A quick sneak peek for an upcoming work that I'll be writing more of once I get farther into desert rose. Please enjoy. I may have gone a bit overboard with the imagery.

It was cold, one of the coldest nights on record in the history of Domino city. Atem sat in his abandoned shack he called home sitting in a corner trying desperately not to freeze to death. He rubbed his hands together trying to make something resembling heat. It was so cold. It was so cold it hurt. Everything hurt. All he had was a raggedy scarf, gloves with more holes and tears than he could count, a winter coat that had been worn so thin it might as well have been a windbreaker and a pair of sweatpants that were ready to give up on him.

'I'm going to die.' Atem looked down at the locket on his chest, the only thing he had managed to maintain over the years. He grabbed it with a numb shaking hand and cuddled in to himself, tears falling from his frozen face. 'I'm so, so sorry my love. I can't do it. I have to join you.' It took years, it took years for this day to come but it was finally here. Atem was giving up.

Suddenly he heard something. A loud crash. Atem looked up slightly from his huddled position and saw nothing. 'It must have come from outside.' Atem pushed himself to his knees and crawled. He wouldn't dare trying to walk right now, he didn't have the energy for that. Slowly he crawled towards the front door and peaked out to see what had made the noise.

One hard hit. That's all it took and suddenly Atem was on the ground. Before he went unconscious he looked to see a pair of feet. Feet with fur shoes.

"Get. Up."

Those are the words Atem finally awoke to when he finally gained consciousness. They sounded like the person who had said them had said them a few times now. The first thing he did was take a moment to realize his surroundings. He was lying on something soft. He looked down to realize it was snow but this snow was different. He wasn't cold. He was… he was warm. He slowly lifted his head and realized he was still feeling weak. There was a throbbing pain in his head and a slight aching in his body but not the aching of biting cold. The aching of something else.

Atem looked up to see who had spoken and he saw a young boy with pale skin, white hair and an icy glare. The only thing warm about the boy's looks were his brown eyes. His clothes looked so warm, Atem was immediately jealous of his comfort. Everything was fur, from his white fur jacket, his white fur pants to his white fur shoes. White fur shoes. This was the person who knocked him out.

"Get up. If I say I again, I will make sure you freeze to death tonight like you were about to."

Atem slowly rose to his feet and looked around at his surrounding before almost falling back down in pure awe. He thought he had been outside with the snow on the ground but he was so wrong.

It was beautiful. So beautiful. It almost brought a tear to Atem's eye from sheer beauty. At one end of the giant room was a pair of doors that were made of the most beautiful twisting and coiling silver strands like vines intertwining. On the silver strands were what Atem at first thought were leaves but then Atem squinted and saw… snowflakes?

From there, a beautiful walkway went through the middle of the room, one of the only places that did not have snow on the ground. It looked to be made of glass but Atem had never seen glass change colors. The softest glows of baby blue and soft lavender and light green ebbed and flowed like the tide, so majestic and graceful.

Every few feet, pillars were placed parallel to the beautiful center isle with the same color changing glass but this time, they were adorned with the most beautiful interlocking snowflakes, covering the pillar like mesh, frozen over to make the image even more beautiful.

On the spaces between the pillars on the walls were stained glass windows with designs so beautiful and majestic that he wouldn't be surprised if they had been someone's life work to complete. Each one was different but some of them stood out to Atem. There was one of an angel on her knees praying that looked so realistic that he could practically feel the softness of the wings just from looking at them. There was one of a young child sitting in front of a pond whose water looked so clear Atem immediately wanted to shed his clothes and walk into it. There was one of a God looking down on the earth with a look of compassion and love that was so beautiful that seeing it made Atem happier than he had been in a long, long time.

Finally at the end of the walkway at the front of the room were three thrones that were so awe inspiring, Atem wasn't sure that they were actually real, no matter how long he stared. There were two of equal size and then on the right of them was a slightly smaller one. The two bigger ones were made of white gold with black cushions on the seat and back for comfort. To Atem's amazement, the chair was moving. It looked as if the chairs were made of millions of tiny snowflakes and the snowflakes were changing, constantly forming new crystal shapes. Each time was more beautiful than the last so that each second the chair became more and more beautiful surpassing Atem's expectations each time with its' beauty. The smaller throne was the same except the legs of the chair seemed to be rooted into the very ground like the roots of a tree.

Atem slowly looked to the man who had brought him here not knowing what words he could say that would capture his feelings about the place he was in.

"Where am I?"

"Silence."

Atem's head snapped back to the front of the room where suddenly there were two figures sitting on the larger thrones at the front of the room. 'That's impossible I was just looking over there not even a second ago.'

"Bring him forward."

Atem was suddenly grabbed by the boy beside him and he suddenly realized that the little boy was not a little boy at all. No child could have that much strength. He looked to be only eighteen and yet he possessed more strength than Atem. He quickly guided Atem forward against his will, not that Atem could have fought anyways. He didn't have his full strength and something told him it wouldn't have mattered anyways. He was forced to his knees before the throne, looking up at the two people in front of him. They were both as beautiful and majestic as the room they sat in.

The woman who Atem assumed was a queen wore a gray dress that that wrapped snugly around her form. It went all the way down her arms and opened in bell shapes and ended just at her wrists, falling down to touch the ground. It had no shoulders and immediately sloped down into a graceful V. The end of the dress flowed out to cover the area in front of the throne, flowing like water at her feet. Her crown was made of the same white gold as the throne and had diamonds at the top of each of its three points. In the middle was an ice crystal in the shape of a heart that was so perfectly formed that Atem couldn't tell if it was really formed from actual ice. Her face was beautiful and scary at once. Icy blonde hair, straight as a pin fell beautifully around her shoulders. Icy blue eyes stared both at him, through him and above him as if to say that she not only knew she was above him, she needed him to know she was above him and to stay in his place. Her pale skin had slight wrinkles around her eyes that were very easy to miss, the only thing that showed that she wasn't quite as young as she appeared to be.

The man who Atem could only assume was the king looked just as graceful as his wife. His fur robes were a royal beautiful blue and reached the floor gracefully. They concealed anything underneath but Atem was sure that whatever was underneath was worth more than everything Atem had ever owned in his life combined. The man's hair was black and neatly trimmed with a neat maintained beard that outlined his face and his jaw that was so defined it looked like it could cut someone. The man's eyes were icy green and unreal looking. Atem had never seen such a shade for an eye color before in his life. The man looked cruel and very unforgiving.

Atem looked up at the two beings and decided it was best to stay quiet but after a while with no one speaking, Atem was confused. "Um… Your majesties I-"

"Silence." Atem almost flinched at the king's harsh voice. "You will speak when you are given permission to do so." The king leaned back and examined him. The look he gave was like how someone might look at gum on the bottom of their shoe, annoyed and upset by its very presence. "Of all the ones to pick my son picks you. How typical of him."

Suddenly the doors to the room open and Atem turns only to shed a tear at what he saw. Of all the beauties this place had to offer, he finally saw the most beautiful sight of all. A boy walked in, accompanied by guards on either side of him escorting him to the front of the room. He was so pale like everyone else in the strange land. His eyes were a shining gleaming light purple shade, like tinted ice. His hair was the same icy blonde as his mother's in the front. At the top in a star were five black spikes outlined in purple the same shade of his eyes. He looked so emotionless, as if he wasn't allowed to show any feeling on his face. He walked so gracefully that if Atem had been told that he was actually floating on the ground, he would have believed it instantly. His feet were bare and the only clothes he wore was a long cotton wrap that covered him to his knees and then trailed behind him for another three feet. It looked as if there was nothing underneath it. On his ears hung two long silver shards that reached all the way to his shoulders and on his head was a crown with a beautiful sapphire in the middle. He looked unreal and untouchable. He walked straight past Atem without the slightest glance before gracefully resting on the smaller throne to the right of his parents. He looked down at Atem with a stare that held only a hint of curiosity and nothing else. "I apologize father and mother I was attending to an urgent matter with my studies."

The king and queen did not even acknowledge their son as the three stared down at Atem, never breaking their stare, never blinking. Finally, the king spoke.

"Is this the one you choose?"

The young prince looked at Atem and Atem could see him staring at his locket before looking back at Atem's face.

"Yes. I shall choose this one."

The king gave a brief sigh, acknowledging his disapproval of his son's answer. "Very well. He is yours now."

Just like that before Atem's eyes, the king and queen crystalized and broke into snow crystals before blowing away together. Atem was left in the room with the prince, his two body guards and the boy beside him. The prince stared. He stared down at Atem with the most intense stare Atem had ever seen almost as if he was seeing his life and sole. Finally the boy rose and turned to the boy beside Atem. "Ryou, take him to my room. I will be by soon. I have a few errands to run first."

"Where am I? What's going on? Who are you?"

The prince watched silently as Atem finally began to panic, just now realizing the situation. The prince rose, just as gracefully as he had sat down and walked in front of Atem. He was so short, he was barely taller than Atem now and Atem was still on his knees. He leaned down and Atem was expecting an explanation. Atem gasped as suddenly the prince's lips were on his and he felt an icy blast in his mouth. Atem fell over facing the door to the room, suddenly tired. He watched as the prince walked back towards the door, the guards still following and did not spare Atem another glance before leaving the room. Atem fell unconscious thinking about the prince's soft lips.