Marvel One-Shots and Prompts

What is Freedom?

Created 15 August 2019

Rating: Teen
For angst, themes of torment, traumatic events, and mental health concerns

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He was an older man, he who stood atop the frozen rock. He appeared middle-aged, no more than fifty, or even forty. This middle-aged man looked out from where he stood, to find a sea of blood, and bodies littering the icy ground of the realm. He understood what it meant, even without the wisdom he had gouged his own eye out in return for. They had finally emerged victorious, and the realm, this icy, hateful, barren place, was theirs.

Not that it had ever been about the realm, as its people were savages, known only to cause chaos and bloodshed. Their magics thicker than the air and their lies intricately woven to fool even the most cunning adversary. Nay, the war had been for power. If a king were to be respected, he could not tolerate insurgents, rabble, or rebellion, no matter how slight. The middle-aged man, adorned in armor from his realm, and wielding a spear with power unequaled, turned from the overlook and made his way towards the doors of the temple.

At one point, the temple had been to worship his people, as the gods they claimed to be. But they were not gods, his father never failed to remind him of that. He never had been good enough to please his perfect father, the ruler that created his home world and ruled for many millennia. His acts of violence and warmongering nature had come from a place in his heart still desperate to please the departed god, he supposed, but his newfound wisdom told him a bitter truth. War could never be the answer, not when countless youth was lost and the old were doomed to linger about the world, commanders of ghostly shadow and ruin for the armies they once held at their command.

He pushed the doors open; the temple was the last place they had to check. The savage king's mistress had fled, whoever the mysterious woman had been. The middle-aged man knew that the mistress had borne the king a runt child, he knew for but the wisdom that he had paid for in suffering. Yes, he still remembered the pain of wrenching his lovely blue iris from its place inside his skull, the feeling of holding the gross little thing and looking at it rest in his hands. Blood still stuck to his skin because of the incident. It would be a while to forget, or for the memory to at least lessen.

There arose a cry from within the temple, which immediately caught the attention of the middle-aged king. He stepped forward cautiously, his footsteps echoing against the icy floor and travelling from wall to wall, being amplified a hundred times on every surface it hit. The noise was bothersome to the man, who brushed it off much like it were an insult and strode towards the dais in the center of the temple. The rock, if it even passed for a dais, was frostbitten, much like everything else in that damned realm. He tired of the feeling of ice and snow against his body. He longed for the sun which never shone upon the dreary ice world. It was a child.

The source of the pitiful cries was found, laid upon the dais like an offering to the gods, his people. Looking at the child, which he noticed was quite small for the savage's offspring, he found himself pitying it. It cried for a mother who had abandoned it, and a father that was likely perished in battle. No, looking at the cloths which the child had been carelessly swaddled in, this was in fact the royalty of the realm. So little and helpless, he saw. Abandoned. How pathetic that such a small thing could one day grow to inherit the throne of his people, or what they had left behind.

Curiously, and almost with compassion, he picked the child up, taking it into his arms. It stared up at him with innocent ruby eyes, and with all the wisdom in his mind, he still could hardly comprehend. He did not see a monster in this child, but a victim robbed of its most valuable possessions. Its family. The child's body was enveloped in a green light, and the middle-aged king nearly dropped the poor thing out of shock. For when the hand of the king touched the child's cerulean skin, it began to change, fading to a milky white that resembled that of his own kind. Magic so strong for but a babe, he could feel the aura, and it intrigued him.