“You’re Leos, though,” she shot back—though, it was more like a whisper, the echo of her heartbeat, and he knew in his bones what it was—the calm before the storm—a moment of reprieve before the shatter—

And something in his heart ached as she returned his enigmatic smile, because it was still a smile, so fragile, so honest. It.. well—everything she did came from the heart, didn't it?

A golden heart in a cage of lightning.

Sparks running along the metal wiring.

And he couldn't for the life of him label the emotion running like a shock through his system, couldn't even begin to understand what the fuck it meant, or tried to mean, but—

Yeah. I guess I have a heart.

But what kind of heart.. that remained to be seen. He didn't want to think about it, because it made him uncomfortable, like there was some kind of truth beneath it all that he couldn't—didn't dare to—face yet.

It could be anything, though. It could be nothing.

It could be everything.

And he knew that it wasn't this easy, that just because some shit had frozen over in his skull again and he threw it all to the wind because she was still in some kind of pain—that just because of all that, this wasn't over. It would never be over. This would come back, and it would haunt him, one wolf with its heart still in its chest, and one wolf with its heart ripped out.

Her smile faded, chased away, lost—it fell to pieces and disappeared, and took his with it. No, he wanted to say, don't go, because something had felt so right, so good, when he'd teased that hesitant smile from her.

As if.. something had been alright. Mended. Like his previous words had become at least partially true,

despite the inherent lie nestled in its nature,

—but what came after was so much more terrifying.

It was something cold and harsh and merciless that snatched up that thing, his frozen heart, and held it in a way that threatened to make his vision blur, go dark; to tear up the trees and tear all the stars from the night sky and raze the mountains and raise the waves, and he was breathing that shadow.

He was breathing her rank fear. He was breathing whatever—

Shit, it was what he'd told her, right? It's when awake that I am haunted. And he could practically see the nightmare slipping out between her lips, a cloud of something dark and wicked that got sucked back with each inhalation, only to peek out again mingled with air and words as slowly, slowly, she spelled out some horrible story he wasn't sure he wanted to hear.

It was like that realization from earlier—except now it was the hands of her child grabbing the porcelain statue and throwing it to the floor, and he was lying next to where it fell. There was nothing to save him from the explosion and the shards, and with a sinking feeling in his chest—he had only two names for that fucking thing, "terror" and "despair"—he listened.

Drank in every word. Every pause. Every nuance of her small voice, every trickle of starlight in her tears.

(Did you ever cry over me, Snö?)

And somewhere, in the midst of the revelations hailing down upon him like sharp fragments, he pitied her—Ophelia. He pitied her, and the perfection of her memory, and.. well. It was just that, wasn't it? He pitied her because no one ought to be put through what she had been put through—

—it was an old hate of his, old old old, older than his bones—

—and a new flicker of flame, a new disease to scorch the backside of his breastbone, sprang to life—

—but the rest of the situation was what was fucked up.

(So let me get this straight: if the Moon, by murdering Psyche, had made it past Time and onto the first place of his 'gods I hate the most' list, Time certainly took that place back. Fucking rapist of a God.)

He just lay there, again, neck cramping from being held up to watch her (collapse against him), mouth closed out of habit but in his mind his jaw had dropped through the floor.

The.. incredulity ... like holy fuck, was this even real? Was he dreaming this fucked-up story? Was—was.........

Was Elding—Roskuld—whatever lying next to him, having spewed out something that tore her heart asunder, crying with the soft kind of terror that made him want to set the entire world on fire and laugh as it burned—was she the product of rape, of a fucking God forcing himself upon a mare, and—get it, this is the best part.

Torleik had, of course, put his big fucking dick in the middle of the shitfest that was Roskuld's life, like he thought he had a right to dictate shit around her—

—FILTH.

Yeah.

Bastard.

The stick in his ass was up deep, and suddenly Mauja found himself disinclined to do anything about it. In fact, he would rather punch it in further and hope it hit his fucking heart.

And then, as if to make impossibly bad matters somehow impossible much worse, Roskuld whispered the most heart-breaking and untrue things he had ever heard:

“I’m a rape, I'm my mother's rape.”

"Bullshit," tore itself out of his throat at that, head crashing down to the ground because he thought he might accidentally incinerate her with the fire springing up in his eyes, (if Tamlin had ever known...). But—he wanted to say something, to.. make things fucking right, because she was lying on or next to or whatever him, crying so softly, because, because, because of all the things, Torleik (my fucking consort) had pinned it all on Roskuld.

Like it was her fault the Time God was an ass. Like it was her fault she was born.

Like it was her fault everyone had the communication skills of a limp dead fish.

Mauja included, of course. He had ruined plenty of kids in his own time.

"You are not responsible for anything your parents did," he finally said, still shell-shocked, trying to juggle what she'd said—

—what she had revealed about Torleik, about.. about Ophelia.

Had she even stood up for her child? Had she even told Torleik to shut it and get the hell out of there?

She was in the Edge now. So probably not.

Or she had but they had made it up, or whatever, but if anyone had yelled abuse at Snö—

—fuck, had Torleik yelled at Snö when Psyche died, when he'd been out of his mind and unable to understand what the fuck was going on—

—there were so many dead dogs buried in his backyard and he had no idea where they even were.

"You—" he began, and something in his voice broke—hell, something in his heart broke, because he could just keep hearing what Roskuld had said that time in the caverns, that Phi's eyes went dark and more than he wondered what ghosts Snö saw in his eyes, he wondered if he'd ever looked at Tamlin that way—

But Tamlin had always adored him.. right? So he couldn't.. couldn't have...

Of course, he had told d'Artagnan, or something along the lines of it, it included me, after all.

His mouth worked soundlessly, jaws opening and closing, the thing nearly bursting in his throat but he couldn't get it out—

He couldn't say it—

He couldn't phrase it—

So he just curled up around her, best as she could, trying to drape his thick neck over her, and hold her—as if everything depended on it.

Because he had the wild, terrifying notion that it did.

[ @[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 . . .