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He ate ice cream that night, not because he was heartbroken or feeling melancholic - he hadn’t felt melancholic in a few weeks now - but as a means of celebration. It had always been that way, the cold dessert his go-to for all kinds of moods.
A plain, one litre tub of cheap vanilla ice cream.
With chocolate sprinkles.
To his embarrassment, he’d managed to eat the whole thing in one night more than once before. Soothed his anger when it boiled over, gave him back sensation to his body when everything felt numb and sad.
How ridiculous it is, to feel so much attachment to a food item. Probably unhealthy.
He hasn’t been right in a long time. Feels too cold all the time, but never because of the ice cream. He’s just half-dead, corpse-like. That is where the cold comes from. His barely-beating broken heart. And the void trapped tight in his chest.
His old name feels like from a million years ago. Doesn’t really want to roll off his tongue anymore. But he isn’t intent on leafing through a baby-name book either. It would feel mocking somehow, wrong, because this isn’t some grand reveal or rebirth. He’s changed exactly nothing.
Still the same looks and thoughts and aching void inside. But now the void is his weapon. And he can’t call himself that anymore.
Because he’s stronger than that being from before.
Because his Lord gave him a reason to live.
So that night, he almost smiled again. For his power, the silent piece of soul he still hadn’t named. But he still wasn’t right. That was why he was special, though.
His lack of empathy. Drive. Ability to feel like a human being.
It gave him the power of the void at his fingertips.
The taste is as always. The only steady thing he’s ever had in his short life.
And he thinks, why not? In this house filled with people called Soul or Horse, wearing strange clothing and speaking weirdly, why shouldn’t he do whatever he pleases as well?
Vanilla Ice. It sounds like a title.
Commander, Vice-Chief, Vanilla Ice?
His hands are freezing as he’s holding the container but he needs this. The small shudders that wrack his body and the sharp pain that shoots through his jaw when the temperature is too much for his teeth to handle.
At night the big house is very silent. Despite this being the roaming hours of his Lord, no sound echoes through the empty halls. He shifts on the sofa, blankets so soft under his skin. Ice-cold, literally. Once again he demands, begs to know why he was spared from suicide, why he was given this chance at being a human being for once.
Vanilla Ice shudders as he takes another spoonful of his namesake.