[ TintedGlass sure brings back memories of the days before I could code scroll tables! xD ]

It never ceased—once the first stone had been thrown, the rock slide would just gather momentum.. keep on falling.. gears turning; wheels turning; seasons turning, and still the machine kept on toiling deep within its ruts.

The tall trees of the Threshold rose around him, familiar despite not being home. They cast dappled moon-shadows upon his hide with their newborn leaves.

Everything about this place was achingly familiar—the paths, the multitude of scents, the taste of the air, the touch of the wind... Mauja had spent so much of his life here, greeting newcomers, trying his luck, hoping to bring them back to his herd for—what? Glory? Numbers? Out of the kindness in his heart? Or just because it plain old was the way things operated around here?

It was what was expected of him. Bring strangers back home, hope to make them loyal, boost his numbers, keep himself and his kin safe, hidden away in the fogs of the Moon herself.

The taste in the back of his mouth was bitter. As an Outcast, he had roamed, frustrated and desperate, without purpose, without dreams; and now, back upon a throne he had lost so long ago, he filled the emptiness up with movement. Direction. Hollow purpose. There was no true satisfaction in ruling—it was just a convenient distraction from the void gaping where his soul ought to be.

Sometimes, he thought of what it would be like to simply leave the Edge—let it come to rot and ruin under Torleik, or watch it perish under the greedy onslaught of some other mortal. What it would be like, to return to his days as a stray, wandering the face of Helovia, going where he wanted, when he wanted, with no ball and chain anchoring him to the path between the Edge and the Threshold.

(He stood out in the moonlight, lost in his own thoughts; the white of his hide shimmering with the brilliance of the Dark Lady.)

He didn't know how long he had been standing there before it caught his attention—and he wasn't precisely sure what to define it as, either. A shift in the wind. A feeling in the earth. A whisper through the trees.

The kind of intuition you had to rely on.

Mauja moved, jaggedly coming into motion like a piece of a glacier breaking off, but it quickly morphed into something else—something graceful and elegant as he haunted the forest, seeking the cause of this disturbance.

It was a scream. A rustle. Then.. silence. No smell of blood; scents growing stronger, muddied by the mishmash of the place. “Hey,” someone called quietly, nearby. The frost-wraith paused; turned. Squinted through the shadows, his eyes near gray in the monochromatic light. A yearling with wings by her side, peering into the bushes, and there beneath, the outline of another small, fragile creature with wings.

What are they doing out alone? the father in him asked.

But no other wolves aside from himself and a more literal one of the puppy-kind seemed about, so.. no harm done, right? Right. (Yet, anyway.)

Slowly he moved over to them, until he could peer down at the girl folded into the bushes. "Are you alright?" he asked, voice gentle, concerned; the other filly he had already stored away as of a lesser priority. She was obviously uninjured, and smelled of the Falls—so in a way, useless to him, but he hesitated to call her of no interest even within the confines of his mind.

[ @Galiel @Areli -- I am not sure I can follow through this thread to 100% due to a busy time in my life, if I feel like I'll start lagging I'll PM you guys to let you know :( ]

lord, the demands you're making-
help the monster on two feet
walk him down the hall, repeat
and when he's strong enough to stand alone
you'll notice what big teeth . . .