Fear tasted awful. Terror tasted worse. And in the aftermath, there was almost always blood—his own, or that of others. Dryly he swallowed, knowing how it had ended the last time. Not his death, no, but the death of another, when the flames had reached up greedily, scorched his shoulder and turned the tables upside down.

This time, it was only his empathy, and his survival instincts, turning his mouth to ash. That, and envy; why did she escape the fires of hell alive, when fell into them time and again? (Because you never try to make it out.)

His voice didn't break the spell, for him, but hers did. It was almost like he'd slapped her. She spun on a dime, brought her charred wings out wide, and yelled at him. Just like that. Mauja's ears flattened themselves and he flung his head skywards, white hair rising in a crown around his face. "Fuck you," he growled at her; originally, he'd just been startled, but she hit a sore spot. Did she know..? Anything..? About him? Where he'd been, what he'd done? Did he deserve it? His breath came out ruggedly through his flared nostrils, blue eyes crystal-sharp and cold, angry.

And.. that was it. She didn't keep yelling, he didn't even know if she'd heard him, but she wasn't looking at him the same way anymore. Mauja watched her warily. Was she living in the same kind of head-in-the-clouds nightmare reality as he did? Where you barely could separate your terror and paranoia from the things that were real? And sometimes you slipped over the edge? And then, you just stood there, incapable of doing anything else, because your thoughts were just rushing around the inside of your skull, wandering further and further away from where you started... His frigid eyes narrowed slightly, tasting the silence and wondering if he should break it. If he wanted to. Could he just walk away, and leave her standing there? But just as he was about to make a move and turn towards the oncoming night, she came back, and said the most obvious thing ever, at least for those who wanted to remain alive.

It didn't, however, match up with his view of it being a botched suicide. One ear briefly unpinned as he looked at her suspiciously, but he knew enough about the world to know that first impressions were seldom right—and nothing was as frustrating as narrow minds. He'd always been judgmental, but tried to keep an open mind. To re-evaluate. But as she kept talking, almost like mumbling to herself, he wondered if he was wrong, again. Sounded like she'd tossed herself into the fire just to prove she could survive. Idiot. "Fool," he rumbled, ignoring her last attempt at turning it into some kind of normal conversation. "You prove nothing by sticking your head into the wolf's mouth and waiting for the jaws to come down. One day you'll die and the only thing you'll have proven is that you're an idiot." His dark voice was laced with trembling, withheld anger, and all the chill of a winter night; he'd seen enough death. He'd caused enough death. What madness had her dancing with it, of her own accord? What selfishness drove her to toy with the very thing so many of his friends had, desperately, wanted to avoid?

The air was growing colder.
The ground underneath him was nearly shaking, pulsing with the pent-up fury of his magic; the edges of his vision were darkening. Little nubs of ice poked up through the dry ground where he stood.

It had always preyed on him.
It had always fed his rare moments of rage; a dark, terrible flood of cold blackness threatening to rush through his veins.

He steeled himself against it.