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The conversion process is slow for her.
The ones meant to be in Frost Legion march into the Citadel as charr, and come out as hulking frozen husks. Not her. She isn’t meant to be in Frost - isn’t strong enough, doesn’t possess a lick of magic within her body. No - she is a grunt, a nobody Blood grounder-pounder meat-shield - to be thrown into battle and have her bones crushed into blood-soaked mud when she falls in battle.
The ones meant for Frost go into the Citadel and emerge a day later, all frost-covered, mindless, obedient, silent. Cold.
Hers is slow, a gradual prickling that came from the splinter of ice-blue-shimmer that had been embedded in her arm after a rough tumble while sparring with her new ‘bandmates. It was nothing compared to the scrapes and scars and burns and broken bones she had faced in her years with Blood.
And yet, it persists - tingling and prickling at the skin under her fur, just enough to be noticeable, but not enough to be an issue. It grows in barely-there increments, slow enough to make her wonder if she’d always had that tickling sensation in her upper arm, then down to her fingertips and up her shoulder, her entire life.
It isn’t noticeable - she is stationed up north after all. It was normal to be cold all the Flame-damned time - to have your arms and legs and tail and ears slowly go numb, to see your breath drift from your mouth at every exhale, to have to squint and blink when the sun reflects off the snowy ground and messes up your eyesight.
She only realises after taking a hit from a charrzooka-powered missile, with only a standard Blood shield strapped to that arm. Only realises when her shield caves inwards and her arm shatters into slivers and chunks, cracks running all the way up to where her shoulder joint should have been. Only realises when the flames from the missile singes away all the fur on the remaining stump, revealing ice.
She runs after that. Drops her sword and turns tail, running as far south as she could while dodging scouts and troops - both Dominion and United. She hunkers down and makes a small campfire in a nook by the coast, cursing and snarling at being unable to do fucking anything with one arm gone. But she does it, has it going hot enough to heat her knife til the metal glows red-yellow-barelytherewhite.
A stick clamped between her jaws, she brings the knife down onto the stump, growling in disbelief when it just barely scratches the surface. Again and again lightly scoring the ice until the knife had to be returned to the fire.
She makes a decision. Wishes she had booze to dilute the pain. Drags the blisteringly hot knife along the unfeeling stump, onto her chilled shoulder, only stopping her movements when she could feel the pain, could smell flesh and fur burning.
She bites down on the stick, and begins carving. Carving and hacking away at the meat and bone. Pausing to breathe and cry and reheat the blade until she could continue again and again and again. Finally letting the blade fall from her hands after the frozen remains of her arm falls to the rocky floor with hollow thuds and her flesh aches and screams like it never had before.
She falls unconscious then and there, her remaining hand gently cradling the cauterised remainder of her left shoulder, unable to see the barely-there ice-blue-shimmer that gleamed defiantly in the dying sunlight, listening to the whispers that Drizzlewood’s soft breeze always seemed to bring to her.