The Frozen Sun and the Broken Son

To Wake in a New World

"But you have to wonder how." One scientist pointed out to another, shivering in the frozen air despite her layers.
"Obviously that's one of the questions." The other replied with a huff, misting breath snatched by the bone-chilling breeze. "But I'm more curious as to how the ice managed to even preserve the color."
"Maybe it was imbued with magic at formation." The other suggested.

"It would have to have been to preserve anything at all." Someone explained in passing.
"Right." The woman nodded before pausing. "Could they have been murdered, then?"
"They possibly could have had ice magic and were trying to stay alive- they're in the middle of Antarctica. It's a wonder they got this far." .
"It's a little morbid, though. Don't they look like a child?"

"Oh hell, you don't think there's an entire family unit down there?" The man asked in concern, peering through the block of ice at the huddled shape therein.
"Scans showed nothing but rocks around him."
"Him now? Could be a girl." Someone pointed out.
"Looks like a boy to me. A skeleton, too."
"Those details are for the States to figure out. We're just here to excavate."

The team started muttering then, all a little amazed at the perfectly encased figure in the ice, curled up with boney hands laced between each other, hugging legs to their chest and concealing their face.
"That's definitely a skeleton. Can't mistake a bare skull and phalanges." Another pointed out.
"And they're black-boned, might have even had the pix when alive."
"That could be from degradation over time." Came the suggestion.
The other just shrugged with an "I don't know" sound.

"Alright, we need to get this bagged and back to camp before it gets dark." Someone clapped, the sound muffled by thick mittens.
Several swears accompanied that, the others unwilling to step out of the relative safety and back into the frostbitten wind despite knowing the night was even colder.

Eventually the operation continued, talk of the somehow perfectly preserved skeleton child from at least several thousand years ago. The data pulled from the ice suggested the youth was from the last ice age, over 6000 years old.
And yet, the body in the ice almost looked alive, a slight glimpse through the bumpy surface almost seemed to reveal a faint, yellow glow from the edge of closed sockets.

And it was a beautiful little tyke, too, if the deep navy hue of their bones was anything to go by.
It almost seemed iridescent, though that was likely an effect of the ice.
But, as orders came, they had to move on, getting on the snow tractors after everything was packed and driving off, the find roped to one of the sleds with a tarp thrown over it.

There was no reason to think that somehow the child in the ice was asleep, not dead.
Though in hindsight, they should have realized that not even ice could prevent a monster from dissolving into dust upon death.
There was an untold level of magic thrumming in the sleeping figure, only kept in check by fear.
It feared what humans had become, it feared the lengths they went out of their own fear.
So it let them feel safe, and did not wake the vessel that was itself. He would sleep a while longer.

And he remained asleep throughout the long night, and through the next day. He did not wake when transferred from one team to another, did not wake as he was taken from the land of ice that had once been his home, nor did he wake throughout the long weeks of transport via ship.
There was very little that could wake him, and none of this was anything that could do so.

But eventually, he was taken to a building prepared to keep the ice frozen and preserved, precise tools cutting into the block until very little was keeping him sealed from the air outside.
Scans were taken, scientists astounded by the levels of magic found in the little body inside.
Theories were made, incorrect, but still theories. Perhaps the monsters of ancient times had far more magic than the now.
In some small way, that was true. There was more magic within them then than now, but it had never been as much as this child. There was only one of his kind. There would be no other. He was magic, and magic was he.