Seasons: Howl

-Battle Halted-

Wings of fire descended down on her, enveloping her in warm, burning feathers. Flames surrounded her, embracing her in their protective hold. She spread out her arms, letting the fire engulf her.

She felt at home. The fire was where she belonged. Then suddenly her flames, her beloved fire, got extinguished by a powerful gale, a gust of freezing wind. She whirled around, clutching her fists furiously.

Who dared to disturb her?! That person will pay!

Then she suddenly saw the culprit. He stood a few distance away from her, back facing her, surrounded by glittering frosty ice. His hair was a gorgeous deep marine colour, clothes shining as blue armour. He seemed familiar...

The figure turned around and silver eyes met hers. Eyes glowing malignantly, sending shivers down anyone's spine when they saw those silver orbs.

The boy smirked, the blue zigzags on his face slowly, surely, fading away. That was when she suddenly saw another figure, but this time a shadow.

A shadow of the boy in front of her, pummeling his fists against imaginary glass, tears of frustration streaming down his face.

Tears of frozen ice.

The tears of Winter.

~~~

Winter choked out blood as his father kicked him in the stomach. He curled into a ball, gasping for breath as he clutched his sore stomach.

"Such an ignorant fool!" His father hissed, malice in his tone.

"F-Father... I'm s-sorry..." Winter gasped out, groaning in pain.

His father snorted disbelievingly. "I should have handed the job over to Glade. I overestimated your potential. You're nothing but a haughty brat." he snarled, roughly kicking Winter's shoulder with the heel of his boot.

Winter grunted in agony, blood trickling down his chin, and he bit back a scream as his father dug his boot's heel deep into his shoulder.

It wasn't the first time he had been violently abused. Ever since his father found out that he had been training Summer, he had gotten weekly punishments, with his father calling him a lousy fool.

Winter didn't really take his father's name-calling to heart, but it still hurt. Both inside and out...

He tried to hide his abuse by acting normal, even though he had to lie his way out of situations. For example, just yesterday Summer caught him limping and asked him what was wrong. And she even spotted one of the bruises on his arm which he had so desperately tried to hide.

As an excuse, Winter told her that he accidentally knocked over a couple of trash bins, hitting his arm against one of them. His fall thus caused his ankle to be sprained and his bruised arm.

Summer didn't buy it immediately but she still helped him to the nurse's office.

His father finally finished beating him and stalked out of the room- Winter's room. That's right, he was torturing Winter in his own room. Winter lay on the ground for a few more minutes, gasping for breath. Then he quickly, shakily, got to his feet and using his bed as a support, stumbled towards the door.

It flew open before he even grabbed the knob. Glade stood outside grinning, in his hands a shiny new metallic blue armour. "Look what came! Your armour's fi- Bro... are you alright? You're... bleeding." Glade whispered, blinking as he spotted the blood that was trickled out of Winter's mouth.

Winter flinched when he remembered that no one was supposed to know of the abuse, not even Glade. If anyone found out, his father would double the sessions. And the pain.