked to know how things worked. She was
hideously intelligent and constantly curious. Nixie found her, sometimes, taking
apart dead things to see how they worked inside. She called it
dissection.

That's what Nixie felt like. Like her mother was
dissecting her. Taking her apart like a dead thing.

Then her mother looked back down at the book in her lap and
began writing it.

Nixie hadn’t seen her mother in almost two years. But the
first thing Tricksy said was, “So tell me everything about this plague. A
monster caused it?”

And Nixie told her everything.

. . .

Nixie missed her team.

She had left her book behind by accident. But she’d started
a new one on the four-week journey to the Frozen Wastes, and she’d started
filling it with everything she remembered from the last one.

She made a list of everything she knew about the Graverunners.
She fought not to miss them, because she hated missing them. She tried to list…
just the bad things, so that losing them didn’t bother her so much.

She made a list. Facts Nixbixitus Smirnova knew about the
Graverunners:

Goro was a liar and a thief, and told her not to trust him.

Roddy was selfish.

Hansel killed people. Hansel defended his awful fucking son,
let Jonn hurt people.

Raef ditched them like it was nothing. Without even saying
good-bye to her.

Larkin Basha watched her like she… fucking… prey, or
something.

Mishka fucking murdered her mother. Mishka fucking murdered
her mother, and she trusted him anyway, because she was a fool. She was—so
desperate for things he gave. The kindness. The clothes. The shelter. The
protection. The pet names. Things nobody every fucking gave her when she a kid.
It felt so good when he called her *sweetness* and *darling* and *Nixie, dear*.

She kept telling herself these things, kept tracing them
over and over again. Kept reminding herself of the bad things. But it didn’t matter, because she couldn’t—she couldn’t
stop remembering the good things, too.

The way Goro bolted to save her from the burning ship.

The way Mishka patiently explained every question she asked
him—never mocking her. The way he watched her like he was so fucking proud of
the beast she was becoming.

The way Roddy braided her hair and helped her paint her
nails while she was drunk. He looked so pleased and happy when she painted his
shell.

The way Hansel held her and told her she did good,
teleporting them out of Mishka’s estate. The way Hansel hugged her. She kept
repeating those words to herself: You did good. The way he sobbed on her
shoulder, and she helped him up.

The way Raef laughed when they fought. The way he chatted
with her—nothing serious, just… happy talk.

The way Larkin Basha smelled like leather and gunpowder. And
when she smiled, it was sharp, like a steel knife sharpened against whetstone.

. . .

When Nixie was done explaining every detail of what had
happened with the plague, her mother put down her pen. She didn’t look up,
however.

Her mother's voice was flat and monotone. "And how is
Mikhail?"

Nixie's hands curled. *He's sick. There's something wrong with him, but he doesn't want anyone to know. His magic is weaker than normal—I can tell. He’s losing control over it. Burning things by accident. Teleporting places when he’s startled. He’s having panic attacks. He’s hiding it, though.*

 Mishka wouldn’t want Tricksy to know.

“He’s—he’s okay,” Nixie said. Her voice cracked.

Tricksy’s eyes flickered up, but her head didn’t move. She
stared, dead-eyed, until finally Nixie grimaced, looking away.

Her mother’s body glowed with violet energy for a moment. “I
suggest you tell me how Mikhail Haeth is,” Tricksy said.

Nixie felt the spell grip her, and she gritted her teeth,
fighting to throw it off, but it was no good. She heard herself speaking.
Halting her words, choking them off then giving in. “He’s sick. Erratic. L-lost
control of his… m-magic.”

She felt like a fucking traitor, saying it. But maybe it was
over now, and maybe her mother would drop it, and let her leave.

“Good,” Tricksy said. She sounded almost… mildly interested.
Nixie’s stomach clenched. She wasn’t sure if Tricksy was saying *Good, he’s sick*.Or *Good, that spell still works on you.*

 Mishka and Tricksy used to be friends. How, though? He was so affable and charming. Maybe her mom was... different before Mishka murdered her.

“Now tell me about the Graveunners,” Tricksy said.

Nixie shuddered. She looked away. She dug her journal out of
her bag, flipped to the page where she’d already listed everything she knew.
And she handed it over.

. . .

When Tricksy was done reading, she closed the book with a
snap and tossed it back to Nixie. Nixie fumbled, but caught it, snatching it
before it hit the ground.

Tricksy went back to making notes. The only sound in the room
was the scratch of her pen. Finally, she stopped and put aside her pen. “Do you
think you’re ready to come home?” she said without looking up.

Nixie hated her.

She fucking hated her. She could say yes, or she could say
no. Both choices just made her—sad, or angry, she wasn’t sure which. Maybe
both. She clenched her hands.

She wanted to say: *You think I'm weak because I'm pretty and I like nice clothing and painting my nails. Fuck you.*

 She wanted to say: *I choose to trust people I want to trust. I'm nice, and I want to help people, and I'm willing to let people hurt me. And you think that makes me stupid. Fuck you.* Except maybe those things weren't true. Maybe her mother didn't hate her; maybe her mother just plain didn't care one way or the other. That was almost worse, somehow.

“I don’t want to come home,” she said.

Without a word, Tricksy got up, walked over, and took her by
the shoulder, and teleported her back home.