Jötunn

I stood at the line between the wild and the town. Winter surrounded me, dusting the trees with white capes and leaving the houses buried in the cold. The wind whispered through the woods, speaking through coniferous needles in words I didn’t understand. 

Behind me, the villagers watched, waiting for the woods to eat me alive. The tales they told of the thing within promised power I had never seen before. And although spring blossomed in the land, here the deep oof winter remained, pulling at the edges of reality to reshape the season. I had seen creatures thrive in natural and unnatural environments. Yet I had never seen a creature reshape their environment to suit them. 

My fingers trailed over the needles of a tree, causing snow to fall. Everything was silent save the wind. It brushed my face, burning in cold intensity, before playing in the trees, causing snowflakes to dance in the air and piles of snow to fall into the drifts below. 

There were no bird prints in the snow, nor wolf or deer. The snow was undisturbed, until I stepped within it, breaking its surface and the silence with the sound of crunching. It went up to my thigh, deep and unforgiving as I began the trek forward in the darkened woods, made bright by sunlight on the glistening snow.

Symbols I didn’t understand were carved into the thick trees, old and scarred. Nothing was fresh, except the winter air that followed me every step I took. There were no pathways or even markers that weren’t the symbols. 

I reached out, caressing one, tracing a thumb over the tree’s rough bark. The wind caressed my face again, sending a chill down my spine. It lingered, plying with loose strands of hair tucked beneath a hood, as though fingers were running through my hair. I stood still, looking at the air where the wind was but wouldn’t be seen, brows furrowed.

Darkness began to creep into the trees as the sun dipped into the horizon. The village was miles away and not a sound could be heard. Not a creature had wandered near me in the day’s walk. Cold air haad followed me, blowing harder and stronger as I hit the base of the mountain, only to stop and stare into the mouth of a cave where even colder air waited.

Snow drifted down, slowly falling around me, coating my cloak in dampness. As I stepped from the edge of the woods, into the clearing before the cave, the wind switched, pelting snow against my face that turned to ice pellets. I put my hand up, trying to shield my eyes as I dared a step forward.

The mountain cracked, as though winter itself disapproved of my presence. Wind swirled around me, absorbing me into an ice storm that moments ago wasn’t there. I shivered and took another step forward. The storm swirled around me, making it impossible to see anything. The cave should have been straight ahead but there was no way to be sure.

Despite the uncertainty, I took another step forward, only to step onto the ice. The snow beneath me had frozen, creating a sheet of ice on its surface. I barely had time to cry out before I slipped and fell to the ground. 

The snow immediately became stronger, burying me in wintry white as I pulled a dagger from my sleeve and plunged it into the ice. My muscles ached as I breathed in the burning air, puling myself forward inch by inch until the cave’s darkness greeted me. Within thinking, I crawled inside and fell into the shadows. 

My eyes opened to the howling wind and the gleam of light bouncing off of ice crystals. I shivered instantly, the coldness in my body becoming the thing I noticed most. A sound of discomfort escaped my lips as I sat up, patting the iced floor around me before kneeling. My gloved hands rubbed together as I looked around.

The cave was beautiful, illuminated by light refracting off of the dozens of ice shapes, each beautiful and deadly. I slowly stood and wandered within, until I turned a corner to see a man, skin ice-blue, standing amidst the beauty. Bright blue eyes watched me as I stood there, wondering if I had hit my head too hard.

His hand rested on the side of the cave, large and powerful, yet blended into the ice there. With a jerk, he pulled his hand off, ice shards falling around the point of contact. I started and then looked at his face. Hee was broad, beautiful, and frightening at once, with features human yet inhuman, contorted and made of the most beautiful ice. His hair was tangles of snow, the beard of braided frost. 

“I’ve been looking for you,” I finally said as he approached me, his body changing with every step, into something half white wolf and half-human, made of the North wind and ice. His eyes glowed in response. It took all my willpower not to step away.

“And what di you find, girl?” He stepped around me, the wind that was his touch instantly familiar from the woods. It trailed over my face, so cold it burned, as he stepped to my side and then wandered into the cave, his torso and beneath of a strange eight-legged giant deer. 

“I… don’t know.” As though summoned, I followed. My mind tried to race with the possibilities of his existence. “Elemental?”

He turned, a wicked grin of knowing on his lips before he paused, a human hand brushing my hair back under my hood. I shivered and gasped. The grin deepened. “Older.”

My eyes searched his as I rubbed my arms, trying to rub the wetness away and spread warmth into my body. 

The creature tilted his head. “Stop fighting me,”  he whispered, shifting to the side and disappearing until he was naught but a cold wind that pushed me against a wall of ice. “This is me. This is my domain. You are too human now, to know better.”

I winced as the wind held me against the wall, eating into my bones with its frozen bite. My skin burned, freezing clothing attaching itself to the skin that began to crystalize. “Then teach me,” I cried out at the wind.

His face was before me in an instant, half-formed of frost and frozen fractals, before his hand grabbed my wrists and pulled them above my head, ice freezing them against the wall. “Are you sure? Your people hide in houses in my domain, lighting fires, killing the land to survive where they do not belong. They try to tame this land. This frozen world. Is that what you are doing?”

There was anger in his voice, a venom that replaced the arrogant playfulness from moments ago. I tried to inhale, to calm my mind, but the wind burned my lungs and I made a small whimper in response. “I’m sure. Teach me. I submit to you. Show me.”

Icey eyes pierced my gaze, trying to find fact in the promise of submission. With a jerk, he broke his hands off at the wrists, pinning my arms above my head with his own hands. Ice shards landed on my cloak and clattered to the ground. 

“This fabric,” he said, newly formed fingers brushing over my thigh and stomach. “It is weak. Human. It barely keeps you warm yet you cling to it. To keep yourself apart from the wind.” One hand grabbed the front of the shirt and the other ripped. It split easily, snow spraying the air wherever it tore. 

Iced hair brushed my naked skin. He slid his fingers against my body, skin reddening with every touch. I gasped, twisting away from him only to touch the ice wall behind me. The wind played over my stomach and around my breasts, swirling around my nipples. A soft sound of delight escaped my lips as he watched, amusement in his eyes.

“You see? The wind can be a blessing if you stop hiding from it.”  

I gasped again when the wind moved up, playing with my hair then over my throat. “But it can be cruel, painful…” His words were soft in my ear before ice shards were pelted against my skin. Bright red patches formed where the hail landed, sending stinging pain through my skin. I shuddered after, whimpering and freezing.

“Do you want to feel more?” 

My eyes opened to look at him, a swirl of snow and ice in wind, no face, yet haunting eyes that watched me. I could feel his amusement more than see it. Slowly, I nodded. “Show me.”

“I will show you all that I am, so you may see. May show your people. May believe and know. You may beg me to stop, and I shall. You may ask for more and you shall receive it.”

I nodded. A hand made of snow touched my stomach, laid flat against my skin, melting against my heat. Water droplets fell onto my thighs, making the fabric darken. Slowly his hand slid lower, cold fingers sneaking below the fabric and sliding into my depths. The burning coldness made me shudder, buck against me as his fingers explored, mixing his water with my wetness.

A moan fell from my lips. “More,” I whispered to the frozen air. His fingers pressed against my sensitive nub of skin, rubbing it slowly, swirling ice around it as I cried out. The creature pulled his hand away, grabbing the fabric that covered my legs and tearing it apart in one move. My bare skin glistened with moisture.

Ice pellets whipped my stomach, then my thighs, over my mound, and then across my breasts, over and over again. I jumped, the stinging pain causing me to cry out. Panting, I paused, taking in a frozen breath before nodding. “More,” I said to the wind.

He complied. Sending another wave of pain over my body, cold and burning all at once. A hand caressed my thigh as I moaned and whimpered while the hail whipped my skin. Another hand manifested on my other leg. They both crawled downward, leaving a trail of icy wetness before settling on my ankles. My legs were pulled apart before the hands fused to the wall.

“How does it feel? To submit to winter? To feel the sting of hail and come to crave it?” 

I lifted my head, seeing nothing but a wet winter storm around me. The snow drifted down, landing softly on my skin,  melting slowly until I glistened with his fluids. “I want more,” I finally said. 

A wolf’s face formed of swirling hail and snow, teeth long sharp icicles. They glistened in the low light as it lifted to lick my neck with a tongue of frost. Burning seared my skin and I gave a soft cry. 

Its lips moved in a chuckle. “Will you be ready for more?”

“I am. Please. Show me.”

The wolf’s head lowered, lapping at my breasts, sharp teeth pinching the skin in its jaw. Tiny pinpricks of blood mixed with the water and leaked over my breast down my stomach. The teeth pinched my nipple, pulling hard, neatly piercing the skin. A scream came from my lips, drowned in the snowstorm within.

Its teeth released, letting the nipple go. I shuddered before he bit down on my other breast, compressing the flesh between his jaws. Pain shot through me, sending my head back as tears streamed down my cheeks of their own accord. The ice burned as much as the pinching did before he pulled his head back and with a tongue of ice lapped at the bite marks, getting bits of blood on the wolf’s muzzle.

The tongue lolled, lapping at each nipple, stinging and taunting, the ice cooling the pain with new burning sensations. My skin numbed gently, so exposed to the cold, that only pleasure began to come from each touch. A louder moan escaped me, then louder as the wolf’s tongue explored lower, pushing its icy muzzle between my thighs.

“More,” I cried out, body shuddering as his tongue licked, teeth nipping playfully, pinching the sensitive nub. My hips bucked, grinding myself into the snow and ice. “More. Please.” I was so close to releasing, moans escaping my body in heightened pitches.

It stopped, leaving my body exposed to the cold as the wind and snow died. I shuddered and cried out, frustration and hunger overtaking my senses. “The winter can be kind, or it can starve you.”

He grinned as his large humanoid body formed again, naked and before me. The ice holding me in place shattered. I slid to the cave floor, tatters of clothing clinging to my skin before I looked up at him. He squatted down to look at my eyes.

“Do you want more?”

I leaned my head back against the ice. “I do. Winter can starve. But it is filled with beauty and hope. It is a time of survival. And coming together for warmth.”

He smirked and grabbed my hair, pulling me up with him. With strange ease he took my wrists and pulled them above my head, attaching me to a long icicle, thick and dangerous, above my head. In an instant, he was gone, and all around me swarmed fierce ice and snowstorm.

It hit my body from every angle, making my skin pink and cold. The wind slammed against my body, burning the skin and awakening it. Cries and moans escaped my lips as the winter beat me, the ice leaving small cuts and bruises with their force. He chuckled, slowing the storm as I caught my breath.

Then returned its force, disorienting me until only the whiteness of snow around me endured and I wondered if I had ever seen him at all. After a small eternity in the storm, it slowed, drifting snowflakes swirly around playfully. Each one that landed on my skin was a soft caress, almost sweet and gentle.

A hand gripped my hip and I opened my eyes, snow in my eyelashes. His eyes looked into mine. “You are a survivor, if stupid.” 

“Thank you?” I said, trying to laugh but whimpering instead.

“Are you ready for one last taste? To become one? To feel winter’s soul?”

I swallowed, then nodded.

The creature grabbed my hips and pulled me towards him, sliding himself against my opening. I gasped, feeling the sting of ice and his length, harder than anything I had felt before. “Are you sure?” he whispered, mouth against my ear.

“Yes,” I whimpered, arching my back to rub myself along him. 

He groaned, then thrust forward. His length slid inside me, frozen and rigid. There was no warmth or pliability, he was hard and unbending. I gasped, moaning in pleasure and discomfort at the frozen hardness within my depths. 

A groan escaped my lips as the freezing slipped out of me, and then in again, pounding hard. Pain meet his strokes, he was so firm that my body ached from his thrust. Yet he moved deeper, stretching my body to meet his shape and needs as I dangled from the ice above. 

The creature began to build a rhythm, his grunts and growls somewhere between the sound of the wild wind and that of a giant man. They melded with my delirious sounds of delight, eaten by the thundering of a winter storm all around us. Ice pelted my body, building in intensity as he slid inside me faster and harder.

Wave after wave of cold pleasure rippled through me until I cried out, tensing around his length. His fingers held my hips tight, one arm holding my leg up as he thrust home and screamed with me, releasing snow and ice within. Water dripped out, sliding down his body to the floor below.

The giant released my arms, holding my bruised body against his chest before lying me on the floor. Warmth greeted my body as the wind swirled against me, covering my flesh with the soft fabric of winter clothing, furs, and thick wools. Soft snow drifted down from the ceiling as I stood.

The wolf plodded near the mouth of the cave, half his body just wind and ice. “Jotunn,” I finally said as I approached. “Frost and snow jotunn.”  

If a wolf could grin, he would have. 

I stood beside him, body trembling from its endurance before I looked at the woods. “I will tell them to leave. That nature cannot be tamed, but that it can be embraced.”