I died to a white dragons frost.

I awoke in a snow filled clearing, with evergreens circling me. The wind spoke, “I am Magistra Cicero. Goddess of Winter. I offer you life and gifts, if you bare the mantle of my name.”

A god greeted me. No body, just a voice in the wind, “I accept!” You agree to gods. No matter what.

I woke up after that in a snowy forest. There I lived till spring. I hunted, practiced my new power, magic. Something very few were born with in my world. It started off as snow. I mimicked the snow on the ground. Then I copied the ice hanging from trees or where they encased leaves.

It did not help me against some of the things that lived in the forest. Monsters, disgusting monster form the hells. Monster’s that the old god I believe in, the god of light, said would drag you down the the tiered hells. Where you would be eaten, raped, tortured by a demon in every hell. I hide in a part of the forest where they dare not walk.

By the end of spring, I could make and shoot iclces the size of hand for hours till I passed out.

Half way through spring I found hunters. I praised Magistra Cicero for this find. People, I missed them to the point of talking to myself.

“Shiro, your ancestor was crazy.” I smile at her. It is kinda relaxing just sitting with her. Her body leaning on mine, I can feel the warmth even though our clothing.

She simply pouts. Than she starts to write on the collection of paper that she has, “Was your meeting with Fata Stele like that?”

I shake my head, resting the book on my lap. For how old it is supposed to be, it is quite strong. The pages made some form some leather while the letters were carved into the flesh, than filled with some sort of blood. Apparently, the story goes in her family that he killed a white dragon, used its flesh for paged, and its blood for ink. Like a necronomicon for dragons. That be entraining. Scary too. Imagine, dragon lich. Someone fucked up.

A poke brings me back to Earth… well I actually never got this planet's name. I think she wants an answer, “It was more intimate. We talked, she started by apologizing for arranging my death. She told me that I was chosen by her to become a hero in a world that the god’s made to test who’s heros could get them the most faith. I promised to make her the top god of the pantheon, than I collapsed and died again in her embrace form mana poisoning. Well I died from her gift, she turned me to ash. Than remade me as the man you see here. Very little was changed. A bit more muscles, the cat ears, the tail, and they eyes. She also fixed my heart, is that enough?” Shio nods, her eyes back on the book on my lap.

I bring it back up to a level we can read at. My heart grows a bit tense as I slowly wrap a arm around her side. Its uncomfortable to sit with that one arm she is leaning on. She does nothing to stop me, simply moving a bit closer. Its comfortable. My mana seems to agree with how… relaxed it feels. Just a weird sense of empathy I have with it. I bring it in, forcing the field to become denser as it center’s on this room, darkening it as if it was a cloudy sky outside.

Shio does… not seem bothered. I hope so.

I start to read once more.

I approached the hunters slowly. I stalked them quietly enough to hear them talk. I understood, it was my home language. Praise Magistra Cicero.

I stumbled out in front of them. I only had one the pelts of animals that I hunted. Only to become modest. The cold stopped bothering me months ago.

They ask if I was a chosen of the gods. I said yes. They brought me to a small village. I was fed, clothed, and treated like a famous mage form back home. To practice my magic, I made ice statues of the children who asked.

They only were just a bit better than actual ice.

A few days in, a demon attacked. A demon of fire. I ran for my life. Everyone else died. All the children, all the women, all the men. Eaten, used for.. Breeding. I saw one of those monstries lay eggs in a stab wound, than the eggs hatched and ate the body down to the bones. It happened in seconds. I stole a horse and ran.

I worked the horse till it collapses of exhaustion. A city with walls. White walls. Safe walls form the nightmares in the forest.

Demons? That actually have those? I admit I do not know much about this world. There might be other realms. There might be other planes of reality where hells and heavens exist. They sound like insects though, with how they breed. Fata Stele, I know this is asking a bit much… But please no spider demons. I hate spiders.

I glance over at Shio. Some time during my focus on the words on the page, and my own thoughts she has laid her head on my chest. Asleep I think.

I whisper out, barely loud enough to be heard, “Shio?” She does not stir. Well… That leaves me with my owns thoughts. I look to her chest. It is rising. Good, she isn't dead. Though… She is beautiful. She is not yours, Ivan. Not yet, she could be. It be simple would it not? Book for now. You can work through the fucking hormones later.

I walked the remaining distance. My legs, and butt sore from the horse riding. But the leftovers of adrenaline are still running through my mind. I limp to the nearest guard, “Demons…” I say these simple words and his face goes wide with fear. He grabbed my arm and dragged me inside a guard house.

I was given a cover, some water and bread. I gladly drank the water, but I denied the bread. My stomach still rolled form disgust, guilt, and fear.

A ranking official walked in, asked and I told them the truth. I tried killing one the demons but my ice simply melted on its fur. That started a conversation about a mage outside of a college or the army, and why I am dressed like a peasant. I admitted I was chosen by the gods.

They left, saying nothing else. A priest looking fellow came in, asked some questions. Who was my patron? What did I awake to? What did she say to me? What was her gift? I answered. He bowed and greeted me as the hero of winter.

They offered my a luxurious room to sleep in. Replaced my clothes with silk dyed a startling white. Even as I write this, I remember that white. Something song to me. A understanding of a white dragon’s breath. I broke down crying afterwards. The whole, traumatizing event finally sinking in. I was a warrior back home. Now I am a mage. I am a dragon, everything I face puny men.

I am allowed face. No one checks in on me. No one to witness my break down. Later on, a man in a purple robe walks in, says he is the court magician. He will be my magic teacher.

He told me to hit a wall with my strongest attack. I breathed ice, like a dragon. The wall froze, collapsed under its own weight. He nearly died from the cold. I passed out from what I called mana poisoning at the time.

I woke up in pain. I passed out from pain.

I woke up feeling horrible.

The mage came back and told me that was worthy of a hero. I thought it was a mockery of a force beyond nature.

Years passed. I understood ice more. I understood magic more. Ice in the field I could influence never melted. Snow stole life. Storms of hail crushed armour. Blizzards brought monsters to a cold and forever slumber.

I met a girl. A beautiful girl. Not a mage. Just a painter of the walls in this marble city. We fell in love. We had a child. A few months later the demons tried to siege my home.

I brought winter in the apex of summer. The marble walls became bastorions of ice sharpened to spikes. The ground outside the walls froze, thick with corpses of demons. The demon king and generals frozen solid by my mockry of dragon breath. I watched them suffocate in blocks of ice.

After I broke the weeks long siege, killing, breaking the demons moral. I was summoned by the king and awarded nobleship for my deeds. I felt less of a man. I returned home. My lover greeted me, hugged me, and thanked me for protecting both her and our child.

Years passed. Our child became a skilled mage. We never moved from the home that we lived in. Modest and having everything we needed. My poor child grew alone, all the other children too scared of the title of nobility she was born with. I prayed, hoping my mantle was not passed down with her.

Years passed again. I neared middle age. No signs of demons coming back. My daughter grew to a beautiful women. She was admitted to a college, the Stoneweaver collage. There she had friends. My wife and I were pressured to joining balls, meeting, celebrations. My word, as the most powerful mage in the country had weight so I rarely spoke.

One day I submerged myself in a baptism of winter. I emerged scarred by winter’s bite. My voice robbed from me. I could not make a noise.

One day my wife died. It was poison. They found who it was. It was a noble family that always stood against my word. I froze them solid. I shattered the ice leaving nothing. I killed everyone of them three generations back. My daughter never spoke to me again.

Years later, she came home. She introduced a man that had courted her. A quiet, intelligent scion of the royal family. She did not ask for my blessing. Simply told me she loved me and told me where her manor was being built.

Years later another war was waged. My daughter was conscripted. I marched with them. Old, nearing the middle of my years. My hair growing grey and my body uncomfortable.

We met the other army. My eyes met someone’s eyes. Another hero, I felt it down to my core. Without warning we flared magic. Him young, I older. We fought for different reasons. I fought for my daughter. Ice and lighting clashed. The army's never took a step forward, never said a word. I won by impaling him from below, the icey ground too slippery to move. His lighting could not melt my ice quick enough. I brought his body in the sky.

A banner to my power. I breathed on the other army. They laid down their arms. They were allowed to thaw there dead, and burn them.

Years passed. I read, studied, painted in my wife’s studio. I was left in peace. I had few friends.

To you, young hero who found this. I lie on my deathbed. I killed a dragon. I faced my fears at the end of my life. I bring to you a secret of magic. It is freely given by the gods. But they influence it. A story for the people. I won the battle with the other hero by both power, age, and my reason to fight. Fight with a reason, always. Fight with a reason that would bring your god more glory though stories passed on.

Be it for family. Friends. Vengeance. Honor. Love. Just make sure it is worth more than the other. Or that it what I think.

I feel sleep coming. I said my goodbye to my daughter, and my grandchildren. Beautiful things, so well mannered. She married well. He can protect her better than I protected my wife…

My name is Satin Winter. This is my mark on the world. I love you my dear wife, my dear daughter, my dear grandchildren. I would gladly freeze the world for you. Please, protect one my children. Just one would be fine, fellow Hero.

I close the door and look to the the side. Shio is still asleep. That was interesting. An aspect to mana rigged by the gods? A need to keep up appearances? What would be the greatest story. One of love is well known. A knight saving a princess form a castle guarded by a dragon.

I need a story. A drive. I relax into the leather chair with my eyes closed. Shio asleep while the book rest on my lap closed. I feel my mana soaking into the marble of the floor. The odd white stone of the walls. The bookcases. The books. A sense of being everything. It is a odd, new sense. I feel someone outside of the door. They are talking.

“Shio.” I bring myself back down to earth. An unusual sense of focus sets my mind into the motion of making stars. An intent of keeping Shio form harm. A beast sense of protectiveness.

She rouses form her sleep. She looks around, blinking the sleep from her eyes, “I finished the book. A man who loved his family. He asked who ever read it to protect one of his descendants. Do heroes keep people he trust and knows around him?”

She nods. Her eyes going wide, “Would you like to be in my little marry band? It will not be nice at times, but you will always have me near. A force to protect you.” A story of friendship, and maybe love. A story where I will do anything for my friends, my lover. My face breaks out in a wide smile as I feel someone on the other side of the doors start to open them.

She nods. She presses her body on mine in a hug. More a embrace. Her shoulders rising and lowering in mute sobs. I stroke her hair, saying sweet nothings as what I assume is her father and mother walk in. Schooled neutral looks in their eyes.

I rise a single star to the center of the room, away from the books. The mana grows heavier. A star made of mana makes more energy, heavier and more active mana. Just a realization that hit me while reading. All I need to do is make a single star. They I let it make more and more mana. Divine inspiration, is it?

“Did you put Shio in ice? Like Satin did to himself? Is that how she lost her voice?” I feel tears and heat bloom in my chest. The star in the room roars in shared anger. Lashing out. Leaving the marble floor bubbling but I demand that she remains unharmed. Untouched. Her body stiff in the embrace. It has became more of a scared clinging.

I feel her hands tug mine, “S-a-v-e. M-e.”

“We did a rite of passage for any mage in our family, the baptism of winter. She failed. She became useless, only good to marry off.” Her father spoke. My heart sank as I feel her shake in my arms. I let out a few tears for this poor girl as my emotions roll over me. Raw, uncontrolled. The mana tearing down any sense of control that I have, reducing me to a beast. But I need a beast here.

A beast is not scared to lash out.

“She is mine now. You disgusting piece of human trash.” I stand up. Carrying this poor girl in my arms. I hug her tight as the mana grows thicker, they added their on mine. But mine is thicker, stronger. I move the star with my tail. Instincts telling me how to move it.

The man, struggling to stand shoots a blast of ice at me. It turns to steam.

The woman tries to shoot a spike of ice at me. It simply turns to steam feet away from me.

“You just tried to kill me.” I whisper this. Shio understands and turns her head away. I throw the star at the man. The star hits his torso. It simply turns it to ash. The head falls in, burning to nothing. The ash has simply combusted in the heat. But I only feel heat. The heat of anger in my chest. This is not the world I thought it to be.

One where they scar children. See them as useless afterwards.

This is not a world that I like. I will change it. Starting with these fucking piece of scum.

The women is screaming. I choke her with my raw mana. I watch with a savage grin, watching as she struggles on the ground, gripping her neck. Her entire body is covered in burns form being near my star. Her clothes burning, shrinking into her flesh forcing it to be burnt bloody. But I am killing her slowly, by suffocating her.

I walk closer. The smell of burnt flesh is disgusting. I kick her down. I step on her neck, I crush her throat with my bare foot. I watch the entire time. Only feeling a brutal pleasure of watching her cry and die with my heel literally on her neck.

Her body goes limp. Her eyes go blank. Shio cries in my chest.

I step over the remains, a pair of legs and fingers that were not burnt. The mother a red and bloodied mess. A burn victim. But her throat malformed.

My first two kills. And I feel nothing but spite that I could not hurt them longer, to even out the pain that they have caused Shio. My possession.

We walk through the home. My mana following me as my tail wraps around the single star. The house warping in my wake. The mana follows my star as if drawn and held in place by gravity. So many things happen, and I only notice them, “Do you hate me?”

She shakes her head. She is shaking badly, “Did you hate them?” She nods.

“If anyone ask. Say exactly what happened. They attacked, trying to kill me. I ended their lives. Do you have sisters or brothers?” She nods, “So you do not inherit the house of winter?” She shakes her head, “Shame.”

We walk out of the manor. Well I had to nudge the door open with my shoulder. Shio is not being helpful and she refuses to let go of me.

Once the doors open, out in front of the house are older men. All dressed in robes. Their fields adding on the weight of mine.

In my field of influence, it is growing darker. The star slowly refines the mana inside of it. The mana inside of me. Refining it to a heavier, stronger form of itself.

It now looks like a fog has settled around me. A fog of mana.

“Hero of Stars… You are under arrest for the murder of Lady and Lord Winter.” A serious man in armour stepped forward. Loudly speaking out to me.

“It was self defense. They were mad, they lashed out at both myself and Lady Shio. I was invited in the home by Shio. I was asked to use my mana to unlock a book left by The Hero of Winter. A diary. If you try to arrest me for preserving my own life. I am leaving this country.” The longer I stand outside of the house. The more it warps form the passive heat of the star held in my tail. In fact some of it has caught on fire. Stone, has caught on fire. It is burning white.

I walk forward. Down the steps and toward the men in armour and robes, “Capti’n! He is resisting! Let us kill the damn beast-kin! Shouldn’t be out of their country expect in collars!”

Fucking slavery huh? I’ll admit. It is a useful, if despicable act back in my world. I think every single of the ancient wonders were built on the back of slave labor.

But, “I will not be chained. I will not die. You.” I look to the little shit who spoke out. Younger than the rest. New, “Are in need of discipline.”

The young man’s face changes into one of rage. It is a man in armour. He charged me with a sword coated in ice, “Clint! No! Stand down, STAND DOWN!” The knight, I am going to call him that. The knight charges me. His armour grows ice. But it evaporates. His charge slows a few feet. He collapses at my feet. The sword and armour glowing red. His screams fill the air. I wince.

My ears go flat, and Shio shakes worse. I step on his throat and push down harshly, “Shut the fuck up. Your noise hurts my fucking ears.”

“Sir Hero! Please! Please let my son go! Please…” The head knight gives in. His son?

I kick the knight down the steps. I push with my mana, blowing him to his father, “He came at me with intent of taking my life. Teach him better. I am going to go rest.”

I let Shio down. My mana vanishes into the star. It collapses into a black hole. Then it vanishes. I feel something like liquid fire sink into my veins. Something similar to feeling your blood flowing. Shio grabs hold of my hand and leads me back to the college. My body sags in exhaustion during the long walk, “Are you scared of me?”

She nods.

“That is ok. A star’s light can be gentle...Or brutal. I am thinking of traveling. Would you like to come with me?” She nods, her hand tightens around mine.

I have never really hurt someone before. But I just killed. I killed...Why do I feel the same? The most I feel is a small instinctual disgust of the pile of burnt flesh that her mother ended up as. But the act of taking a life? I felt nothing, besides pride, contempt, and safaction of watching them die so easily.

“I promise to protect you Shiro.” I tighten my hand. A grin on my tired face as I feel something click. Just a feeling of understanding. I can not harm her with the aftermath of my stars. A sense of clarity. The world under a list that I shall harm. Her, the only thing I want to protect. A start of a story? One fueled by friendship and love. Now I wait for something to try and hurt her. To upset her. I just have to wait. If the royalty tries to end us. I will end them.

I feel so free. I am a beast. A being above dragons. I will not hold myself down. The book made a few things clear.

Our magic has rules. Mine is different, or my quick ability with it. It comes as instincts.

It is like learning a limb that I forgot that I had. It is fully formed, muscled. I need to simply stop thinking, and use it. Like moving a finger. You just move it. Not pull down on the tendon that is attached to the joint above the knuckle while moving the part that connects to the hand in the ball socket.

That is how a mage learns. They build up their muscles by practicing and learning. I was born with it formed, I just need to listen.

We walk past the towers. The students still practice while being watched over. My ears go up, twisting to listen. It is strange. I never really thought of them and my tail. I still picture myself as human mostly. It will take time to have a proper mental picture.

We walk up the stairs. We are not stopped. We end up in front of my room. I walk in, freeing my hand of Shio’s. Poor girl. Practically tortured, trained to be sold off… Now I am using her for power. Bad luck on her part. I care for her, a bit. A friend that I am attracted to physically. It is cold. But if she is happy who cares? I have a source of power. A way to gain help through the gods If what I am thinking is right. A way to weight everything in my favor. But that means I will need loved one, people, on the surface that I care for. I am not emotionally dead. I feel. I just do not know what I am going to end up as. I am less shy, more viscous. I feel more confident. I am not sure what I am going to end as. Maybe a proper villain, but I do not want to be robbed of love.

We enter my room. The blankets have been picked up, the bed made. On the bed is a letter.

I take it, and open it.

Dear Chosen of Star.

I am the current head of the nation of demons. A demon king if you will.

I was picked by your goddess to be your heavenly tutor. At your early convenience, please head east to the badlands. I can no promise your safety till you arrive at my nation’s capital. But it will be well worth it.

With care,

King Standford the 14th of his name.

Huh. Standford? Really?