Okay so my friend sent me this post and went “angst fic potential” and obviously I have to make it about frost
It’s a fay curse that does it. He isn’t turned into a sad clown, his mouth isn’t filled with oil, his legs don’t get fused together,
Frost is in the backseat of his own mind. A terrifying concept for someone who’s spent decades searching for control. He’s aware of the world around him, but his body is controlled by something else.
It’s only been a few minutes, and no one has noticed the change. Whatever it is that has taken over, it doesn’t seem like it’s harmful. It’s just… different.
The way his tail is suddenly still, resting against his legs, the way his rigid posture seems to have relaxed, his paws unclenched. The sensations are muddled, but Frost thinks he can feel the muscles in his face moved into a calm smile.
His mouth moves, and without Frost’s consent, a joke slips out. Laughter fills the room, yet his form is relaxed even in the midst of the noise, and when Gideon slaps his back, Frost’s body doesn’t flinch from the touch.
Frost sees how his body moves without his control, the way it slings an arm around Gricko, the way it doesn’t shy away from Kremy’s intense eye contact. He sees how his friends smile and laugh with it, how comfortable the situation seems.
The conversation is light, and the thing controlling his body seems at peace. It doesn’t stutter and pause, doesn’t go quiet to think of what to say next, doesn’t have to analyze each response in order to know if it’s presence is wanted. It seems natural.
Natural in a way Frost has never experienced. Normal, perhaps. Normal like the way the other children in his village were. Normal, like what the order tried to beat into him for years. Normal - a word that has never applied to Frost.
He sits back in the corner of his own mind. Watches as a creature speaks through his mouth, watches as it moves his body. As his friends laugh and smile. Normal.
He wants to fight his way back. Wants to tear and claw at the edges of his mind. But even here his claws are missing, and even when stuck inside his own brain, he is powerless.
He tries to count the minutes, but he finds himself counting the laughs of his friends, the amount of times his body fails to react to sounds he would’ve normally found deafening, to touch he’d normally find oppressive.
Perhaps, he thinks, this is what could’ve been. If he had been different, if he had been normal. Maybe this is how it should’ve been.
When his body is once again under his control, he can’t help but to wince each time he feels the rhythmic flick of his tail, can’t help but to curl his paws in shame each time he flinches away from touch, each time his eyes automatically wander away from those of his companions.
When he misunderstands a joke and tries to explain the next part of their plan, and he sees the smiles on his friend’s faces fade, when Gideon quips “Aw man, what happened? You were so funny a minute ago!” Frost feels his heart sink.
He thinks about it that night, alone in front of the campfire. He wonders if he’ll ever feel as loved as he knows he could be. If the curse wasn’t the lack of control - but the knowledge that he will never be the person that he saw today. If his friends would’ve been happier had he never come back.
Perhaps it would’ve been worth it.
