Striking mights and maybes even more

A useless thing called life

It's a biting cold again

keep on running, keep keep on running, there's no place like home, there's no place like home.

"Those mutts threw you out of your home," the addictive poison in the open wound. Sinking through flesh and blood and into his bones. As if he needed to be reminded - as if he could block out the sound of her voice. She was a twisted thing, something dark and driven, and over the years it seemed to have hammered her into sinister perfection: the melody of her voice, of its inflection and its nuances.. the way she stood poised with a dagger behind her smile. For a while Mauja was motionless, his penetrating gaze falling upon her. Some things he knew about her. Some things he didn't. She had just shown up one day and their lives had, for better or for worse, intertwined. Had she always been like this? Was it in her genes, this borderline insane twist to everything she did - every expression of her body? Ophelia had said something about it - about her - about Psyche. Blinking solemnly in the dreary light, he tried to see something of the young, white girl in this one.. but there was nothing there. Psyche resembled more of a friesian than Ophelia, who seemed to be more of a warmblood. This dark queen didn't even have the fringes - his gaze narrowed a fraction. Ophelia's aunt.. who had suffered at the hands of her father. And if she hadn't... would she still be the same? Or was she merely a product of her past?

Who isn't? snarled the voice in his head. Don't tell me you would've been the same if you'd been born someplace else.

Change and hardship defined you.

"We will," he said, quietly - forcefully. Cold eyes focused on hers, ice meeting fire again. Irma gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, sensing his unease at dealing with Psyche. Not because he didn't like her - or maybe he did - or maybe that was it - but she was so.. driven, ambitious. She was the fire and he the funnel guiding her flame. If he wasn't there to leash her, he had a feeling she'd go batshit crazy and do something rash.

Was that all it was to me? A convenient leash?
Surely not.

She would never settle for the second best, would she? We ought to do something about it. He wanted to grimace, but kept it in. We or I, Psyche? "Do you just want to rant and prod me, Psyche, or do you actually have a plan? Maybe a masterpiece you're just dying to share..." As if they weren't breathing poison with every breath and dancing on knives, he companionably turned, motioning for her to join him at a slow walk. As if the end of the world wasn't approaching - as if he wasn't toeing the border of insulting her.
I have no right.
It was a slip of character, the start of a slow decay - it felt like hell and bitter ash.