What’s your earliest memory?

Memories are what defines us, I think. Memories are our experiences, our experiences are our history, and our history shapes our character. Memories, are of paramount importance to our identity.

So what’s my earliest memory?

I saw orange. An inviting orange glow fills a room, as I stare deeply into my mother’s eyes. I was crying about something, I can’t remember what. But she turns, smiles sweetly, and sings a song. A calm, gentle, soothing song, full of warmth, of orange.

But maybe I made up that memory.

There’s no orange in my home, only the cold flashes of silver and solemn blue, suffocating in its sepulchral brilliance. I can no longer remember any other time when my mother had smiled, nor when she had sung a gentle song. Only bombastic, ostentatious marching songs play within the halls of my home.

My home has no fire, only pretentious, glittering ice.

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When I was 5, I fell down the stairs. I was so sure that someone had pushed me down, I went crying to my mother, and clung to her leg, weeping. She merely looked at me, and listened to my complaints, then admonished me to not tell lies. Then before my shell-shocked eyes, she went forth to my accused’s parents, and apologized for my childish temper and my penchant for lies. That day I learned not to depend on authorities for justice.

When I was 14, I fell in love with a commoner girl. When I told my father, he merely looked at me, and listened to my passion, then admonished me to remember my station. Then, before my horror-filled eyes, he went forth to my beloved’s quarters, and forbid her publicly to ever see me again. That day I learned to hide my passions and emotions deep within my soul.

When I was 19, I saw another nobleman attempting to dishonor a girl, who looked half his age. Enraged, I stood forth, and smote him across the head, resulting in his death. When the guards gathered round, before my calm and collected eyes, the girl spoke out, accusing me of murder, and denying that any dishonor had been attempted towards her. That day, I learned with silver, to no longer empathize, for empathy breeds pain.

Is this what life is? Just a pretentious show, clad in glittering, cold armor? Only a play, to distance oneself from, and watch with a callous heart? It must be, for life had only taught me such, and had not shown anything indicating otherwise.

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Last month, my parents fell to a plot. A cup of poisoned wine, a basic, banal, boorish plan. So plain, so devoid of intellectuality, that I was stunned that my parents had actually succumbed to such idiots. As I stared downwards, they looked towards me.

I expected to see ice.

But why did I see fire? I don’t understand. A being of Ymir can surely never show properties of Surtr. Humans who had forsaken passion show passion? Impossible.

Last night, as I rested upon my father’s study, having arranged the funeral proceedings and buried my parents that day, I still could not feel pain, merely confusion and curiosity. I was sure that such feelings would pass, as did all feelings. Reaching for my drink upon that cherry-wood table, I hummed a song. A song I barely knew, a song I made up, I’m sure. An ethereal song, of a time that never existed. Then, before my eyes, the sound of gears moving filled the air, as the pins on numerous locks began to click, until a portion on the table slid open.

It was a letter addressed to me.

With icy hands, I held up the letter and opened it. First and foremost was a picture, a picture I almost couldn’t believe was real. It contained my parents, much younger, and I, a mere infant. My parents were… smiling. The backdrop contained a fireplace, casting a glow of warm, inviting orange, as my father and mother stared with uncontained joy upon the bundle in their arms.

This picture couldn’t have existed.

But it did.

With now shaking hands, I commenced to pick up the letter, and to read the letters within. Then, I learned of everything.

When I was born, we weren’t noblemen. We were merely a wealthy, military family, who had managed to obtain our nobility when I was 1 through my father’s efforts in the recent war. Of course, I knew about this. But what I had not known was that my father and mother was monitored almost constantly, for the slightest slip-up that they were not deserving of nobility. They had to lock their fires behind bars and obtain an icy visage in order to be able to raise me, their child, without any overt conflict.

However, that which they sought to protect was the one who had destroyed them in the end. I had not managed to learn of their true intentions, and had become the thing that they imitated, and was on my way to becoming a true blue-blooded noble. Blue of blood, and blue of passion. And so, for my sake, they engineered this device to let me know of my true heritage, that of humanity, and not sculptures, reminding me of my fire, not only my ice. And in doing so, they had let slip of their “incapability” of nobility, and had been disposed of, in order to let their son, me, become their silver puppet of reason.

What happened to me you say? Well what can I do? I still act the same. I care not for others, and I care not for myself. I killed off my passion, and play the courtly games of power. And at times, when I am sure I am alone, I hum a simple song.

Though fire and ice may seem enemies

They hold a relationship far complex

For fire lies passion, for all to see

Unto life, meanings it injects

As for ice, an armor, protecting one’s hind

Protecting one from follies and foes

For fire is the heart, and ice the mind.

Great is the one who in both grows.