#svanir

You can’t protect them without me. You need me. I can make you strong.

That gentle, alluring voice was the only thing Yve could hear. The words filled his headspace like a bottle, airtight between his thoughts. His teeth chattered, his arms tight around his elbows, hugging himself; his coat did very little to protect him from the biting cold. 

Yve leaves were stiff. Frozen. He was very lost, separated from his patrol squad in a sudden blizzard, wandering where his feet would take him with what little strength they had.

Gray clouds overhead threatened to shed snow or sleet or hail or whatever. To make Yve even more miserable. To kill him.

Yve brought his gloved hands up to his mouth to breathe into them as if that would help him warm up. It didn’t, but he knew that. He knew he wasn’t going to last much longer in the dead of winter.

You’re going to die. You need me.

Yve marched on, no destination in mind, unless he was being led to his death by the voice in his head.

It began to snow.

Yve’s legs grew slower and weaker as the light blizzard soaked his coat through.

He wasn’t strong enough to protect his dearheart, not strong enough to protect his best friend. He wasn’t there to protect his comrades, fight alongside them, help them recover.

All of his problems became his problems because of him, because he was weak. A weak little plant dying in the cold. Pathetic. Weak. Little.

Yve collapsed to his knees in the fresh snow, sinking a few inches into it, daggers clattering. He cursed himself. Again, he wasn’t strong enough.

“I give up. Please, help me. I can’t be weak anymore,” he croaked, tucking his head against his chest. “I want to protect them.”

Figures approached Yve’s crumpled figure as if being summoned from the blizzard and its wind. Large, shimmering Icebrood men, towering over the defeated Sylvari. Clad in ice.

One of the Svanir men grabbed Yve by his arm and began to drag him away, back in the direction they came, a slow march.

Yve’s eyes fluttered shut.