Flowers for the Sick and Dead
(Wulfric)
(Wulfric)
Wulfric stands there at the threshold of what is to be his official chambers and stares at a flower that lays on the expanse of his empty desk.
It’s a beautiful thing, by most accounts - a soft viridian stem bearing host to a vivid lavender blossom whose petals glimmer in the light that trickles in from behind him. The room that surrounds it seems oppressive by comparison, a cage of empty stone walls and floors trying to crush the thing under its weight. But South Nova doesn’t grow anything that can’t survive a few challenges. It persists, stubbornly unyielding.
Wulfric does not know how long he stares at it. Everything in him feels frozen, layered in a kind of inexorable cold that has nothing to do with the glacial breeze bleeding in from the walls. It’s a strange thing, reacting so viscerally to such a little plant; looking at it feels like staring down a ghost.
Glaciene would have called him dramatic. She wouldn’t have been wrong, but she couldn’t have blamed him - he thought he’d gotten rid of it.
Wulfric watches from somewhere beside himself as his feet carry him into his office. He hadn’t wanted to come here, though he’d had no choice; everything here is barren, from stone walls empty of decoration to smooth floors with no pelts and no furniture. All of it bears down on him as he makes himself known to it, an accusatory weight that tries to crush him as much as the flower he shares space with.
It is wrong to think of this as his office. It leaves a foul taste in his mouth, a bitter stinging of betrayal. Had there been any other spot for a moment of reprieve away from the village, he wouldn’t have come.
The desk the bloom rests on is shoved towards the back of the chamber, and Wulfric takes it in passively as he comes closer. Many times, he’s seen this desk - it’s a thing of immense stonework for the chief of their village to burden themself over when they aren’t out among people. Hand-chiseled, with little intricacy, but stable and stubbornly unyielding.
Glaciene had never cared for the busy work of bureaucracy and writing. She was a wonderful chief, but Wulfric could never count the number of times he’d walked in to find this very desk piled high with who-knew-what, left forgotten for more interesting things. Just a big slab of stone to grind an axe over, she’d scoffed of it.
The blossom is incredibly out of place on top of it, too small and fragile and colorful to have possibly been left there by happenstance. It should have wilted by now, he thinks, plucked with no grace from its bed, torn up by the roots with his own hand. It should be nothing but a clump of withered petals, as lifeless as the room around it.
It’s a mockery that it isn’t - that it gleams, untouched and unharmed, and that someone had had the audacity to put it here, of all places. What use had a blossom for a grindstone, but to be ground into fine powder?
Persistent indeed.
He thinks Glaciene would have loved it, had she gotten to see it. Their land didn’t see such gentle, delicate things often. She would’ve been fascinated at how much of an enigma the little plant was - such a tiny thing! So soft, so pretty! How could it have grown at the very top of Heaven’s Spine? She’d ask. It’s so easy to imagine her saying it that it’s almost like he actually hears her, right beside him.
But she isn’t here. And she never would be again.
An arm reaches out. The stem of the flower finds itself plucked into the grip of a hand, held delicately between the sharpened points of two frozen claws.
He does not know where or how Frost found it. Wulfric had determined never to see it again - had discarded it in some quiet, forgotten corner, left to rot with its purpose obsolete. Frost finding it was deliberate, and nothing short of a pointed insult.
What had Frost to gain from this, Wulfric wonders. The man had never approved of his union with Glaciene, that was part of it. But Frost had been willing to fight his daughter to the death over that union - his own child. Fighting Wulfric would have made more sense.
Glaciene had spoken of him as a man of tradition. If he had to choose the village over his family, she’d scoffed, he’d probably have tossed her into the wastes with no thought.
Frost couldn’t have cared enough about her passing to impart this blasted flower upon him as a grieving parent’s attack on his failure. Wulfric could have accepted that.
But Glaciene is gone, the plant to cure her unused, and Wulfric is her husband. By tradition, he is to lead their people.
Frost just wants him to get a move on.
The flower in front of him trembles faintly. Its petals shimmer with the movement, colors dancing in a beautiful display. Glaciene really would have loved it.
He’s barely aware of the effort it takes to keep from crushing it in his fist.
When Glaciene had fallen sick to poison, nobody had known how to cure her ills. What substance the outsiders used was not of this land, and though all the healers had tried the best they could, all of their remedies had fallen short. Her death was to be an inevitability.
Wulfric could not have accepted it. He would have done anything for the woman who was his better half, and still would. Anything - anything at all.
It had been Frost who had told Wulfric the myth of a peculiar plant that grew only on the highest peak of the tallest mountain of Heaven’s Spine. There was no way of knowing if it was true - but the stories went that this plant had the power to cure any illness, any disease. A reward for those children of Tundra who could brave the climb to the top and survive.
The lands told tales of Heaven’s Spine. Of all places within South Nova, none were the coldest. Of all desolate landscapes, none were more deadly. The great range is god-like in its existence, grander than anything on the entire planet, the epitome of all that South Nova was and would be, and the culmination of Tundra’s chaotic design. Their people were little more than snowflakes to its might and gazed upon it with terror and worship in equal measure.
To climb Heaven’s Spine is to accept Tundra’s greatest challenge and cast yourself into its judgement, Frost said. But if Wulfric could do the impossible, and retrieve what might grow at the top of the Spine, then Glaciene would live.
The myth is only a myth, however. And none who had ever attempted the pilgrimage had lived. If Wulfric chose to do this, he could very well be throwing his life away for nothing.
Glaciene would sometimes joke that Wulfric’s penchant for stubbornness would get him into trouble. He had been stubborn as a kid and he was still stubborn now, she’d chuffed. Be thankful he wasn’t chief - he’d be going out of his mind.
He couldn’t entirely disagree with her, though it was always entertaining to hear coming from her. No other man could have braved a three-month trip into death’s maw, riding on hope and desperation alone. No other person could have suffered as he did, constantly on the verge of facing his own end, climbing and surviving and climbing, just for a rumor.
Wulfric had coveted the idea of that plant so desperately that he would have died for it. Glaciene would have yelled at him to go home.
Three months, all for one little plant. Three months of arduous climbing, and challenges that he had never faced before and never would again. All of it, for one single, frail little flower.
All of it for nothing. He’d arrived home with his prize one day too late.
The flower in his grip slips to the floor, quietly. Wulfric watches it land, a glacial cold in his chest and a bitter sting in his eyes.
It’s impossible to understand. Glaciene? Dead? It’s nonsensical. Foolishness. A woman of her caliber did not die. She had survived endless trials, from hunts to avalanches, to a bloody battle against her own father for Wulfric’s hand in marriage. Such a thing as death did not exist, not for her.
It’s his fault. Had he gotten here sooner, Glaciene would still be alive. Had he just pushed himself harder, run faster, done more, everything would still be just as it was supposed to be.
Had Wulfric just done more, he would not be here. He would not be chief, and he would not be in this office. He would not feel like ice two seconds from shattering, and he would not feel like a blizzard two seconds from burying this entire village under the ground because they could not save her, her father could not care well enough about her, and he…
He failed.
The village people speak of him in awed whispers. They murmur amongst each other as if each word were a prayer, seeking his blessing but too afraid to ask for it. He is a legend among them, the only one to have braved Heaven’s Spine and lived. The one blessed by Tundra.
Their praise is wasted on him. He failed. He failed, and his failure cost Glaciene her life. He failed, and his failure cost all of them their chief. He failed, and his failure cost a child her mother.
He has failed her, and it has cost him everything.
“Daddy?”
Wulfric freezes.
Slowly, he looks over.
At the threshold of his office chambers, a little girl stands and stares. Her eyes are impossibly big, a little hand hovering thoughtfully by her mouth as she gazes at what’s in front of her.
How long has she been there? How much had she seen? Wulfric doesn’t know. He hadn’t heard her come in. How? The child could be so loud when she wanted to be. How had he not heard her?
She stares. His heart leaps in his throat at the sight he must make. Desperately, he tries to think of what to say.
And then she squeals. “Oh! Oh! Pretty flower!”
Wulfric jerks.
Kesuk scrambles, running over on loud little feet that stomp across the floor in a direct bee line for her father’s side. He watches, dumbfounded, as she practically screeches to a stop beside him - immediately bowing right over, almost comically, to scoop the glittering flower he’d dropped into her little hand.
“Pretty! Pretty!” She yells, loudly. “It’s so glittery!” Her head turns this way and that, taking in the flower at different angles, and he watches as she tilts the flower just a bit to see how the petals glimmer and bounce around. “Wow…”
Kesuk looks up at him, beaming. Wulfric feels his breath leave at the sight of Glaciene in miniature. “Is this for me, daddy?” She asks him. “Thank you! I love it!”
She hugs him before he can answer her. Not that he would have said no.
Glaciene’s death has affected all of them, in one way or another. Wulfric can attest to the agony he feels and the self-loathing that comes along with it. He shouldn’t be chief - he should be home, providing for his child. He had tried everything to save his wife and he had failed.
But Kesuk is a child. As cheerful as she is, he can’t even pretend to imagine how it must’ve felt to watch her mother waste away while her father was nowhere to be found. Frost was her grandfather, but he was no replacement for her loving parents.
Kesuk had had to face all of this without understanding any of it. Alone.
Wulfric reaches up to wipe his face as his other hand comes down to ruffle his daughter’s wild mane. He takes a slow breath, and another, and lets it anchor him. He does not feel at peace, but he does feel…calmer.
No, Wulfric thinks. His failure had cost him greatly - but it had not cost him everything.
This is not the future he wanted, for himself or his family. Nothing will be the same ever again. He has failed everyone, none more so than his daughter, and he will never be able to make it right.
But he is still here. And Kesuk is still here. And as long as Kesuk is still here, he has a reason to persist, despite everything.
“Daddy!”
Wulfric looks down as Kesuk holds out her flower. It gleams in front of him, persistent and unyielding despite everything.
And Wulfric - slowly feels himself smile.
He would not fail her.
It’s a beautiful thing, by most accounts - a soft viridian stem bearing host to a vivid lavender blossom whose petals glimmer in the light that trickles in from behind him. The room that surrounds it seems oppressive by comparison, a cage of empty stone walls and floors trying to crush the thing under its weight. But South Nova doesn’t grow anything that can’t survive a few challenges. It persists, stubbornly unyielding.
Wulfric does not know how long he stares at it. Everything in him feels frozen, layered in a kind of inexorable cold that has nothing to do with the glacial breeze bleeding in from the walls. It’s a strange thing, reacting so viscerally to such a little plant; looking at it feels like staring down a ghost.
Glaciene would have called him dramatic. She wouldn’t have been wrong, but she couldn’t have blamed him - he thought he’d gotten rid of it.
Wulfric watches from somewhere beside himself as his feet carry him into his office. He hadn’t wanted to come here, though he’d had no choice; everything here is barren, from stone walls empty of decoration to smooth floors with no pelts and no furniture. All of it bears down on him as he makes himself known to it, an accusatory weight that tries to crush him as much as the flower he shares space with.
It is wrong to think of this as his office. It leaves a foul taste in his mouth, a bitter stinging of betrayal. Had there been any other spot for a moment of reprieve away from the village, he wouldn’t have come.
The desk the bloom rests on is shoved towards the back of the chamber, and Wulfric takes it in passively as he comes closer. Many times, he’s seen this desk - it’s a thing of immense stonework for the chief of their village to burden themself over when they aren’t out among people. Hand-chiseled, with little intricacy, but stable and stubbornly unyielding.
Glaciene had never cared for the busy work of bureaucracy and writing. She was a wonderful chief, but Wulfric could never count the number of times he’d walked in to find this very desk piled high with who-knew-what, left forgotten for more interesting things. Just a big slab of stone to grind an axe over, she’d scoffed of it.
The blossom is incredibly out of place on top of it, too small and fragile and colorful to have possibly been left there by happenstance. It should have wilted by now, he thinks, plucked with no grace from its bed, torn up by the roots with his own hand. It should be nothing but a clump of withered petals, as lifeless as the room around it.
It’s a mockery that it isn’t - that it gleams, untouched and unharmed, and that someone had had the audacity to put it here, of all places. What use had a blossom for a grindstone, but to be ground into fine powder?
Persistent indeed.
He thinks Glaciene would have loved it, had she gotten to see it. Their land didn’t see such gentle, delicate things often. She would’ve been fascinated at how much of an enigma the little plant was - such a tiny thing! So soft, so pretty! How could it have grown at the very top of Heaven’s Spine? She’d ask. It’s so easy to imagine her saying it that it’s almost like he actually hears her, right beside him.
But she isn’t here. And she never would be again.
An arm reaches out. The stem of the flower finds itself plucked into the grip of a hand, held delicately between the sharpened points of two frozen claws.
He does not know where or how Frost found it. Wulfric had determined never to see it again - had discarded it in some quiet, forgotten corner, left to rot with its purpose obsolete. Frost finding it was deliberate, and nothing short of a pointed insult.
What had Frost to gain from this, Wulfric wonders. The man had never approved of his union with Glaciene, that was part of it. But Frost had been willing to fight his daughter to the death over that union - his own child. Fighting Wulfric would have made more sense.
Glaciene had spoken of him as a man of tradition. If he had to choose the village over his family, she’d scoffed, he’d probably have tossed her into the wastes with no thought.
Frost couldn’t have cared enough about her passing to impart this blasted flower upon him as a grieving parent’s attack on his failure. Wulfric could have accepted that.
But Glaciene is gone, the plant to cure her unused, and Wulfric is her husband. By tradition, he is to lead their people.
Frost just wants him to get a move on.
The flower in front of him trembles faintly. Its petals shimmer with the movement, colors dancing in a beautiful display. Glaciene really would have loved it.
He’s barely aware of the effort it takes to keep from crushing it in his fist.
When Glaciene had fallen sick to poison, nobody had known how to cure her ills. What substance the outsiders used was not of this land, and though all the healers had tried the best they could, all of their remedies had fallen short. Her death was to be an inevitability.
Wulfric could not have accepted it. He would have done anything for the woman who was his better half, and still would. Anything - anything at all.
It had been Frost who had told Wulfric the myth of a peculiar plant that grew only on the highest peak of the tallest mountain of Heaven’s Spine. There was no way of knowing if it was true - but the stories went that this plant had the power to cure any illness, any disease. A reward for those children of Tundra who could brave the climb to the top and survive.
The lands told tales of Heaven’s Spine. Of all places within South Nova, none were the coldest. Of all desolate landscapes, none were more deadly. The great range is god-like in its existence, grander than anything on the entire planet, the epitome of all that South Nova was and would be, and the culmination of Tundra’s chaotic design. Their people were little more than snowflakes to its might and gazed upon it with terror and worship in equal measure.
To climb Heaven’s Spine is to accept Tundra’s greatest challenge and cast yourself into its judgement, Frost said. But if Wulfric could do the impossible, and retrieve what might grow at the top of the Spine, then Glaciene would live.
The myth is only a myth, however. And none who had ever attempted the pilgrimage had lived. If Wulfric chose to do this, he could very well be throwing his life away for nothing.
Glaciene would sometimes joke that Wulfric’s penchant for stubbornness would get him into trouble. He had been stubborn as a kid and he was still stubborn now, she’d chuffed. Be thankful he wasn’t chief - he’d be going out of his mind.
He couldn’t entirely disagree with her, though it was always entertaining to hear coming from her. No other man could have braved a three-month trip into death’s maw, riding on hope and desperation alone. No other person could have suffered as he did, constantly on the verge of facing his own end, climbing and surviving and climbing, just for a rumor.
Wulfric had coveted the idea of that plant so desperately that he would have died for it. Glaciene would have yelled at him to go home.
Three months, all for one little plant. Three months of arduous climbing, and challenges that he had never faced before and never would again. All of it, for one single, frail little flower.
All of it for nothing. He’d arrived home with his prize one day too late.
The flower in his grip slips to the floor, quietly. Wulfric watches it land, a glacial cold in his chest and a bitter sting in his eyes.
It’s impossible to understand. Glaciene? Dead? It’s nonsensical. Foolishness. A woman of her caliber did not die. She had survived endless trials, from hunts to avalanches, to a bloody battle against her own father for Wulfric’s hand in marriage. Such a thing as death did not exist, not for her.
It’s his fault. Had he gotten here sooner, Glaciene would still be alive. Had he just pushed himself harder, run faster, done more, everything would still be just as it was supposed to be.
Had Wulfric just done more, he would not be here. He would not be chief, and he would not be in this office. He would not feel like ice two seconds from shattering, and he would not feel like a blizzard two seconds from burying this entire village under the ground because they could not save her, her father could not care well enough about her, and he…
He failed.
The village people speak of him in awed whispers. They murmur amongst each other as if each word were a prayer, seeking his blessing but too afraid to ask for it. He is a legend among them, the only one to have braved Heaven’s Spine and lived. The one blessed by Tundra.
Their praise is wasted on him. He failed. He failed, and his failure cost Glaciene her life. He failed, and his failure cost all of them their chief. He failed, and his failure cost a child her mother.
He has failed her, and it has cost him everything.
“Daddy?”
Wulfric freezes.
Slowly, he looks over.
At the threshold of his office chambers, a little girl stands and stares. Her eyes are impossibly big, a little hand hovering thoughtfully by her mouth as she gazes at what’s in front of her.
How long has she been there? How much had she seen? Wulfric doesn’t know. He hadn’t heard her come in. How? The child could be so loud when she wanted to be. How had he not heard her?
She stares. His heart leaps in his throat at the sight he must make. Desperately, he tries to think of what to say.
And then she squeals. “Oh! Oh! Pretty flower!”
Wulfric jerks.
Kesuk scrambles, running over on loud little feet that stomp across the floor in a direct bee line for her father’s side. He watches, dumbfounded, as she practically screeches to a stop beside him - immediately bowing right over, almost comically, to scoop the glittering flower he’d dropped into her little hand.
“Pretty! Pretty!” She yells, loudly. “It’s so glittery!” Her head turns this way and that, taking in the flower at different angles, and he watches as she tilts the flower just a bit to see how the petals glimmer and bounce around. “Wow…”
Kesuk looks up at him, beaming. Wulfric feels his breath leave at the sight of Glaciene in miniature. “Is this for me, daddy?” She asks him. “Thank you! I love it!”
She hugs him before he can answer her. Not that he would have said no.
Glaciene’s death has affected all of them, in one way or another. Wulfric can attest to the agony he feels and the self-loathing that comes along with it. He shouldn’t be chief - he should be home, providing for his child. He had tried everything to save his wife and he had failed.
But Kesuk is a child. As cheerful as she is, he can’t even pretend to imagine how it must’ve felt to watch her mother waste away while her father was nowhere to be found. Frost was her grandfather, but he was no replacement for her loving parents.
Kesuk had had to face all of this without understanding any of it. Alone.
Wulfric reaches up to wipe his face as his other hand comes down to ruffle his daughter’s wild mane. He takes a slow breath, and another, and lets it anchor him. He does not feel at peace, but he does feel…calmer.
No, Wulfric thinks. His failure had cost him greatly - but it had not cost him everything.
This is not the future he wanted, for himself or his family. Nothing will be the same ever again. He has failed everyone, none more so than his daughter, and he will never be able to make it right.
But he is still here. And Kesuk is still here. And as long as Kesuk is still here, he has a reason to persist, despite everything.
“Daddy!”
Wulfric looks down as Kesuk holds out her flower. It gleams in front of him, persistent and unyielding despite everything.
And Wulfric - slowly feels himself smile.
He would not fail her.
-The End-
Artist Comment:
May 10, 2025
-----------------
I've posted about Wulfric and Glaciene's story in past illustrations. And if you don't remember, I'll post a quick recap below!
Wulfric's late wife, Glaciene, was the previous leader of the Ice Leo village. (How she and Wulfric met can be found here) She was poisoned by outsiders while supervising several important trades. While she was sick, Wulfric left the village to climb Heaven's Spine since its rumored a very rare plant grows there that would help her. He left for several months, and managed to be the first Leo who not only scaled the mountain, but the first one to bring the fabled plant back to his village. I can't emphasis enough how tall, dangerous and absolutely massive Heaven's Spine is- Wulfric describes it as a bridge between heaven and earth. He felt like he could touch the very stars themself when he reached the top. He also described the top of Heaven's Spine as extremely peaceful and quiet- calm, warm and comforting. Wulfric has done the impossible, and has been 'blessed' by Tundra. I will talk much more about this in a future piece because something else happens to Wulfric, and I really hope you enjoy it when I get around to posting it. x)
Unfortunately, Glaciene passed away the day before he arrived back to the village. The previous leader before Glaciene was Frost, her father, but due to his age, he immediately passed on his daughters duties to Wulfric. So the thing about Wulfric, he NEVER wanted to be the Chief. He wasn't anything like Glaciene- She was loud, confident, strict, ruthless and a well rounded leader. He would always say she was the perfect leader for their village. Wulfric on the other hand was a bit of a dreamer. Loved to run off and go ice fishing, or spend his nights gazing up at the aurora borealis. He was orphaned at a young age, so he would only look after himself and never really cared about the village like Frost did.
Wulfric holds a lot of guilt because he blames himself for the loss. He believes if he pushed himself just a but harder, she could've been saved. But now the village lost their beloved Chief, his daughter lost her mother, and he lost his lifelong partner, friend, companion and love of his life. Wulfric now is the Chief, and he has to continue where Glaciene left off. A sad, bitter broken mad who holds so many regrets in life. Kesuk, the legacy of Glaciene, is the only one keeping Wulfric tethered to this world. If it weren't for her, Wuflric would've soon abandon the Village and become a lone wolf or hermit or something else.
It's a good thing he didn't leave, because he'll not only become a beloved leader of the village, but a grandfather to little Tulok! =D (And a mentor and father figure to Rupion!) His story is tragic, but his future is one paved with love and admiration. Glaciene would be so proud.
---
The amazing literature written for this illustration was written by my good friend, Dogblog. (dA- Shadowrealmprincess) ^v^
May 10, 2025
-----------------
I've posted about Wulfric and Glaciene's story in past illustrations. And if you don't remember, I'll post a quick recap below!
Wulfric's late wife, Glaciene, was the previous leader of the Ice Leo village. (How she and Wulfric met can be found here) She was poisoned by outsiders while supervising several important trades. While she was sick, Wulfric left the village to climb Heaven's Spine since its rumored a very rare plant grows there that would help her. He left for several months, and managed to be the first Leo who not only scaled the mountain, but the first one to bring the fabled plant back to his village. I can't emphasis enough how tall, dangerous and absolutely massive Heaven's Spine is- Wulfric describes it as a bridge between heaven and earth. He felt like he could touch the very stars themself when he reached the top. He also described the top of Heaven's Spine as extremely peaceful and quiet- calm, warm and comforting. Wulfric has done the impossible, and has been 'blessed' by Tundra. I will talk much more about this in a future piece because something else happens to Wulfric, and I really hope you enjoy it when I get around to posting it. x)
Unfortunately, Glaciene passed away the day before he arrived back to the village. The previous leader before Glaciene was Frost, her father, but due to his age, he immediately passed on his daughters duties to Wulfric. So the thing about Wulfric, he NEVER wanted to be the Chief. He wasn't anything like Glaciene- She was loud, confident, strict, ruthless and a well rounded leader. He would always say she was the perfect leader for their village. Wulfric on the other hand was a bit of a dreamer. Loved to run off and go ice fishing, or spend his nights gazing up at the aurora borealis. He was orphaned at a young age, so he would only look after himself and never really cared about the village like Frost did.
Wulfric holds a lot of guilt because he blames himself for the loss. He believes if he pushed himself just a but harder, she could've been saved. But now the village lost their beloved Chief, his daughter lost her mother, and he lost his lifelong partner, friend, companion and love of his life. Wulfric now is the Chief, and he has to continue where Glaciene left off. A sad, bitter broken mad who holds so many regrets in life. Kesuk, the legacy of Glaciene, is the only one keeping Wulfric tethered to this world. If it weren't for her, Wuflric would've soon abandon the Village and become a lone wolf or hermit or something else.
It's a good thing he didn't leave, because he'll not only become a beloved leader of the village, but a grandfather to little Tulok! =D (And a mentor and father figure to Rupion!) His story is tragic, but his future is one paved with love and admiration. Glaciene would be so proud.
---
The amazing literature written for this illustration was written by my good friend, Dogblog. (dA- Shadowrealmprincess) ^v^
Species © Nintendo/ HAL Laboratory
Interpreted characters created from said species © Rhylem
Interpreted characters created from said species © Rhylem
