forward, letting the strange buoyancy of this body carry me across the frozen expanse. The light in the distance flickered like a beacon, but the further I moved, the more I realized my eyes had deceived me. My sight had sharpened—tremendously so. What I thought was near had only seemed near. The glow was buried far deeper in the mountain ranges, hidden among jagged peaks and shadowed valleys.
Still, I pressed on, drifting steadily through the air, adjusting to the rhythm of flight. The cold wind tore at me, sharp and unrelenting, but I barely felt it. Each beat of my heart carried me forward with strange ease.
It was then I sensed something. At first, only faint—like a tremor in the silence, a disturbance in the stillness that pressed against my mind. I slowed, hovering above a barren ridge, narrowing my eyes at the mountains below. And then I saw them.
They moved against the snow like shadows breaking free of the ice: immense shapes, lumbering yet powerful. Coats of pale white fur rippled over muscle thick as stone. Their breath misted in heavy plumes, each exhalation rolling into the cold air like smoke from a furnace. Claws carved deep trails into the frost, and when one lifted its head, I caught sight of its eyes—blue, not like mine, but glacial, ancient, and full of hunger.
Ice bears.
The name surfaced in my mind without origin, as if whispered from the markings on my skin. These were no ordinary beasts; their very presence pressed against me like the weight of the frozen land itself.
My chest tightened, though not from fear—more from awareness. I had not expected company in this desolate realm, yet here they were, living titans roaming the silence.
I was not as alone as I thought.
I slowed my advance, letting the pull of the distant light fade from my mind. Curiosity won over urgency. The glow in the mountains could wait—this, what I saw below, demanded my full attention.
The bears were unlike anything I had known, their size alone making them feel less like animals and more like living glaciers given form. They moved with surprising grace across the jagged terrain, claws anchoring them as they climbed slopes of sheer ice. Their heavy bodies shifted easily, power balanced with precision, as though the mountain itself had shaped them for survival.
I hovered lower, careful to keep distance, shadowing them from above like a drifting spirit. The silence of this world made every sound sharp—the crunch of ice under their paws, the low rumble of one's growl as it nudged another aside. I studied their movements, their strength, the way their muscles flexed beneath coats of thick white fur streaked faintly with gray. There was nothing clumsy about them. They belonged here, kings of this frozen range.
For a moment, I felt like an intruder.
The bears pressed on, weaving through crags and ridges until the land opened into a shallow vale nestled between two mountains. That was when I saw them pause, their immense heads lowering as a scent drew them forward. My eyes followed—and widened.
In the heart of the vale stood another kind of life. Deer-like creatures, slender and graceful, clustered together in small numbers. Their coats shimmered faintly, pale silver shot through with streaks of faint blue, almost translucent in places, as though frost itself had settled into their flesh. Antlers crowned their heads, not mere bone, but crystalline—shards of ice branching outward, catching the faint light and scattering it like prisms.
They fed upon something that should not have existed here. From the frozen ground sprouted patches of flora, crystalline stalks rising upward, tipped with faint blossoms of icy red. They pulsed with a dim glow, as if alive in more than form. The deer lowered their muzzles delicately, biting into the crystalline blooms, the sound a faint crackling, like breaking glass.
I could only stare.
Life. Not just survival, but beauty, carved into this wasteland. A harmony I had never expected from such a place of silence and cold.
The bears, however, did not look on with awe. They crept forward, massive paws crunching in deliberate rhythm, eyes fixed on the deer. Their breaths grew heavier, clouds of frost swelling in the air. The deer raised their heads one by one, crystalline antlers glinting, ears twitching at the disturbance. A stillness fell over the vale—predator and prey locked in ancient tension.
I hovered above, unseen, caught between fascination and a strange, primal thrill. This was not my world, not my law. But I could feel the weight of it, the way the land demanded struggle, demanded balance.
And for the first time, I understood: I was not only a witness here. I was part of this frozen kingdom now.
The deer's froze, ears twitching, crystalline antlers angled toward the lumbering shapes that stalked into the vale. Their breaths puffed faintly in the cold, mist curling around their muzzles, eyes wide with awareness.
They'll run, I thought instinctively. It was the natural order I knew—flight from predator, chase by hunter. The bears, heavy as mountains though they were, could never match the speed of these slender creatures. That was Earth's truth.
But I had forgotten. The rules here were not Earth's.
The first deer lifted its head, and in that instant the faint gray markings across its body flared to life, glowing a brilliant, icy blue. Power surged visibly through its veins, racing along its limbs until every inch of it shimmered like frozen lightning. One by one, the herd followed, their coats burning with the same glow, the markings alive with raw force.
I gasped, voice tearing unbidden from my throat. "What—?"
Before I could finish, the leader of the bears reared back on its hind legs. Its chest swelled as it unleashed a roar that split the mountains. The sound rolled like thunder, shaking the very peaks, snow avalanching from crags and ridges. The sheer weight of it pressed against my chest even from above, my heart hammering as the world seemed to bow beneath that one sound.
The deer responded in kind. Their antlers blazed, crystalline branches flooding with the same blue light, until they burned brighter than the snow around them. Then, in perfect unison, they lowered their heads and released their fury.
Antlers flared—and the air split. From each crown of ice shot jagged spears, enormous icicles sharpened to a deadly edge, whistling as they tore through the air toward the bears.
"An… elemental attack," I whispered, stunned. The words felt absurd in my own mouth, yet undeniable. This was no ordinary clash of beast and prey. This was war by powers beyond anything I had ever known.
But the bears were not surprised. They expected this.
The leader roared again, and with that sound alone the spears shattered mid-air, breaking apart in sprays of frost and shards of ice. The force of its voice alone was enough to undo the volley. The others charged even as the shards fell around them, massive paws crushing the ground, their movements impossibly fast for their colossal size.
The battle was sudden, brutal, one-sided.
I saw one bear swipe its claw, and from the arc of its movement tore a crescent of blue energy, sharp as a blade of ice, ripping toward the deer. Another opened its maw, and a lance of concentrated frost burst forth, a beam of searing cold that turned the air white, the very ground it touched frosting over in thick sheets. The deer that were struck staggered, frostbite spreading instantly across their glowing bodies, slowing them, choking their strength.
Others fell to the brute force of the bears themselves—massive jaws snapping like traps, bone-crushing bites closing around fragile necks, bodies thrown to the snow with impossible strength. The herd tried to scatter, glowing hooves pounding the ice, but the bears flanked them expertly, cutting off escape, herding them not unlike seasoned hunters.
The vale was alive with chaos, filled with roars that rattled the earth and shrieks of pain that pierced the silence.
Hovering above, I could only watch, eyes wide, my mind grasping at comprehension. This land—this frozen realm—was not bound to the frail patterns of Earth. Here, even the beasts wielded the elements as weapons. Here, survival was not a matter of tooth and claw alone, but of powers carved from the very bones of the world.
And I realized, with a slow dread curling in my chest, that if even the animals of this land fought with such power… then I was in a world where weakness could not exist.