A broken heart paved the way with pieces to a shrine he'd never truly cared to visit. Arah's kindness had lifted the weary soul chained within his mortal body, but it had done little to fully erase the horrors of what Kaj was feeling. Experiencing. The Veins held only bad memories, the most recent an echo of screaming words and pain, pain of the highest, scalding degree. He carried the truth with him in the short cut of his mane, the stubborn limp of his leg. A thousand battles lost and won, a thousand more to be found with the rising of the sun.

Home was a thousand miles away, a ball and chain as effective as Kahlua had once thought of love, of foals. All in the name of the game. She had cared little, in the end. He had been a means to an end, perhaps. Whatever her motive, her guilt or her innocence, it was always Kaj who had to pay the price. The toll mounted higher with every passing fortnight, until he was scraping his bones and sucking out his own marrow to pay for the sins he'd never committed.

Kaj had never really been a believer. Faith had little meaning in his life, for love had always been his driving force. Never religion, never faith. What could have ever been stronger than love? He had foolishly believed it would always remain there, that he would never be lacking or found wanting for love. In the end, he had been left with nothing but the hollow ache in his chest and the rattle of his persistent breaths in his lungs. Suicide was a thought without borders, leeching off the weak and the strong, the soldiers and the philosophers. Kaj was no exception to this rule, and it antagonized him. Whispered lies and serpentine promises into his ears, even when he shut himself against them and tried to move on.

Desperation moved a man to scale mountains, scour the depths of the ocean, if only for a purpose. Desperation moved him to the Veins, idly kicking the broken pieces of his heart that had lead him there, wondering if it was worth it to pick up the pieces. Perhaps to be soulless, heartless, was a kinder fate than what Kaj had been awarded.

Two others were present as he arrived, contrasts on a blue shock setting. Freshly fallen snow and the swathe of night at high darkness. Golden stars and bloodied shores. And between them, he their medium. Pale sunlight and earthen hues, summer skies and lily petals. Their words graced his ears but each was left behind as he moved towards where Ophelia - for he knew her, as he knew all rumors and gossipers, infamy and martyrs - had lain her humble gift. There was nothing he could give, nothing he had brought to signify his quiet plea.

Moving past them like a wraith with naught but the sound of his hooves on rock, he knelt at the far end of the Sun God's shrine. The yin to his herd's yang. The lord he embodied, the one he'd always subconsciously lent more favor. Before their eyes, uncaring of their judgments, the king bowed his mighty head and attempted to not weep.

"Lord, give me strength," was the beginning of his warbled plea. A desperate, broken man at a shattered shrine. The irony was profoundly striking. "I do not know what I have done...but I ask you light my way, that I may guide my people home to safety. That I may be the soldier they need. I beg of you, give me strength," he choked, voice quiet but uncaring if it carried.

He pressed his bare crown to the soil, tears behind his lids but restrained before they fell. Let them mock the fallen king, in all his disheveled glory. He could care less what they thought of him. He was just a man, with an immortal load upon his broken shoulders. Turning, he cast his gaze to Ophelia, the stud unknown and a ghost to his eyes. "Why do you have such faith?" he croaked. He needed to know, needed to see. "I have nothing, Lady Ophelia. Show me how I can have faith."

Like Hamlet he spoke his soliloquy in silence, his reverence drawn to passage by desperation rather than a devout nature. To be or not to be. For he was but a soldier meant to take the brunt of pain away, a needle to guide and suture the wounds of his people. He was as enigmatic and mutable as a rougarou, prepared to shift into another entity, another figure, for the better of his flock. There were a thousand ways in which to escape, should he ever find the need. Kahlua once had stood at the borders of this world and another, and it had been Kaj who had brought her back. It was the realization that the likelihood of the same being offered to him, regardless of the individual, was horrifyingly low, that had driven the mighty beast both to the shrines and summarily to his knees.

Faith was an enigma, a half-completed puzzle doomed to failure due to hidden, scattered pieces never meant to find their place. Kahlua had said, or rather shouted due to the furious nature of their clashing, that she could never truly turn her back on the gods. Kaj had railed against her, or perhaps it had been the idea that she presented that so brought his stomach turmoil. Years of self-reliance, loneliness and distance from himself and from others had turned the golden king into a creature unwilling and believably unable to put something such as faith in the hands of not only another, but a creature of immortal life and continuous existence.

His knees scraped upon the shale and stone, but in his time of darkness he was granted the serenity that only understanding could truly promise. The two who stood in his presence did not deem to break his spell, allowing him his grievance, his penance and his hopeful salvation. Only when eyes like glass and river shores turned to the maiden in his midst was the atmosphere disbanded. Chased away like ghosts from a holy man, fleeing the light that she exuded, the one she brandished above him. He saw her as a savior, in that moment. A priestess with gowns of white, the stains of blood upon them a sad truth but one that could not be overcome. And a tiny hand, open palmed and waiting. He saw her as a vase, a vessel to the answers he needed so direly. So from the ground he vaulted, though with the slow steady rise of a giant awakened from slumber. Perhaps even indolent, were he in a peaceful enough state for the emotion to be warranted.

She listened with the astute attentiveness that only a wise creature could offer, and a feeling like relief broke as daybreak in his mind. For too often had he been placed beneath the lack of knowledge and ridicule of others, found wanting in their simplistic viewpoints and careless, callous indifference. A desperate man saw angels in vagabonds and demons in acquaintances, and so he saw in her a holy sort of salvation that was perhaps unwarranted. Her potential distress at such an idea only seemed all the more fitting, for an angel was nothing if not humble.

Before she deigns to question him, something which he is far from ready for, she offers instead an answer. Even the idea of a journey, of one that would test him with all the trials life could bring, could not seem to crush what little spirit was left in his mighty form. He had fought all his life. One more battle, especially if it held the possibility of saving him, delivering him from darkness, was worth the effort. "Faith is the only thing I have left, potential though it is," Kaj offered quietly, a confession he was not ashamed to be making before a stranger. "I don't know how to begin to have faith in myself. It seemed so long ago that last I did." Perhaps she would share the secret to that, as well, were she found to be in a forgiving, benevolent mood. Kaj's luck seemed cursed to forever dwindle, but he prayed - another phrase he was unfamiliar with - that it would last long enough for her to see how badly he was in need of her guidance.

"It is your countenance which betrays you," he said softly, hoping to dispel the worry that seemed to cause lines between her brows, ghosts though they were beneath the weight of her self-control. "Your sister and mighty friend both swore themselves to me, as did most of what used to be the Grey. They speak often of you, naturally, considering they are aware of your title. Furthermore, it is essential for a leader to know the names and likenesses of the others," a tiny grin, as if a ghost of old emotions, a habit more than genuine expression. "My name is Kaj. King of the Edge." Perhaps she would know him, too. Or maybe his refusal to leave the Edge leaderless in Kahlua's endless traveling had doomed him to mere mentions. Maybe to her, he was merely a man, hopelessly cracked and searching for devotion.

@[Ophelia]

She was a porcelain goddess in her own right, leading strays down the road of salvation to the light of the gods she served. The pulsing, homely brightness at the base of her horn was only a lamp to him, something to look for in the darkness of his mind. A firefly to follow out of the swamp and muck of his indiscretion, to a better life. She was an angel, her wings merely cosmic, unseen. A portion of his mind was reserved to the mute wonderings of his subconscious. He balked to see her unquestioned devoutness, her easy faithfulness. Perhaps it was because he was the one used to being relied upon, or the old teachings of his sire that claimed weakness was shown in having to lean upon others. He was baffled by her lack of questions, her acceptance, and yet he envied them equally.

Soft vocals turned his head, a mother with a gentle grasp round the chin of her child, turning their head to see her face and hear her words. Understanding of the trials and tribulations, the reasoning behind why the child turned its head away, agonized over the truth that the mother spoke. Soft pressure, unrelenting even in its kindness, telling the child that even though she understands, there is also no escape from what it is she has to say. So he turns his cheek to her, eyes flickering up from beneath pale lashes, seeking the wisdom of her face, her tongue, her body language. Older though he may be physically, mentally he was the child and she the mother, and in some ways it was everything Kaj needed without even understanding the words she gave to him, a gift. It was the one thing he'd always wanted, the one figure he'd always lacked in life. A parental figure, or even one who cared to realize that despite all his strength, he still needed someone to guide him forth. Someone to rely upon. All connections to their herds aside, Kaj wondered if maybe she'd care to be that for him, spiritually at least.

"And when I do? When I can peer inside myself and be content with what I see?" he sought her tone, her lyrics, a desperate man on a limb reaching for her outstretched hand. "I suspect that I can seek personal growth...but when I am whole? How do I find that relationship with him? How can I rely upon him, when I am so little to him? How do I have the trust to lean upon him figuratively when he could care less that I do?" To Kaj there was no other option, no path he could pursue aside the one he'd already taken. The shrine he knelt at, broken in its state though it was, was already the destination he'd arrived at in his mind. Time in all its cruelty had taken the watch of his sister's life and wound it down to nothingness, and the Moon had already shown her hand and cards to him. Even if she hadn't, she was too far away, too isolated, for the King to find real faith in her. The Earth, perhaps. Though why Kaj had chosen the Sun over the Earth was beyond him, it was still the Sun's shrine that had drawn him. Ophelia would likely understand whom he spoke of, regardless.

Shale clings to knees and shins as he rises, but he does not move to brush them away. They are beautiful reminders of this new hour, this transformative bundle of moments in which he turned inside and found the balm that could heal his wounds. Her voice was soft with affection, he presumed, her face still like glassy water. A far better look upon her than the crumpled brow and pinched, contemplative lips. Fondness suited her. His crown bowed in return to her motion, returning the gift she'd given him, the respect he did not deserve. Or perhaps he did, for though he'd fallen prostrate upon the ground, helpless and woeful, he was seeking a better life for himself. For that, maybe he could still be respected. The bitter drawl of his father's voice in the back of his mind would simply have to silence itself.

"The pleasure is mine," he rumbled, sincerity colored in the crevices of his chords. A sheepish smile tugged his lips at her compliment, ducking his head and flickering his eyes away from her opposingly painted ones. Compliments were rare for the king, and he was humble and shy beneath them in a way his father would have abhorred. "I find that honesty is often the best tactic in this world. Our lives are so short; lies, in their rare necessity, don't do much to grant me a wholeness of living. Though I thank you for your kind words. They are sparse in my world." And further she lifts his heart, in ways only Kaj could truly appreciate. That she trusted him to look out for her sister and friend, found him fit to be their guide, was the greatest gift she could have given to the humble king. "They need little watching over," he rumbled amusedly, a fond smile on his own lips this turn. "It is I who holds the honor, that they find me to be a good enough man to lead them. I only hope to remain so." Pale eyes flickered towards the shrine, caught and remained for a few precious moments. Returned to the pale maiden with her bloodied hair. "It is why I came here tonight."

@[Ophelia]