The soft summer breeze turned violent and strong. It churned the waves and dug a hole in them, digging deep inside while shoving them apart. It reached for the ice further down in the cold depths and surrounded it. The winds were so cold that the water froze around them, creating a funnel. The ice grew and used that funnel to reach the surface. The winds splashed the ocean waves around, tearing them apart.

Every splash of water into the winds turned into thousands of crystals before they fell back down in the water with the ice. The winds broke the ice apart enough for it to melt and blend into the water.

The winds calmed.

Then faded away.

The waves kept churning and creating new ice and the ice kept melting creating new water.

A pair of eyes opened to a dark cave in the middle of a mountain made of ice. D’Argen realized he was back in his body only for a moment before vertigo confused him as he looked up at himself while simultaneously looking down at Thar.

At his other container.

At the mahee’s other container.

As the mahee slowly took control of the two containers, D’Argen remembered his name. Then remembered his name was Thar. Then the mahee spread out through the containers and it became they as they felt it all. D’Argen felt it all. Thar felt it all. They, however, were still one and they felt it as one so they became he.

He felt the hard formation at his back as it turned softer and moved with heavy inhales and exhales. He felt hands clutching at his chest and thighs. He felt a chest pressed down with a warm grip and thighs gripped tight with cold hands. He shifted both parts of him and felt an urge that he had been fighting for centuries.

There was a wetness on his lips that tasted like blood and matched the pounding in his leg. There was an emptiness that needed to be filled and an urge to fill it. The cold air filling his lungs was biting and tearing them apart even as it surged deeper and tried to fill that emptiness. The pain of his bruised ribs was an echo of the one deeper within as his lungs fought for air.

He moved until his knees were holding him up on the hard ground and breathed in the cold air. He leaned forward, away from the formation digging into his back. He saw white and black and white and black and white and blue all at once and it was so jarring as everything came to him at once.

Then that urge inside him intensified – the one begging to be filled, to become one even as he was one just in two different places.

He moved two arms, one from each part of him, until ten fingers were intertwined tightly. The hold was strong enough to keep millions of shards of ice together while at the same time, it was comfortable enough that it felt like wind under his feet. He felt warm skin that almost burned with how the hot blood flowed under it even as the ice crystals in his veins strengthened and formed and countered the heat. He sat up and turned around even as he stood stock still. He unfolded his legs and then used one arm to pull a third leg closer until both of him were as close as they could be while still being two separate parts.

They should not be separate.

He pulled tighter and leaned forward. When he felt a cold hand against his cheek, he almost wept for the comfort it gave. When he felt a hot breath give new air to his lungs, he almost cried for the burning pain inside him.

Gentle fingers ran through long hair, getting tangled and smoothing out knots while he brushed tears of overwhelm away from under multi-coloured eyes. He had no idea why he was breathing from two different sources until he no longer was, sharing breath with himself as he exhaled and inhaled at the same time. His hearts were beating one beat.

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Then a warmth gathered in his chest, something comfortable that wrapped around all of him and soothed him within before turning into a raging fire that trickled down and down and down. He did not recognize the heat, raging and burning through him and making him aware of his body in a way he never had been before. He had always held that heat at bay, buried under the snow and frozen in the ice and away from the one person who could turn an ember into a blaze.

Now, the ice broke against the crashing waves of the ocean and that heat melted his blood, burned him from the inside, and settled over him like a comforting blanket.

The heat got intense.

He tried to get even closer to his other half, but there was nowhere else. His ribs protested the pressure but he surged on. His lungs begged for air but he swallowed a whimper. His hands clutched so tight that they were cramping even as they formed bruises.

He was one.

They belonged together.

He gasped in the air he exhaled and felt the cold touch turn comforting, chasing away the heat. But the heat was so intense that it started becoming uncomfortable. It spread from his lungs through his entire body and then to a place further down. It was an itch and needed pressure, it needed comfort and touch even though he did not want that at all. It was a strange disconnect of need and want and misunderstandings where he—

D’Argen pulled back so suddenly that he cracked his head against the pillar of stone behind him. Thar followed him for only a breath before his eyes widened in horror and then he shoved D’Argen off his lap, making the runner hit the stone formation once more.

The first hit reminded D’Argen that he had a headache. The second one reminded him that his ribs were bruised. Then he recalled he had his own body and it was sprawled uncomfortably against the stone and ice and there was a heat missing from where he had just been so closely—

The runner reached up and touched the cold wetness on his lips. He licked the saliva off of them and it tasted like nothing at all. Thar got up and limped away as if he was the one with the recently dislocated hip and a broken leg. D’Argen felt the bone was almost completely mended but he could not concentrate on that because Thar’s face…

He looked at where Thar was hunched near another stone formation and coughing, his blood—red—staining his white robes and the stone and the ice around him.

D’Argen felt each heaving cough as it vibrated against his ribs even as they stitched themselves together. Then he felt the ice in his veins only to realize it was not inside his own blood. Then the connection between them stretched out like old honey as D’Argen recognized the heat inside him fade away just as the red stains turned a horrible shade of grey.

He recognized that heat.

Thar looked up at him and he looked terrified.

This heat was not something that belonged to the ocean. Not to D’Argen.

“Fuck me.” It was not an order or a suggestion, only a breath of astonishment at the feelings and emotions that had just overwhelmed him.

That final thread of connection snapped when D’Argen felt a sharp stab of pain constrict his heart as his own words registered. The pain faded away as quickly as it appeared and it took the last of the heat with it.

“Thar... do you—” D’Argen cut himself off because he had just felt it. He knew the truth. Instead, he shook his head and changed course, stumbling through his words as he tried to speak his jumbled thoughts. “I didn’t know. I mean, you’ve never said nor even acted like it... since... no... how long have you—”

“Stop. Do not say it.”

“We have to talk about this.” D’Argen sat up gingerly though his ribs did not even twinge.

“No. We do not,” Thar replied so firmly that D’Argen was shocked back.

“What? I felt you, I was you. I didn’t know that you felt... this way.”

“It does not matter.”

“Of course, it matters!”

“Would it make a difference if you knew?!” Thar snapped so loudly that D’Argen felt his mahee fill up and consume the sound like a starving wild animal and for the first time since he had ever known, he felt that feeling echo in his veins like ice crystals forming and melting at once.

When he looked up, Thar was still not looking at him, standing near the blood-stained stone formation and staring out into another universe. Thar coughed again and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. D’Argen did not feel his ribs vibrate this time.

“I know,” Thar said quietly after a moment. “I know you do not feel the same. I knew before that you were never... interested, but now I know for sure.”

“Look, we can—”

“Stop,” this time it was so quiet that D’Argen only heard it because he was straining to hear anything at all from the other man. “Please.” It sounded so weak and broken that D’Argen felt his heart constrict along with his lungs.

After a long moment of silence, Thar turned around and repeated the quiet plea.

D’Argen looked down at the ice under him and nodded.