It was—well, had been—kind of comfortable on the ground. It was cool against his shame-hot skin, solid and so real to the trembling of his spirit, and.. and when his mind reeled and stormed and spun about, the dizzying blur of stars didn't threaten to make him fall to his knees. Because, y'know, he had already fallen down.

But then it got less comfortable because someone crawled halfway onto him. Her scrabbling forced a grunt out of him, knees colliding bluntly with his legs and chest and ow, suddenly there was this dead weight sprawled over him and a burly neck blanketing him.

Protecting him from the stars.

She would never be able to cover all of him—physics denied that. But her soul covered his, and in the back of his mind, he figured he'd rather wear a cloak of Roskuld to his grave, than a cloak of snow. Snow was cold and sharp and bit deep into bleeding wounds. Roskuld.. Roskuld was warm. And heavy, but nevermind that. It wasn't an important thing in that moment.

The important thing was that she was laying on him and it warmed him and it warmed his soul but he wasn't sure if he was just mentally winded or if he'd frozen up again. The world seemed so crystalline, so.. so sharp and fine-edged and.. his thoughts were too calm, too collected—there was none of the terror and the despair and the guilt (you're my ljós, my light, my compass) but.. there was none of the lethal cold either. None of the I don't give a fuck.

Because he gave fucks, apparently, though he wasn't sure when it had started happening.

"I don't," he began, then frowned; actually.. he had no idea why things had happened as they had, at all. "Uh..." And if it's something that is to be said about trying to think when you feel like you're gonna fall apart again at any moment, and your brain has run a mental marathon, and someone is lying on you so it's a bit hard to breathe properly and ouch because it's pushing your shoulder in a kinda uncomfortable way—

—well, it's just not easy and somehow he kept distracting himself by thinking of her tears.

"Actually.. I don't know why it happened in the first place..." And he gazed up at the stars—did they know?

He was beginning to see his own breath as a cloud rising in front of his face. Winter wasn't far off, now. "They didn't do it to conquer and gain more land—they moved, almost all of the herd. I.. well, I dunno. Maybe the grass in the Falls was greener, or they still had their marbles and gave a fuck about deities and figured the Moon wasn't all that peachy." And his calm voice dripped with subtle things—bitterness and anger and the hurt of loss and.. things, things he had no name for. Just things. "The Basin.. the Basin was going to make Midas 'pay for his ignorance'—she said it was justice, some kind of vengeance, for the 'crimes committed against' .. well, myself, and the rest of the herd. That's.. that's the big why."

Theoretically, this was laying his head beneath the axe, right? If she decided he was an idiot—no you didn't, shut up you didn't—would.. there wouldn't be any more Leos, would there? She would.. well, damn, he didn't know what she would do but he figured that laying on top of him was among the last of it. Unless he was dead, of course.

"She said my skill would be welcome, if I wanted to avenge my former herd."

And how the fuck do you say no to that.

You don't. You don't, when you've got a twisted sense of morals and honor—who's that evil?—and when you don't stop to consider violence or.. or the guilt of those involved.

Who said the Edge had more of a right to the throne? Who said Midas wouldn't have shared? Who said the Falls, as a herd, had to be put through that kind of trauma because of Midas's stupidity? Didn't this mean that Kaj and Archibald, clinging to their power as Kings, were in the wrong here?

They did to the Falls what Helovia once did to me.

In hindsight, it was so easy to see, when his world wasn't reeling with one, single, non-violent encounter with Ophelia, and when it wasn't reeling with the revelation that (this slug lying on me is her daughter) Elding's name was Roskuld and she was more than likely half a god (you can fly, bastard) and—and when Kahlua wasn't here to be protected and.. he was restless and.. when someone lifted the blade with his name carved into it, he didn't ask questions. Swords don't ask questions. Swords just cut through flesh, obedient and silent. They do not pass judgment.

They just go into murder mode and think it's pretty damn neat to not have to take responsibility for yourself, because someone else said it was a-okay to go do bad shit.

"I—my life—I'm desensitized to violence." And his ears flipped back as his voice slipped out again. "I'm.. I don't stop to think. I—" He drew a breath. Was what it he had told Kahlua? I am a sword drenched in the blood of those my wielder calls enemies.

It was the confession that would reduce him to nothing. The confession that would prove that the hollows in his heart were filled up with stone and ice. The confession that hammered the nails back in into the coffin with his name on it.

I don't exist.

Fuck your honesty, Sarazheha.

"I'm.. a tool. A sword. Someone grasps the hilt—my loyalty—and I answer the call. I don't think, I don't question, because.. because I'm just a thing, meant to be used." And it was back—the quiver in his quiet voice, the wide-eyed terror. "Because I'm soulless and empty unless given purpose and that always ends in violence."

And there you have it—you're lying on a husk stamped with the name 'Mauja' but there's nothing underneath the skin.

Just a restless void.

Look how far I've fallen.

[ @[Roskuld] ]

lord, the demands you're making-
help the monster on two feet
walk him down the hall, repeat
and when he's strong enough to stand alone
you'll notice what big teeth . . .