i am the vanguard of your destruction

What the hell was he doing. His own fractured existence was forgotten, broken down and pushed aside by the overwhelming nearness of her presence. His world shattered like glass, a thousand tiny fragments raining down in a hail of prismatic colors—in that moment, everything lost its meaning. Even the beating of his frail heart was consumed by her radiance, every thought, every feeling but that aching sense of adoration, simply obliterated.

Words fled the desolation of his mind. Mauja, idiot that he was, had not set a further goal—had simply pinned everything on seeing her again. The gears stopped turning. He couldn't—didn't want to—comprehend what he saw, the cracks lining his world, and the rampant darkness threatening to come pouring through. It was all in the details, in the small things he could barely focus on, the dull look in her eyes and the uneven, jarred gait. The way she looked older, somehow, more tired and tested, the scars and bruises on her soul reflected through her eyes.

He knew a moment's bitter anger.

Then it was gone, and he simply felt exhausted.

Had he expected anything but this? Had he, truly, after all he was supposed to have learned, thought that he'd be greeted with much the same enthusiasm she used to show in those days before he had vanished? Had he thought whatever bitter marks he'd left upon her perfect memories would've been washed away by laying eyes on his pathetic, bedraggled corpse again? Had he, truly, thought that she would save him?

When you're starving, hope is all you can eat. His eyes were leaking, but it wasn't enough—he wanted his skin to split open in mockery of a shared dream, and for blood to well out of the cracks instead of gilt light. His eyes alone could not weep enough for times lost and dreams broken by that soulless gaze. Her horn pointed at his heart, the heart he wondered how it still beat, but he could not remember how to move, or find a reason why.

He had seen her again, and now she thundered towards him with a promise of pain to be repaid. He had seen her again, and seen how his presence dimmed her glow, and tore something in her composure apart—he had seen what he brought with him.

Pain and suffering.

So let it end here.

White lids closed over blue eyes, and hid his look of pained adoration from sight. Black wings spread from the mess of his heart, and his soul teetered upon the brink of existence, waiting to take flight. He was over. He was done.

A thread of disappointment needled itself through his thoughts, a single note echoing in the stillness of his acceptance—a whisper, not a word, a touch that was not a touch and yet a touch all the same. It traveled along the darkened edges of his mind, and she knew him too well, she understood, so she could not be angry, she could not feel betrayed, but yes—she was disappointed. His resignation was not theirs.

He could not let his selfishness be the death of them.

So his black wings folded again, and his eyes snapped open almost as soon as they had shut. That he was the one who had started this was irrelevant, and gods, what had he been thinking? He didn't want to hurt her, never had, never wanted to, but—

He found his haunches, found his feet, all four of them, and tore right with all the gracelessness of a startled animal. The soft sand shuffled and whispered beneath him, drowned out for a moment by the gasp torn out of his throat; fire, he remembered fire, this feeling of flesh ripping and blood pearling against snow-white fur, and how in the blinding moment of impact he could not feel where he was hit. The nerves of his left shoulder screamed, a jagged red line drawn across the flatness of the bone.

Black nostrils opened and closed, faster now with the adrenaline of pain spiking his blood. Perhaps it was not a matter of hurting her. His tired mind flailed to grasp the logic as he reversed on his haunches. Perhaps it was a matter of proving.. proving.. what she meant to him? By hounding her in battle? It didn't add up.

Heedless of the devastation she could wreck with her hindlegs he thundered after her, mind blank, intention nothing but to simply run into her. In a moment's reversal of roles he had become the hunter, but there was no true love for the chase in him: just a vague, uneasy sensation, a burning notion that he had something to do—prove—here.

[ 793 words, 1/3, @[Ophelia] ]
Summary: skitters right to avoid being speared, taking the hit across his left shoulder. turns upon his haunches to try and ram her from behind.

Music: Audiomachine - The Truth

Dramatic Mau is dramatic.