Judging by the Ravens, Kay would have become one of that sort.
The only cure for this affliction was a shock, a great shock to the system. One that forced the youngster to confront himself, one that isolated him from the rest of the world immediately, rather than gradually. He had to lose those he still cared for, at least marginally, all at once. He had to learn that people meant something to him, before they ceased to.
“It's lonely here!” Kay complained, with a touch of shrillness, still not stirring from where he stood beside her throne. Well she certainly hoped it was! She would not have been doing her job otherwise.
She cast him a glance. Yes, definitely. He was unhappy, but not quite at the depth to which she wanted him to descend. Soon he would be profoundly unhappy, and he would understand just what it meant to get what you wish for, when what you wish for is to take yourself out of the ranks of humankind.
She looked back at the mirror to see shadows slipping through the tree trunks. Ah. There they are. It took two to make this dance, and Kay's little friend Gerda, the girl who loved him with all her heart, who was currently trudging toward the next episode in her own little drama, was the coconspirator in The Traditional Path that ended in a Clockwork Artificer. Her nature was as sweet as her face, her will as pliant as a grass-stem and her devotion to Kay unswerving, no matter how often he neglected her. She needed redemption almost as much as Kay did. Such women married their coldhearted beloveds, made every excuse for them, smoothed their paths to perdition, turned a blind eye to horrors and even, sometimes, participated in the horrors themselves on the assumption that the Beloved One knew best. Gerda required a spine, in short, and an outlook rather less myopic than the one she currently possessed. And this little quest she was on was about to give her one. This had all been very carefully orchestrated, because if a Godmother didn't manipulate the participants in these dramas, The Tradition most certainly would. Everything had been planned to a nicety. Aleksia had called up a magical snowstorm in a very limited area around Kay's house. She had done so at an hour when she knew that Gerda would be in her little bedroom, probably looking out of her window, sighing at Kay's. When the snow began, Aleksia caused a gust of wind to drive a few hard snow pellets against Gerda's window to ensure that if she had not been looking out it before, she most certainly would be when Aleksia's flying sleigh came swooping out of the sky. It all worked, of course. As Kay studied the unseasonable snowflakes, Gerda was in place, watching from the window in plenty of time to see the sleigh land. Gerda saw Aleksia speaking to a dumbfounded Kay, saw her offer him her hand, saw her settle him in beside her, bundled in white furs, and saw the sleigh rocket off again.
Nor was that all. No Godmother worth her wand would leave things so half done. Aleksia had contacted one of the village Witches and made sure Gerda knew who had taken Kay, and in general, where he was.
Poor Gerda! Screwing up her courage to visit the Witch in the first place was only the beginning of her ordeal. She would never have believed it if she had been told the truth, that her childhood sweetheart was turning into a remote and arrogant elitist all by himself, so she had been told that the Snow Queen had done something to him as a child, made him coldhearted, so that she could whisk him off now. Gerda had also been told that she, and she alone, could melt Kay's heart and save him with her love — and being a young maiden of romantic nature, and wanting it to be true, she absolutely believed what she had been told.
Up until she had entered the forest, things had been relatively easy for her. Her sweet nature made people like her and want to help her. She had actually done very little walking up to this point; farmers had given her rides in carts, horsemen had taken her up behind them, peddlers had offered her space in their wagons. The trek into this forest, however, had been made without meeting anyone who could help, and at this point, she was footsore and very weary. Now she was about to find out that the quest was going to have a lot more hardship involved in it than a few blisters.
The shadows flitting through the woods, having ascertained that the girl was all alone, had surrounded her. Now they pounced — because they were robbers, and she was very tasty-looking prey.
The robbers materialized from among the tree trunks, crowing with glee at having caught such a pretty little prize. Gerda froze in abject fear; her mouth opened in a silent scream of terror and her face went as white as frost.
There. Nicely managed.
Aleksia dismissed the vision in the mirror with a thought and a simple wave of her hand, then turned to Kay. She schooled her face into an expressionless mask. She must seem as remote as a snow statue now. Mostly she was feeling a mixture of amusement and annoyance. Amusement, because Kay had no idea he was not unique, that he was treading a path already worn down by countless others. Annoyance, because, well, Kay was Kay.
“It is lonely here, because that is what you asked for,” she said, crisply, thinking that she was going to be only too glad to have this over and done with. He was intelligent enough, or so she hoped, that she would not have to go through this speech more than once. “Or do you fail to remember?”
“Remember?” Kay's handsome brow furled. And he was a handsome young fellow, as blond and blue-eyed as Gerda. If his chiseled features habitually wore an expression as cold and forbidding as that on the marble bust of a religious fanatic — when he wasn't pouting like a spoiled child told there was no candy forthcoming — that didn't make the arrangement of his features less pleasing. If his natural complexion was too fair to wear black well, he was certainly handsome enough in other colors. And on the rare occasion that he smiled, his face was quite transformed, and showed exactly why Gerda had fallen in love. There was a heart in there. It just needed waking up. And if anyone could wake it, it would be Aleksia. This was not the first such guest she'd had in the Palace of Ever-Winter, and he would not be the last.
“Yes. Remember.” Aleksia looked down at him from the lofty height of her “ice” throne — carved crystal made to look like spires and shards of ice that was cunningly provided with a spell that made it warm as a living thing when she sat on it, but as cold as what it looked like if anyone else dared set derriere to seat.
Kay had, of course, made the attempt, and been discomfited before he got much of a chance to make himself at home. She had watched, invisible, as he had given up after not too very long. He was always cold, here. The very food was cold, or lukewarm at best. His bed was cold at night and did not warm up until his shivering body warmed it. The temperature in the rooms he roamed was always chill. His clothing was, unlike hers, just a trifle…thin; the fur trim did nothing but look soft, and the velvet was not thick enough to keep the chill away. Hers, when she must share the same space as he did, was warm and sometimes fur-lined; even her hands were kept warm — with a tiny touch of magic.