but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams

hän katsoi maan reunalta tähteä putoavaa

"Oh, the King, gone mad within his suffering..." Mauja's faint voice slipped out into the cold air; lost in a puff of white smoke it rose towards the cooling, darkening sky. It would never reach the stars.

It hadn't been meant to, either—a little bit of whimsy and truth spilling out between dark lips, to caper with the snowflakes, the breeze.. the gulls, wheeling in lonesome formations out over the dark waves. He sighed. So much, and for nothing. So close, and now.. so unbelievably far. If he had begun to walk into the light, he was tracing his steps backwards again. The shadows were comforting and familiar. The shadows knew the secrets of his dark, bloodied heart, and kept them—breathed no word of the violence, nor of the love.

He tried to avoid brooding. He tried to avoid being pensive. He tried to avoid introspection, as it only lead to visions of blood frozen in the snow, and flaming blue eyes. He had lived a while, now—it was only natural that he had lost much and many. Thinking back would only make it hurt the more.

Before his hooves laid nothing. Half an edge of white cliff, the snow blown off at some point—and beneath that, just the ocean, a million lifetimes away. His pale hair rose and fell around him to the wind's whims, blue eyes narrowed against its sting. He had stood here too many times. It was a perfect picture of stillness, and yet it was always wild, the ocean giving low roars of insatiable hunger. Like the Moon, he supposed—beautiful and wild and reckless and illogical.

Something caught his attention. Movement, a voice, a whisper; a scent, something of heat and life carried in by the breeze. Mauja turned his head. He'd sort of assumed all of the Edge had gone into hibernation, but apparently not, for between the trees came none other than.. Tembovu, his more-than-ample-enough frame soldiering on through the snow. In his wake—or by his side? his perspective was off—came a sleek, black shadow. The absolutely last of the blood-red sunlight struck burnished flecks along her head and neck, shimmering there in a last attempt at light and life. It was a breathtaking display of mere seconds before it began to dull and fade, the sun pulled under the horizon by whatever celestial forces that powered their earth.

Mauja said nothing, merely watched them in keen silence, ears tipped their way.

[ @Cosette, @Tembovu ]

man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same