en natt så kall och månen den var klar

"You fucking asshole. You're pathetic."

It was the sum of their conversation: an obvious bit of truth, and an adjective that stabbed him, rubbed itself raw against his mind with its grating. He was not pathetic. He was.. selfish and cruel, imaginative with a sadistic bent, but pathetic? He was not the worms wriggling in the earth, or the spineless bastards who brandished lies and cowardice like a fucking shield—he was a fallen angel who left a burning streak in the sky, and poisoned the air around him with acrid, stinging smoke.

Oh, who the hell was he kidding; his glory days were long past, his pristine brilliance reduced to muddy, sweaty gray, and the light that had burned in his soul had gone out, replaced with an endless, starry night. Weren't the past years proof of that? That no matter how hard he tried, that which had once made him the Ice King had gone out of him? Melted, disappeared, he didn't know, but that which had made him capable of commanding such loyalty from his followers was gone. Erased, and replaced, by his black-stained bitterness.

In the sunset of yet another day, it wasn't hard to admit: he hated himself.

He hated the fact that he couldn't pull himself from the strangling grip of the past, and the fact that he couldn't move on because his mind just ricocheted back into whatever hole it had come from. Helovia had once painted him as its enemy, a mark that had probably faded and grown dull with time, but the memory of all of it—Outcasts, Foothills, and Throat—allying against him made the pain flare up each time he was faced with it.

His defeat was an inflammation, and it had ravaged his body and mind for two and a half years. Time should heal all wounds, but this one, he just kept getting more and more aware of.

A brook bubbled along by his feet, murmuring happily, peacefully, in the calm evening air. Bronzed spears of sunlight lanced through the forest, striking long shadows where they met resistance. Their play upon the water's surface had grown from blinding to simply bright.

Mauja stood by it, the side of his face leaning against a sturdy tree, and his eyes closed; he had four other eyes to spy for him, and ears to hear with, and a keen nose. He did not need to see this wretched world, or his own distorted reflection. He felt his own body. That was enough. He felt his long, tangled mane stir against his neck, felt the itch of dried sweat by his joints, smelled the stale scent; he should go down and roll in the creek, emerge some sort of pale memory of what he'd been, but what was the point? What was the purpose? Why did it matter if he griped for the image of who he had been, when that creature no longer lived in his soul?

Truth was a damn hard thing.

Slowly, his pale eyes opened to the streaks of red on the sparse clouds, and his head tipped back. It had been, what, a day since he'd met with Delinne? And told her the hard truth—partially because he was frustrated and tired of her, and partially.. to drive her away. For her own sake? Or his?

Pathetic.

He snorted. With the way his thoughts had been going recently, he might even agree to that in a few days.

[ Open for anyone. ^^ He's a ways away from the Rotunda, so he can't see it/doesn't know it's even there lmao ]

Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål
Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål