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

In a way, it felt like he had been asleep—the winter's snowy blanket had swept itself snugly around his soul and lulled him with a lullaby far greater than any voice could produce. It was the contentment, the peace, the crackle of a fire somewhere, heat lapping against cold and creating this odd in space in which time suddenly seemed to have passed too fast. He had slept, yes, but it hadn't been.. normal.

He had slept, and when he had woken, it felt like half a season had passed. And yet, like no time had passed at all.

But the World's Edge had echoed, hollow and empty, only mist lurking between the trees. For a moment it had been lifeless enough to make him wonder if he'd died, after all—after all those years left alive.

But no. There was no death for Mauja, nor for his herd, so after roaming the emptiness and wondering about the Sunshower, the missing piece in the puzzle of his life, the fucking reason he was King of the Edge again—well, when the nagging anxiety and the deep, disappointing fear in his gut became too much he left, set out east across the snowy face of Helovia and into its threshold.

(Was this how she had felt, how Ophelia had felt, each time he inexplicably vanished?)

Voices caught his attention, words drifting in with the snowflakes on the faint wind, and with the help of his much closer owls the story unfolded—two black stallions, broken horn, wings, scars, red and white; it seemed unholy of him, a beast of the reverse colors and with blue as his accent, to intrude upon their meeting.

But the Threshold is a place of contest, of conquest, a subtle war. This Caleb claimed to belong to the Basin, and Mauja's 'brows shot up in surprise. A hybrid, in the Basin? Sure, Mesec had been allowed to stay, but Mesec had been different—a half-god sired by their own doctor. He had, well, sort of been kin. An honorary unicorn, if you will.

(No, fuck that. He'd grown up hated, grown up seeing distance and dislike in everyone's eyes, been told that he was the son of a goddess yet treated like dirt—)

"There's four gods," he said, coming out of the snow and the shadows, something patient and easy in his eyes, his voice, his stance. "Of varying degrees of assholishness. Earth, patron of the Hidden Falls. Sun, protector of the Throat. Moon, the conniving, murderous bitch claiming to bless the Edge." Fuck her, she's a curse— "And perhaps the most major asshole of them all, Spark. Of the Aurora Basin." A twitch of irritation, of wounds half-forgotten but not half-healed, ran across his spine. The owls wheeled overhead once, then drifted away to find something else to watch—a hound hunting, perhaps, their keen eyes tracking her movements.

"Aside from that, what else is there to say? Self-righteous crusades, magic, supernatural disasters..." He shrugged his snowy shoulders, finally stopping at what he deemed a polite enough distance. His pale eyes flickered from one to the other, reining in his question about Caleb's home for now—it burned at the tip of his tongue, why do they accept you?, but if it was one thing he loathed in the Threshold it was the slander of the other herds in an effort to gain favor. And, such a pointed question could surely be interpreted as such...

"I am Mauja, by the way. Of the World's Edge."

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