You grow up in a world slowly but surely being devoured by the white frost, one prophesied to end all life, everywhere, forever. You grow up with great magical affinity and with a higher body temperature than literally everyone aside from the father you got it from, so you're naturally more resistant to the ice. Despite the death of all life slowly approaching, nobody in your family seems too concerned with it nor does anything to combat it. That sounds insane to you.
Determined to not let your abilities go to waste like your family seems to be doing, you seek out the sages, to learn from them, to become one of them. You absorb their knowledge, their skills, their values. You become estranged from your family, constantly asking yourself why you seem to be the only one concerned about the literal end of the world approaching. The only one who seems to understand your fears is your childhood best friend.
You and your best friend accompany a group of mages to an area where frost had been advancing, as part of your training. In a moment of distraction, your friend gets caught in the storm, quickly becoming buried under the snow. Fearing for her life, you fan the flames of your magic, unleashing a firestorm that almost kills you both, along with the entire expedition. You and your friend are both saved by your father. He does not look you in the eye.
Your hands and forearms are forever scarred by the fire.
Your friend introduces you to her fiancé. You do not understand what you're feeling, only that you are drawn to him in a way you've never been drawn to anyone before. You want to be happy for your friend. The knot in your stomach does not go away.
In the circles you are now a part of, you alone are the only one who did not have his future chosen for him. Desperate for something, someone, to take your mind off of the impending doom, you turn to the most capable sage you know - your best friend's fiancé - to direct you to a suitable partner. He introduces you to the family of your future wife. You ask her parents for her hand in marriage without hesitation. They accept.
You finally meet your wife on your wedding day. She seems intimidated by you, though enamoured. She does not understand why you chose her. It was destiny, you say. You convince yourself you believe that.
Your friend confides in you that she has doubts about having to live the life chosen for her. You retaliate, saying its structure is a blessing - there is absolutely nothing she ever needed to fight for; her life was handed to her on a silver platter. She should make peace with it and focus on the actual pressing issue - the ever-advancing frost. She does not take kindly to your words. She stops speaking her mind around you.
You are contacted by your grandfather - one you didn't even know you had. An old man, stuck defending a border city from the frost, alone, he begs you to deliver his people from an untimely end, buried under the snow. You pack up your wife and newborn daughter and come to his aid. Finally, you can fight the frost directly.
You realize you cannot fight the frost. No magical talent in the world can stop it - only ever slow it. You refuse to accept it. There must be a way. You continue researching.
You have three daughters now. You rarely ever see them, preoccupied with your grandfather and the frost. Your wife refuses to give up on you, but you start giving her the cold shoulder too.
You learn your childhood friend was killed, foolishly seeking to escape her destiny. The tears pouring from you evaporate before even reaching the bottom of your face. This is your affirmation - you were right all along.
Your father temporarily returns from one of his trysts, forcefully recalled by your other father. You have not spoken to him in two hundred years, so you decide to take the opportunity to, for one last time, try to make him see reason, to use his magic to help you and his father instead of chasing skirts in a world he does not belong to. You aren't mad at him, not truly, but you need someone to blame, someone to pin all your fear and anger and grief onto. Words pour out of you before you can stop them. The fury in your father's eyes is unlike any you have ever seen. Still, he cannot bring himself to raise a hand against you. He curses at you to get out, get out and never dare come back. You comply.
You return to your work, convinced this is the only, destined, path for you. Your wife makes one last valiant attempt to restore her family, basically begging you to go to bed with her again. You comply. She walks you through the motions, but with your eyes closed, it's not her you see. It's him, him, your dead best friend's fiancé, the man mourning his lost love, the man that wants nothing to do with you. The knot in your stomach finally unravels. Your wife cries herself to sleep. You move into the guest bedroom.
Your grandfather passes. As you are a sage, the strongest mage in your bloodline, you become the new head of the family. You outrank even your father now, but thinking of him brings a dull pain somewhere deep in your chest, so you elect not to. Now a margrave on top of a sage, you run your grandfather's city, a beacon of hope to its people. Over the years you have become more than a man to them - you are an idol, an idea - a saviour. You live and breathe for your work, the frost the only thing on your mind in your solitude. You do not notice when your wife and daughters move out.
News of the king's death reach you. As a sage, you have the abilities to find out what happened, as no one else seems to know. The king's former general - now declaring himself the new king - hunts you down as soon as you try. You run for your life, leaving the only world you've ever known, leaving the frontlines of the frost.
It takes four years before the usurper is killed, before you can finally return home. Your other father awaits you, with news of your city's fall to the frost. But the frost is defeated, he says, and the people are safe - saved by your eldest daughter, who is now leading the reclamation project too.
Just like that, the frost is defeated, by a human descendant of your best friend. Just like that, your city is buried and then unburied by your daughter's hand. Just like that, you, and your centuries of fighting, have been made redundant. Nothing you sacrificed meant anything.
You do not go to see your family. They have no use of the ravings of a madman. You leave your wedding ring on the desk of your empty study, and venture out into the snow. Out, out, for as long as your legs will carry you, and then further still. You do not stop walking once you feel the ice starting to get under your skin. You do not stop walking when you lose sensation in your limbs. You do not stop walking when the ice freezes over your eyes.
You collapse. You do not feel the pain of the frost anymore. It feels quite warm, now. It feels like home.
You feel snow slowly piling up on top of your chest. You are having difficulty mustering the strength to breathe through the weight. And you are so, so tired.
As you fall asleep, you breathe out for the last time.
You are buried by your frost.
