Steam.

It's how he first saw it: vapor escaping into the cool night air, flickering, washed-out yellow when the Heart belched fire. It dissipated somewhere in the region above his head, joining the darkness and forgetting it ever were warm. Whatever lay swallowed by that dark mouth was warmer than the world out here, which was not all that surprising. The blistering heat of summer was passing, fortunately, but not only was this world cold, but a source of overwhelming warmth was nearby. The clear air above the crater was shimmering, dancing from the heat—Mauja had stood upon its rim and stared into the churning fires before. He had no reason to do so again; the flames had taken from him what they would, incinerated the black feathers which had been woven into his hairs.. incinerated his faith along with them.

And when he thought about it like that, every second in Helovia had been like jaws opening wider and wider, swallowing more of him up every moment he stayed. It was the bitter poison, the danger of his thoughts chasing themselves—and himself—in circles. Nothing would be solved by giving in, but he didn't have a lot to put into the fight anymore. He'd fought just for his right to stay awake and alive, to justify his herd's existence and their rules, but no matter how much he'd pushed and pulled, he'd been losing ground all along.

And so, here he stood—was he the enemy now? Deimos, Ulrik, Psyche, all those stalwart, resolute warriors, would they understand? Ulrik's heart was as cold and bronze as his metal, Deimos was adamant he didn't have one (though Mauja had never quite believed the stoic facade), and Psyche.. jackal-heart. Could they understand what he had become? Tattered, broken, but most of all.. that he had abandoned the Plague's cause? He couldn't believe it any longer. It had been a long time since he had.

Wariness had kept Mauja back from the dark, steaming hole hidden in the brown grasses, but now he was moving, aglow with silver moonlight. His entire life had been like that, anyway: too afraid to make an early move, holding back until it was too late, until the moment had passed. He'd never learned how to close his eyes, and leap off the edge. But with only the cold, apathetic darkness to fill all the white-washed spaces in his soul, what did he have to lose? What did he have at all? Walking through the dying grass, to an unknown hole in the ground, felt so pathetically reckless that he wanted to fall to his knees and weep.

Mauja, the Broken King.
And he'd done it all by himself.

The darkness he stared down into mirrored the darkness in his heart.