Frostbound

Chris

Hudson Bay

'Runes are meaning made into structure.'

That was the line I kept repeating in my head. It was said many times in the books, and I was still trying to wrap my head around it all. I knew all this magic and mana was mind-blowing, but meaning made into something tangible didn't make any sense.

Mana, sure, I could get that over time. I could influence it. Feel it. Almost touch it, but with a different sense. Magic was an expression of that mana. Given a will, and that will gave it purpose.

But pure meaning?

It was probably the hardest part to wrap my head around. The logic just didn't logic.

Even after experiencing it -engraving as many Runes as I had- and seeing how they worked, the larger picture was still out of reach.

Take a Basic Frost Rune, for example. It was a collection of specific flourishes, lines and loops, connections and knots, curves and bends. In all intents and purposes, writing them down shouldn't do anything except create pretty art.

Why, then, did they make the air cold around them? Cause ice to start coalescing even on a summer day?

It didn't even take any outside force, either. The structure itself was enough to influence the world around it in ways that were just too foreign to my thinking. Looking back on it now, that rigidness was probably why it took me so long to engrave my first Rune.

Then, to take it a step further, why did changing certain lines, altering certain curves, and moving certain knots turn into something entirely different? Why did Frost become Ice? Why did Fire become Flame?