Anger is naught but a dull heat in his veins when he walks away from the meeting, head low. Strong shoulders, once capable of holding the world upon them, are drooped and defeated. Aaron had cursed him cluelessly, and Kaj would waste no breath on the fool if he would not use his brain for more than just breathing and spitting horrible words at people. Kaj's anger...it rarely if ever exploded out of him. Words were a tornado inside his head, burning and freezing him simultaneously, spinning him into a haze of pain of self-disgust. Eyes did not meet anyone else's, lost in his own thoughts, heart breaking and constricting all at once. When he and Lace had nearly come to blows, Kaj had thrown away his feelings, locking them deep in his chest and abandoning them. Now they howled for release, and he didn't know how to handle it anymore. Kahlua, Evangeline, Resplendence, Destrier, Quilyan...five people. Five people who loved him and supported him. Honestly, it was pushing it to include Destrier and Evangeline, maybe even Quilyan. In Helovia, they were so emotionless, so cold. Where Kaj had come from, the climate had been that way, but never the hearts of the inhabitants. Soldier, nameless and faceless, he may have been, but he would lay his life down for someone just as nameless and faceless as him in a moment if they were brethren. Even if they'd never met before.

These Helovians had no clue about true love. Real, raw love. Loyalty. Honor.

He knows he's being followed, even if he was at the very edge of the meeting, and had been the first to depart into the mists. No words are exchanged, Kaj doesn't so much as glance back to figure out who it is. If it is Aaron, Lace, or any of the others who apparently now hated him, he hoped they would snap his spine and end this suffering. Unwanted by the herd he bled for, cried over, sweated for. Well, if he was so unwanted, they could tell him to his face instead of hiding behind words like cowards. Or they could man up and attack him, challenge him, put an end to it there and then. Only when the fellow came alongside him, matching strides despite their height gap, did Kaj turn eye and see who it was.

Quilyan.

A hitched sigh left the brute, and he clenched his teeth. Why did he suddenly wish to cry tears of anger, of frustration? Tears alone were weak, no matter the emotion that spurred them from your eyes. When Quilyan speaks, the larger pegasus shuddered, and his eyes clenched shut. "Can I really be named brother, now, when so many turn to me with eyes of hate?" It is a solemn question when he speaks it in his deep voice, willing his legs to keep moving as much as he wanted to just stand still until his life stopped existing. Kaj hadn't given up before, he wouldn't give up now, but like hell he didn't want to sometimes. "Lace verbally attacked a unicorn at our borders, who happened to wander towards the opening of the wall as he was inspecting it. His racist attitude was apparent to more than just I, in fact to more than three of those who gathered there. Even Kahlua was dragged in to act the same way, though I don't believe it excuses her for following his lead. Fajira, Lace's dragon, dove down around the young dierbaren- er, companion- of the unicorn. The youngling reacted by lunging back, and harmed herself falling from her protector's reach, flightless as of now. The supposed intruder was civil, throughout all of it. When I intervened...Lace degraded me. Declared I was too trusting, did not have the best interest of the Edge in mind." Teeth ground, wings tightened, tail lashed against his hocks.

"I fought for this land. The scar on my leg? I let it heal naturally to prove that I would never be afraid to bleed for my people, if I was granted the right to be their WingLeader. He...he called me Soldier. Nameless, faceless, replaceable soldier." He angrily slammed his shoulder against the nearest tree, breathing harsh and strained, body quaking as he appeared to physically fight with the beast inside of him. "You may not know, brother, but where I hail from, it is the females who hold the powers of destruction. We are only there to die for them. To step between them and the spells of another, to take the blows when they are tired. We are replaceable, nameless to our assigned Mages. My sister's death was hardly even mourned, when my parents found out. Nobody knew her name. Nobody knew the color of her eyes, or how her favorite flowers were the purple daisies where the snow couldn't touch, or that she liked to sing herself to sleep."

His throat choked and he staggered away from the tree, striding on, knowing if he didn't keep his eyes on the horizon...if he didn't keep moving forward...he would drown. The future was all he had left. "He demanded I speak to Aaron, an encounter which already transpired, which you my friend were witness to. Did you know, his young sister Azale Moniet, was nearly stolen from our borders? I dueled her attempted thief, made him prisoner of the Edge, and still he shows no gratitude. I put my life down for her honor, her safety, and he declares that I know nothing of the suffering of his family! HIS FAMILY WHEN I HAVE LOST ALL OF MINE!" It is a roar to the heavens, a declaration of hatred to the Gods above.

"I have no siblings as he does! I have nobody! Nobody to come to at night, or greet come morning! I have bled and sweated for this land, I have wanted nothing more than their safety and love, and in return I am hated and despised!" His eyes are moist, but his face is drawn in anger, a conflicting mix of emotions. Again he slams his shoulder into a new tree, and his skin splits and bleeds through freely. He does it once more before he slumps to a standstill, the ache of his limb now something he could concentrate anew upon, instead of the thoughts inside his head. Dead blue eyes turned to Quilyan, voice trembling and wobbling with emotion.

"Call me weak, brother. You must think it of me, to be so childish as to cry. You have my zusje, and she loves you. You have your companion, always faithfully at your side. What do I have but old memories and broken dreams, brother? What have I done to my kin to deserve their denouncement and degradation? What have I done aside from my best? I do not understand these customs...these emotions they have. Perhaps...perhaps it is best if I leave the mists forever, brother." Wings are drooped, shoulders heavy, head low. He is defeated, not in battle as he had suspected he would be, but in the safety of his own home, by his own people. What more does he have to lose, aside from the few people who still stood by him, still loved him?

Or did they even feel for him at all what he did?