DISCLAIMER: The following is a work of fiction and not to be confused as complete or accurate representation of any beliefs, religions, etc. Please refer to research/articles by experts for that.
The Witches of Alden
”Return”
Nome, Alaska
May 1st, 2023
8:13pm
She had promised herself that she would never come back here. She had promised herself that she would leave this place alone for what it was now. She had told herself that she needed to stay away from this specific place – to let this place be… be the tomb that it had become.
She had broken that promise, despite every part of her, with each step, begging her to turn back.
Still, as Selena breathed, watching her breath condense oh so familiarly into mist before her eyes, she could not stop her brain from recognizing how each step sounded as her boots stepped onto the cold ground – how comforting it felt. How good it felt to feel the familiar stone under her feet. How it felt under her hand as she ran her pale skin against the chiseled stone wall. How, despite the flickering lights above her, some still functioning while others long since burnt out, she knew exactly where to go even in the long shadows of the path.
I shouldn’t be here. Her mind told her again for the umpteenth time, issuing warning after warning to turn around and go back. Back to her rented car, back to the small airport, back to her private plane, and back to Manhattan where her wife, children, dog and her ‘Forever Home’ were waiting. Back where she had things so many people went their lives without. Love, a family, financial security… so much.
However, she didn’t turn around. She simply kept moving forward – moving further into the cave. Further into her father’s gold-mine.
It had been almost a year since she had last been here. Almost a year since she had followed Killjoy down into this place’s depths for a final showdown with her biological sister – almost a year since Project: Black Ice and Project: God Save the Queen had seen their conclusion. And as the Snow Queen took another step further into the dark, she was tempted to turn her head, to the elevator that was several feet behind her, giving a soft amber glow in the interspersed light and darkness.
The place where her sister had met her end.
The thought caused Selena to stop in her tracks, almost turning her head back towards the closed elevator door. No, she wasn’t afraid of Killjoy anymore. Her sister – Celina – was long dead and buried, killed by Killjoy’s own obsession for Selena’s identity and life. In the end, Killjoy
had killed a Frost, alright, just not the one she had meant to.
I shouldn’t be here.
Selena gave a quiet sigh as she journeyed on through the cave’s interior. She could feel the cold through her blue jeans and the green sweater she wore – Deanna’s… which she had stolen before leaving New York – and even hear the wind high above her on the surface of Nome. Despite the past here, she closed her eyes and breathed it all in as best as she could, letting it comfort her. The cold was a familiar friend, as it had been for as long as she could remember. Before Deanna, before the children, before the Scythes, even before wrestling…
She was back where she – No, she refused to say or even think the word ‘belonged’ despite feeling every inclination of it here. It was a far cry from what she felt in the one place she had thought she did belong: SCW.
Turning a little, the platinum-blonde leaned against the cold stone wall, her legs suddenly feeling heavy and weak at the same time. Quietly, she sunk down the stone to sit against it, resting her head against the resilient surface. Aside from her mental ‘warnings’, she also couldn’t get the other images out of her mind either – the ones that had prompted her to up and leave her home and return back here in the first place… alone.
Ace hitting Deanna with a chair – the move that had started the chaos.
Konrad Raab running down to the ring and interfering repeatedly.
Ravyn throwing the chair at her head when the referee had been knocked out.
The strange man that had run out.
Lexy Chapel getting involved.
Alexander Crowe attacking.
Ace pulling her tights in the illegal pin to win.
The SCW fans erupting… cheering him as he stood there with her title.
The memory – the sounds – all of it Selena had watched over and over again on the YouTube replay, unable to bear it or free her mind of any of it. She couldn’t just ‘let it slide’ like she had so many losses in her career, even here in the depths of this cave. If The House of Frost’s match with Light in the Darkness at Retribution had been one of the proudest tag matches she had ever been part of – the epitome of skill vs skill and a match of integrity - than the shitstorm they had endured at Playing the Wildcard was, by far, the opposite!
How different a month can make things… Four people interfering, mostly against the Frosts, weapons used – and it had taken a small army for Ace and Ravyn to steal the titles from her and Deanna… and the SCW Universe had LIKED it! Had CHEERED for it!
She shook her head. Okay, not all of them but enough that it had filled so much of the stadium. Why? The Snow Queen shook her head. How could they have liked it? It was beyond unfair! It was beyond uncalled for! It was a slap in the face of the SCW Universe – a cheap play against the integrity and matches of skill they had paid to see! Had she not spent years fighting against such unfairness in SCW? Fighting against such methods of ambushing and chaos so SCW could be about the talent and the skill and the passion? About being ‘the best wrestling company in the world’?
And on top of it all… O.. The man that she had put… put everything into believing in? THAT had been what had started this whole thing! What had thrown her off since before the bell rang and plagued her mind the whole night! She had known what she had seen. With her very eyes, she had watched her boss take the Royal Letter she had written – the letter she had painstakingly taken hours to choose every word, both pleading and accusatory, to try and make the SCW owner see reason. See what was becoming of the company he had built and dedicated nearly twenty years of his life too (Selena almost a decade herself). The company she had believed in with all her heart and soul.
She had watched him print the letter out… and then toss it away in the trash without reading it…
All those hours of work, years of fighting for him and SCW, defending him, saving him in some instances. Sacrificing her own health and body, littered with scars from such… and he had thrown her pleas away… as if it was nothing. As if she was nothing.
But why? It made no sense to the Snow Queen! She had emailed the letter to him, yet he had chosen to print it out and destroy it! Why?! Why not just quietly delete it from his phone or something?
Unless he wanted you to see him throw it away… her mind mocked, adding another jab of pain into her heart.
Her sapphire eyes slamming shut in the dark, the Snow Queen angrily bit her lower lip, slamming the back of her head against the stone ‘wall’ in frustration! It created a dull ache at the back of her head, almost comforting to her. She did it again, savouring the ache in her current mental state!
“WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?!” the yell had sat and stewed in her core, her soul, for days, compounding with all these memories and festering within her as she had tried her best to simply figure it out on her own. Trying to rationalize and give SCW, the fans, even D., the benefit of the doubt. She had failed time and time again to understand it, even now in the depths of the place she knew better than even her own Manhattan home (decades of life here over seven years in Manhattan).
“WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?!” again, her voice echoed throughout the stone, the only ‘reply’ to her cracked voice of questions. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!” the last shout came out as more of a desperate cry, tears stinging her eyes before falling readily.
“I…” her voice fell to a whisper, but still echoed through her father’s cavern – once the only place she could find peace in her life. “I hate you…” came the whisper as she drew her legs up to her chest, cradling herself tightly as the tears fell. “I can’t do this anymore…” more cries, sobs, escaped her, the Snow Queen – perhaps one of the strongest willed women in SCW – powerless to stop herself. “Father…” she found herself speaking still but could not control her own voice. “Daddy…” the soft accent shook as more tears filled her. “I can’t do this anymore… I wanna go home…”
“Daddy…” the repeated word came not from her, but the voice a little further down the cave, causing the Snow Queen’s head to jerk up, her sapphire eyes’ vision, temporarily, blurry from her own tears. She blinked, trying to clear her vision and managed it after a second try. “Daddy…” the voice cried again.
Before her eyes, amidst the lights and shadows flickering in their dance of functioning lightbulbs, the platinum-blonde saw the young girl form before her – as if crafted from the very shadows and darkness of the cave. A small child with hair as snow-like in color as her own, tied in a braid so like hers, though less voluminous. She wore not the clothes for winter, which was more common in Nome, even back then, but black shorts and dark-blue t-shirt. Selena heard the child crying as the little one sat against the stone wall, just like she was, the child grabbing her left leg and clutching it close to her chest. From where she sat, Selena could the various shades of red across the child’s knee, a little blood coming from it as the child cried. If Selena didn’t know better, she would have sworn she was staring at her daughter Elsianna…
“Daddy…” the child cried, her accent soft, tears flowing down her sapphire eyes as she cried out.
Despite herself, Selena, ever a mother, reached out towards the child, instinctively wanting to help her, stopping only when she heard the voice come from behind her.
“Well, what happened here?” the kind voice asked as someone moved past Selena, walking towards the child and kneeling down towards her. He wore black pants and a gray hoodie, but in his hands was a little kit that Selena recognized as some kind of first-aid kit (from the familiar cross on the side of the red box).
Her mouth hanging open in shock, Selena recognized the face of her father: Jonathan VanHohenheim.
No… not Jonathan… her mind corrected as she recognized the youthful features of the man’s face – features that Jonathan had lost years ago.
Donovan…
Before her, kneeling before the child, was Donovan Frost. The man she had not seen in so many decades – only a shadow of him named Jonathan VanHohenheim, whom she still loved as any daughter would towards her father. Still, to see Donovan there, smiling the patient smile that Jonathan did not truly have, Selena let a few more tears escape her eyes. Gods, how she still missed that man…
“I tried…” the innocent child gulped, trying to find words in her voice despite the pain she was feeling. “I tried… and I tried… I tried to… I tried to…” her sobs gave way to some starting form of hiccups, the young girl unable to control her bodily functions as her emotions ran rampant inside her.
“Selena…” Donovan tried, holding up a free hand as his other set the first-aid kit down. With the free hand, he cupped the child’s face. “Calm down. It’s okay.”
“But it hurts…it hurts…” small Selena continued to cry, sniffling as she tried to quell her sobs.
“I know it does.” The father replied quietly, unaware of the older version of his daughter that watched everything unfold. “But I need you to be strong. I need you to be brave, okay?”
Looking up at her daddy, the child took in a gulp of air before nodding her head. Opening the kit, Donovan fished out the cotton-ball bag first and the bottle of (Selena recognized the white and red colors) rubbing alcohol. “This is going to sting a bit.” He warned the child, but despite said warning, the little one cried out as soon as the doused-cotton touched her knee.
“Ahhh! PAPA!” more tears came from the child. “Make it stop! It’s not fair!”
For a few seconds, all adult-Selena could hear were her younger self’s cries, her heart twisting at the pain she was remembering. Still, the sobs eventually passed as Donovan applied a simple band-aid to the child’s scuffed knee.
“There you go.” He remarked, reaching over to hug the child. “You were wonderful, Selena.”
No, I wasn’t. Selena sighed, laying against the stone wall as she watched the two dismally.
I failed. I failed everyone. I failed SCW. I failed…everything I believe in. I tried…
“So…” Donovan tried as he released his daughter from the hug. “Can you tell me what happened, snowflake?”
The child sniffled at her father’s nickname for her – a nickname Selena had not heard in two decades. Jonathan didn’t know her that way.
And probably never will…
“Gavin pushed me.” The young girl answered honestly. “I stood up to him like you told me to. I told him I would tell the teacher on him if he didn’t stop picking on me… and he just laughed at me and pushed me into the ground.” A few more cries escaped her. “I can’t do it, daddy. I can’t stand up to him.”
“Yes, you can.” Donovan remarked. “And you can tell the teacher.”
“No, I can’t!” cried young-Selena. “He’s bigger than me! He’s stronger than me!” more hiccups escaped her as she began to be worked up again. “And he’ll just laugh at me and push me down again! I’ll never get him to leave me alone!”
“I’ll never get him to understand.” The sound came from both child and adult Selena at the same time. “What’s the point?” they both added.
“No one will listen if I tell on him. No one will believe me.” The child continued to cry. “They just say I’m lying and desperate for attention…” without hesitation, the child threw herself into her father, wrapping her small arms around his reachable neck and clinging to him in a desperate plea. “Can we just leave? Leave Nome forever? Please!”
Despite the positioning of the three ‘people’, Selena could see the saddened expression on her father’s face as he held the (she surmised) eight-year-old. This version of her was still so small, not having quite hit the growth spurt that would give her the long legs she would use to knockout so many superstars within SCW. No, this ‘Selena’ just wanted her father to hold her and make her problems go away… she almost smiled at herself for that. She had truly thought her father had such power, but he was simply just a man. Flawed, good, but not invincible or all-powerful like the child before her believed.
Or I wished to be… her mind whispered as she wiped a stray tear from her eye. Before her, she saw Donovan lean back a little to face his daughter. Slowly, he reached out to take the necklace that was around the girl’s necklace, pulling at it a little to reveal it before the two of them. Selena spotted, even in the few lights that operated above them, the gold-sheen of the gold-nugget as it shined in the light (or was that just part of her memory?).
“Do you know how long I had to wait to find this?” he asked slowly, his eyes and smile patient as the sniffling Selena shook her small head. “Oh…before you were born.”
“But I’m eight!” child-Selena remarked.
“Yep.” Donovan nodded. “I started digging in this cave a few years before you were born. And, about a decade later… there was my proof.” He gestured to the necklace. “But…for so many years, day by day, failing each and every time… no one understanding me or believing that the gold was there? It hurt, snowflake.”
“Like this?” she gestured to her knee, earning a nod from her father.
“Yeah.” He smiled, clearly not wanting to correct the difference between a decade of pain and a mere scrape of the knee. “But I kept digging. I kept looking.”
“Why?” the child sniffled, her eyes still wet from her tears and confusion laced in her features. “Why didn’t you just stop and run away?”
Donovan took a deep breath, casting his eyes around the space – even, Selena thought, settling on the adult Snow Queen (she was almost sure he had ‘seen’ her. Stupid as the very thought was.) – until settling back onto the child.
“Because when you believe in something hard enough. When you believe in something with all you have and all you are… you have to keep fighting for it. You have to keep looking for it. Even if no one believes it is there. Even if no one believes you or believes in you finding it. You have to keep looking.”
“Keep digging.” Both the adult platinum-blonde and Donovan said at once, the memory vivid in Selena’s mind but unable to stop a few more tears from falling down her pale cheeks.
“Because one day…” Donovan continued, gesturing towards his daughter’s necklace again. “One day – even if it takes years… you’ll find it. And the world will know you were right. And it will be a better place for it!”
The eight-year-old sniffled, reaching up to wipe at her eyes. “So, if I keep trying to stand up to Gavin… people will one day believe me and maybe he’ll stop?”
“In everything you do, darling.” Donovan remarked. “All you do – believe in it, even if that faith is no bigger than that gold-nugget. Never lose it. Hang onto it as tight as you can… because sometimes…” the two began to fade before Selena’s eyes, Donovan’s last words dying through the fading echo. “That’s all you need…”
Silence greeted Selena again, the Snow Queen alone in the cave once more. Despite what she had witnessed in the light and shadow’s tricks on her mind, she felt no elation. No inspiration. Rather, she felt the same sinking feeling in her heart that she had carried from Playing the Wildcard.
“I can’t, father.” She whispered. “I can’t keep looking. I can’t keep believing… I just…” she sighed, reaching up to the necklace that was no longer there – the gold-nugget locked away in her home in Manhattan. “I’m tired…” she whispered, her head falling to rest against the stone, her sapphire eyes fluttering shut. “I’m so tired of fighting… when nobody believes anymore…”
“Then maybe you should just give up then!”
The voice came not from in front of Selena, but behind her, the tone and pitch causing Selena’s spine to go ramrod stiff, her eyes flying open as the ‘ding’ sound of the elevator was heard. Slowly, fear creeping into her spine and making her feel a cold she had only felt once before in her entire life, she turned her head around to gaze back the way she had come.
To her horror, the elevator doors opened, revealing the figure that stood there, dressed in black pants, shirt and a leather jacket. A figure that slowly, methodically stalked towards Selena until they were standing before her, blue eyes burrowing down into the terrified Snow Queen.
“Hello, sister. Are you ready to die now?”
With a wicked grin, Celine Frost – the monster known as Killjoy – glared down at the Snow Queen, delighting in the pained cry that escaped Selena’s mouth.
“Not you…” Selena whispered, slamming her eyes shut, her mind screaming for her father to return. “Anyone but you…”
I shouldn’t be here! I shouldn’t be here! I shouldn’t be here!
“You should’ve listened to yourself…” Killjoy mocked, crossing her arms over her chest. “Because now you have to deal with me…”