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

He had not expected her to feel.

Not because he believed her to be heartless—but simply because he did not feel. His tears had all frozen up, stuck somewhere in the icy remnants of his heart, and he watched life through a cracked crystal lens. Detached. A spectator on the sidelines of his own life, wondering with a sense of quiet, whimsical resignation how it had come to this.

So her tears surprised him. They were soft and silent things, gentle and demure, as if sensing the ice giant nearby and afraid to take up space in the presence of such a heartless creature.

But Mauja just thought she looked softer for it. More human, somehow. Like it had taken the sharp edge out of her stance, and some of the broken glass from her voice.

Like it had ground it into her heart instead, such brittle fragments of a perfect life. Vaguely, he knew what it was like—a shattered perfection, something beautiful breaking in an instant and coming down in a hail of shards all around you.

There wasn't any putting it back together. There were just too many pieces.

(You had to melt it down and re-forge it, somehow.)

She seemed as disappointed in herself as he was in himself; two lousy parents stuck together in a snowy glade, the screech so at odds with the peace of the place. Still, his ears did not flick. In fact, it was almost as if he hadn't registered it, simply watching her through the same lens through which he saw his own life.

He couldn't do anything for her, when he was this cold. He couldn't.. He heard her. He understood what she said, and in his own ways, he could relate.

But when she took a step back, collapsed in on herself and threw a (guilty?) glance his way, he could not understand anymore, for such things were in the realm of emotion—a place he had abandoned. It was a move that defied rationality.

I am not your enemy.

"Elsa," he said—ever so gently, his voice a hesitant ray of light, somehow harboring all the patience of the world. "Just give in. Just give in..." There was a lilt and a cadence to the words, as if he ought to be chanting, or even singing. He drifted a step closer to her, cruel in his pristine glory, reaching out a soft, plush muzzle towards her. "Just let go of it," he murmured; if she would not shrink back, he would touch her cheek, breathe on her, gently rub his nose against the base of her ears. "It's alright," he promised, so soft, yet his heart was strung tight with anticipation and wicked curiosity, "it's alright to cry."

[ Priorities. ]

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