blame it on hell's fires, and on my desires

[ never apologize when making long posts to me. :D also, reading Earthsea kind of.. messes up my usual style sometimes. e_e; oh, well. ]

Lost in his tale, in the swirling depths of memory and thought, he saw little of her face as he spoke. Often his restless weight shifted from hoof to hoof, and his gaze drew itself away, to something beyond the world's horizon, until the end: until he spoke of Kiba's fierce, foolish love, and how it had driven the three of them into ruin. It was then, and only then, that his eyes were more than halfway present, that his mind was in something so much more recent, called back from the abyss of his past. Of all the things he could call himself, broken was more and more at the forefront of his mind. He had done many things, some good, some bad—and many of those. Of them all, this was the only one he could redeem himself from, be exonerated: the only one that wasn't intentional, or at least halfway intentional. Some things you did, and simply had to carry with you forever. Much of Mauja's life was such: things he had done, willingly, and now had to accept having done. The majority of them were not good things.

For a moment, as he spoke, their eyes met. Kahlua, for all her anguish and fear of what he had done, was oddly brave, listening in silence to his tale—to his own confessions of violence against Torasin, though none of it deadly (he could no longer recall if he had wanted to kill the gilded man upon the battlefield, but it wouldn't surprise him if he had). The moment the words of Torasin's demise had slipped out of his mouth, she'd shied away from him, but now, it was as if she was almost daring to lean closer again... And his buried fear of startling her with his weaponry never bloomed. All she did was break their eye-contact, and gaze into the distance, towards the heart of the Edge. What did she think of? He wondered it but quietly, too mired in the remembrance of that day, the canvas of his thoughts painted golden and brown and red.

Then, he fell silent, his words spent, the tale told. In the few moments of stillness and silence his heart beat, steadfast and loyal in his chest despite everything they had been through. Irma, still reckless and wary, soared far above. He wished he could do like her, take flight from this mortal coil, leave the heaviness and darkness behind—simply soar into the sun, and disappear in its fiery grace and warmth. That sounds like death, she remarked dryly, knowing it had not been his intention; if it had, she would've berated him. Mauja said nothing. Simply let the moment settle, and his eyes see what his troubled heart might not. The day's patient light glittered in the tears trailing down Kahlua's cheeks, and with a brief stab of guilt he looked aside. For what did she cry, for whom did she mourn?

From the corner of his own sad eye he saw a smile—the same smile she'd worn in the meadow, the same smile she'd had when thinking of showing him the wall; the smile he'd put out with his darkness. What rekindled it now? Glacial and distant, yet soft somehow, Mauja stood still when she took her step back, and came closer. She bridged what wedge of distrust he'd forced between them, came closer still, as if merely taking back lost ground wasn't enough. He had no idea what she wanted to do. He felt as if the past days, the past months, had torn him lose and pulled everything out from underneath him; he couldn't trust his intuition, his hopes or his judgments. The only thing he was fairly sure of was that she meant him no harm. For how could she, how could this gentle-hearted, trusting spirit host any evil? It seemed as unfathomable as all the secrets of the universe, and he simply stood there, wary and spent, letting her come. Letting her come closer than many had.

She reached out. He watched from the corner of his eye, felt the slight shift of air, of heat radiating from her dark chest: the faintest brush of hair, that small moment before a touch, and then the heavy warmth of her head and neck lay across his withers. Mauja's eyes closed.

He did not know what to do. He did not know what to feel—or even what he felt. There was something.. something hammering beneath the cold layers of marble around his heart, something leaning heavily against the confused stoicism, the one thing which kept him rigid and unmoved; he did not feel, because he did not dare to feel. Because he had no idea what lay beneath that glacial cold. He held back, because holding back was so much easier.

“I forgive you.”

His heart pounded in the darkness, hot in his chest. The weight across his back was not a burden, but soothing, something to shelter behind. Slowly, Mauja's regal head lowered. In the chaos of uncertainty, of not knowing whether he would walk away alive from the Edge, he had once again donned his mask of, not indifference, but of.. stone, some kind of barrier between heart and body. The last protection to save his face even if his spirit broke.

And just as slowly as his head had lowered, he let part of his walls come down, to feel not simply the physical touch, but the one on his heart as well. She was warm, but she was so much more, too. She was.. beautiful, in her own right; she'd trusted him so easily, and then feared him, and now forgiven him.

Before he had the time to fully explore it, that sensation of wanting to fall to his knees at the feet of this angel and weep, she pulled back—having hung on the devil's back long enough. “When you’re ready, come find me.” His soft blue eyes opened, somewhere in the region of his knees, angled up; hers were steadier now, her promise solemn, honest. She, as whimsical as the heart and wind, was swearing to be his ally, to fight until the last word for his right to live, to not be punished for his panic and fear. She, who wore her heart on her sleeve. Either she was the master of deception, or as honest as she seemed.

Nothing will change, if you never have a little faith.

Which wasn't his forte. But he had to try.

"Thank you, Kahlua," he whispered; reached up and out, to try and brush his plush muzzle against hers. It was all he could say, for he found no other words.