i am the vanguard of your destruction

[ casually sucks at life xP ]

Darkness. Warmth. Refuge. From the pain of his battered heart, and the chill of the harsh winds. Purpose, because he was needed, wanted, in this moment, his white shape a shield and his frozen heart thawing as it pounded next to hers. Their odd witness retreated, but he barely noticed, registered it only in the subtle shift of the atmosphere. Otherwise it meant nothing to him—she meant nothing to him, onetime allies or not. His mind could not run all these parallel tracks anymore, because it was too tired, so in the prioritization game she disappeared, consumed by the small, black body nestled against his frame.

This was what it ought to be like, wasn't it? Holding one another close, sharing love and warmth in the silent way no words could ever convey? Simply feeling, and trusting that feeling.. sharing it in the silence, with the rhythm of your blood. With his body promising that he was there for her, while his mind knew that he would disappear again, like snow blown away by the wind, and when she truly needed him she wouldn't be able to find him—she would only meet him at odd times, chance encounters, because he was the shadow that could not exist in full light.

She shifted in his embrace, pulled back a little, breaking the moment and the glass sphere he'd erected around them. It shattered soundlessly, the brief disappointment drowned between one heartbeat and the next. They couldn't have remained there forever, after all, they were made of flesh and blood. For a moment, two matching sets of blue eyes met, before hers swung away, and he trailed them in the direction of the north. The idea of going near the Basin frightened him, and for more reasons than one. Did he still have friends there? Or had they turned against him? Would anyone still know him, or had they all disappeared? But as she gazed back to him, his eyes remained on that distant mountain kingdom a little longer, listening to her rambled request and finally, at the end of it, chuckling and looking back to her. A small smile curved his dark lips, a throwback to days of old when he always smiled like that.

"I'll eat her before I let her eat you," he rumbled, reaching over without a thought to lip at her forelock. Truth to be told, the child's mother was intimidating, almost frightening in her intensity and power—Alleshia, a mare on a beach, soaked in sweat and in that memory, infinitely sexy because of it. The half-formed thought was like a slap in the face and he recoiled from it, disgusted and afraid both at once.

He didn't like that thought at all. So he dropped it, like something too hot to hold, and blinked it away from his eyes. Returned to the present. With a panther of a mother and a distant glacier as a father, what would this child become? Loveless and hostile? That seed was already planted, wasn't it?

Could he do something to fix it? To give her the kind of upbringing he'd been blessed with?

No.

It took two to tango. She hadn't been meant to be the glue to hold a family together. She hadn't been born out of years of camaraderie and loyalty. She'd been made on a whim, urges and lust, and now she was stuck in this shitty world with a shitty conception and not a very promising future in terms of parental love and security.

"I'll walk you to its borders," he finally said, blowing hot air on the drying tears across her cheeks, though there was something heavy in his voice. "But I cannot come in with you."

[ @[Glacia], maybe a last post from you to wrap this up? <3 Mau's still a bit stuck atm with this whole Kahlua thing but once I know what's what they should meet again C: ]