Sun goes up and the sun goes down

Apprentince!Theron is totally just an excuse for me to blather about Rothcar and the surrounding countries. Get yer exposition while it's hot! (I love this world so, so much, no matter how derivative it is. I think I may need to do a non-humanoid creatures post soon.)

Also, I really enjoy torturing Theron. It's his own fault, really- he just can't leave well enough alone. It's reverse karma- his shitty childhood almost balances out that whole God of the Dead thing. Almost.
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Winters in Shaivhen were typically mild affairs, characterized by biting winds and the occasional miserable drizzle. Silverlock said it had something to do with ocean currents and the high harbor cliffs, cloud plateaus, and population fluctuations among the endangered snow butterflies of the Ikatian Peninsula.

Theron had ignored this as more of his teacher's nonsense and teasing until Silverlock brought out a glass specimen box from one of the many locked storage rooms in the basement.

"They're the only thing that can survive on the peninsula- it's the most inhospitable place on the continent." Silverlock set the box down on Theron's work table and removed the steelcloth gloves he'd been wearing. "Don't touch the glass."

The box radiated a miasma of death and cold; it left a slick, bitter taste in the back of Theron's throat. The insect's wings were elegantly tapered, transparent affairs, shot through with threads of silvery blue. It was about the size of Theron's palm, and equisitely beautiful.

He didn't touch the glass, but he did twine his fingers through the threads of air and death that tangled around the box. Something pulsed against his fingertips, a slow, steady drumbeat.

"The Ikatai call them edranai, after a rogue shaman who gave herself over to the forces of death." Silverlock smiled fondly. "They say she brough the darkness upon the peninsula and turned her people's homeland into the wasteland it is today. Legend has it that when she died, her body dissolved into butterflies."

"Cute. What is it, really?" Theron watched as the box slowly pulled bits of fire and water out of his fingertips; the drain was so faint he could barely feel it, but he could see the threads drifting away. He twisted several threads around his hands, pulling on them carefully.

"Some sort of Shrive creature, given the aura and the way the anger lingers after death. I've yet to find an account of a live encounter, and the Shrive themselves aren't telling. This one was a gift from a friend, many years ago."

The threads wound around his fingers and stretched into a triple cross pattern. Theron pulled sharply, and closed his hands, bringing all of his considerable willpower to bear on the weaving around the box. The pulsing against his fingertips sped up to a frantic pace.

The glass shattered with a noise like falling boulders. There was a bright light and a bone-bruising wave of force that knocked Theron to the floor, and then silence.

"You little bitch!" Silverlock's voice sounded muted and far away.

Theron smiled, and ignored tickling wetness of blood seeping from his nose and ears. The edranai had been beautiful in death, a whispy, etheral thing. Alive, it pulsed and glowed and beat with power. The air was heavy and cold, deliciously cold.

It was better, he decided, to be consumed by ice than fire. Heat distorted things, while the cold put everything in sharp focus.

The edranai drifted out the window, surrounded by a corona of bluish rainbows as the light refracted off its slowly beating wings. The weighty silence left in its wake reminded Theron of the forests of Bren's hometown after the first snowfall; everything was muffled and softened by sheets of ice and blankets of snow.

He tasted blood in the back of his throat, accompanied by the sharp tang of lemons. His hands were numb, but they still pulsed with that frantic heartbeat; he remembered the feel of the threads between his fingers and the shape of the power that bent them with perfect, ice-sharpened clarity.

"When I'm done pulling glass from my face," Silverlock said conversationally from the other side of the room, "I'm going to kill you, and you will find out why I was sometimes refered to as "The Cruelest Knife" in the Guild. And then I will demonstrate the proper technique for a resurrection so you'll fucking do it right next time."

"Whatever, old man." Theron was shivering now, feeling the cold on a fundamental, bone-deep level. The sharpness had faded into emptiness, aching and uncomfortable. He closed his eyes. "You're boring me. Think I'll take a nap."

Silverlock said something else, but he was too far gone to hear it. Most of what the other man said was unimportant, anyway.

That winter, the harbor iced over so that no ships could come or go; the city slept beneath four feet of snow, and waited quietly for spring.