somebody shine a light
I'm frozen by the fear in me

[ So so sorry for being slow ;~; ]

The long, lonesome trip back to the Edge had been a peculiar thing—tears and darkness had welled within him, a feeling of being shunned...

Mauja could understand them. He could, so it wasn't that. It was...

Well. It was the fact that he was (mostly) harmless. That he was kind. That.. that he was fragile, already a little dented and broken, and the things they had said—and not said—had been like needles driven in under his skin, injecting their poison with a slow burn into his veins. Normally, he could just .. ignore it. Freeze it over.

But not then, no. It had gone straight into his heart, and it had taken a while for the tears to stop seeping from his eyes. By the time he had reached the Edge—alone, except for his owls—he had entered some numb land of neutrality, feeling equal parts worthless and apathetic. Someone had put a lid on all the light and good within him, leaving his eyes flat and nearly gray, and he knew how wrong the thoughts were, but it was all he could think anyway. Am I that weird? Am I reprehensible? Am I freak?

Am I good for anything at all?

What had he accomplished, exactly, since taking over the Edge?

Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch.

He had.. not murdered Torleik. He had recruited Tembovu. He had broken down in front of Elding, having had to admit that he was a soulless monster (but how could soulless monsters cry?), he.. he had gone into some kind of fucking haze in the winter and come out of it to find the herd like a faint echo between the trees.

“Mauja? Hello?”

And now someone came looking for the soulless monster. Without realizing it, fresh tears had spilled down his cheeks, and dried to icy flakes in the winter air. What would you want of me? He wanted to yell it into the wind and hope it carried back to the source. What could anyone possible want of me? He was a useless, worthless piece of frozen shit—

Mauja, shut up. The tired voice belonged to Irma, a whisper rolling at the edge of his awareness. He closed his eyes, and leaned his forehead (well, the left half of it) against a tree. Sighed. He didn't particularly want to show himself, because he was, well—he was crying, a soft and silent thing. Controlled, almost.

But he went anyway, because he was Mauja. Because he was Dutiful.

And to his greatest fucking surprise—there stood the mare he had left behind in the Threshold, the mare who had dared to ask what kind of land that had produced him, like he was some kind of contagious freak to avoid.

She stood there, on the outskirts of his home, looking small and forlorn next to the gargantuan shape of Tembovu.

Tembovu was everywhere. It was about the only good fucking thing in this place.

"Sabriel." Her name slipped out before he knew it, surprise lining his tear-thick voice—they had stopped falling now, though, visible only by the frozen salt stains and crystals lining his lashes. "You.. you came here?"

But what he really asked—what he wanted to ask—was you followed the freak to its lair?.

[ @Sabriel @Tembovu ]

somebody make me feel alive
and shatter me