Four Keys: Buwe (Blue)
(reblogs appreciated)
This is Buwe! (pronounced similarly to Dew), he's this au's Blue! Buwe's people, Selkie Folk, live in different communities on arctic Islands that rely on fishing seasons to survive.
Unfortunately, a horrible sea ice witch threatened them. She threatened to freeze all the sea, the sea that gave them their fish and their life, unless they paid. With wealth or manpower. Their tribes are like brother and sisters.
Paying her, it would have debilitated them until there was nothing left. It would kill them. Going against the other tribes would kill their souls. It was a trap to let her get more power. With the walls of ice surrounding them, and air so frigid no messenger bird could be sent, there would be no help to free them.
Buwe decided, that if she wanted a warrior, he would give her one. One that would take the breath from her lungs as he strangled her. No sick child of his home, his tribe of Kunae, would die again, because of her. Coughing blood and becoming brittle.
He found a weak spot in her ice walls and after nights of hard work in secret, he left. Filled with rage, knowing he'd never survive making it to the other tribes, he decided to go straight to the mouth of the beast. Her little hideout, hidden in the ice, under the freezing water.
He's never seen a place so beautifully sculpted, yet so revolting. Patterns of swirling ice with windows to the wide ocean outside, columns fashioned with utmost care. Icy statues of figures posed beautifully appear along the walls. The bones of children as adornments. Red stained fabrics, draping down the entrances.
It's nothing like the castles he's learned about from books, its far too small and the design itself is far too close to home. But he knows that's just now, she wants to expand this. She wants more. She'll build it out of pearly white bones if she has to.
He catches her by surprise, while she's tinkering with some sort of map. Planning for the attacks she'll lead them in, when they all crack and serve her in their grief. When they let her take control of their very minds with a binding oath made of pure dark magic.
She's amused at first. She knew how great of a warrior, and determined a man he was. She reminds him of her offer. To be hers. Only the finest would be hers, after all. He's sick. This monster, the way she talks, the way she watches him. It's nothing but a freaking game.
"No? Pity, Kunae man, but I don't want to kill you ,you know... Such a wasteful thing, yes?"
He stands in silent fury. He's ready to fight, to end this.
"Fine then, you can be, another one of my... perfect sculptures. My favorite one, in fact. That way, you could stay by my side forever, hm?"
She steps to him, closer and closer. He will not be afraid.
"Even back then... So brash and brave, when I came, I just adore you..." her hand caresses his face, he's tense, " That's the face I want to keep for myself forever."
His dagger lurches into her gut, but not before a thin blast of ice blasts off forcing them apart. Buwe moves, the end is near. The end of suffering, or the end of any chance of hope. The end of her, or the end of him.
Buwe nearly dies in that fight. He was fighting, on her terf, already weakened, with his own ability already diminished from the hunger. But the rage fuels him on, and he knows he will End Her even if it only happens during his last dying breath.
She gives a final attack of defense, he got too close, his grand tactical mistake made out of desperation. Her eyes say the words he can't hear. It's the blessing of a curse. He can feel his legs freezing over, the ice in his bones spreading and paralyzing reaching itself tendrils outward. The sound of her cracking neck is nearly mute in the water, an endless abyss of the dark. It's the most beautiful thing he's ever heard. The light leaves her eyes.
He tries, Buwe really does, to transform again into a selkie, to let him swim to the surface, and maybe reverse her curse just long enough to see his home again. Just the walls and the glistening shining snow, that the children would soon play on again. He manages to transform, but it's too late. Every thought slows, muffled and pained. He will be lost, but he won, for them. That's all that matters. The world is deafening, as he sees the blackening ocean turn icy white. The world is dark again.
@slaingelo @vamqiredove @shadylink enjoy lol, it gets worse probably