Ibn Ice-Hadibi

He had once been known as Ibn Al-Hadibi, but even the formalities of that naming felt lost to the centuries—like a foreign word returned to the mouth in a different dialect, or a life recalled in fragments, as if through a lens of frost. It was only by the most circuitous and tragic accidents that he was found again, dredged from obscurity as djinni of the Seventh Ice, his spirit half-crystallized and his mind glazed with a vault of secrets. When he walked—if it could be called that—his footsteps left neither echo nor imprint, but in his wake, rooms seemed colder, light waned as if with a sudden dusk, and every surface shimmered with a faint rime, as though the world itself recognized him and shrank from his return.   His memories were restored by unknown hands. Now, with his return, he moved among the living as a rumor given form, his every gesture weighed with the unbearable gravity of what he could never say and what, perhaps, no one wished to hear.   The carp, for its part, had not forgotten its old master. Wherever Ibn Al-Hadibi appeared, the creature would rise from mist-veiled waters, scales glistening with pale blue and silver, and hover at a respectful distance. Sometimes, on nights when the djinni’s heartbeat slowed and the moon dipped low, he would extend a hand of glassy ice, and the carp would rest its head there, exchanging silent confessions. It was the only living thing in all of Shal’Azura he could confide into.   And so, even in his return, Ibn Al-Hadibi remained a figure at history’s periphery: present, necessary, and haunting, like the chill that precedes a storm—his histories and intentions hidden beneath a frozen mask. Nobody he visited and felt his presence was left unchanged; no rumor of his actions failed to trouble the surface of communal thought. And always, lurking nearby, was the ever-vigilant carp, the last witness to his countless lives and the only one who seemed to understand the price of forgetting.   He was Ibn Al-Hadibi, the Forgotten Founder, and the ache of lost love was the only warmth he allowed himself.