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

[ Continued from here. ]

Slowly, the embers of his rage reignited.

Who was he, to come here, and say that Mauja needed to get over himself?
Who was he, to come here, and act so high and mighty?
Who was he, to come here, and demand to be let back into his old home?

Mauja could see himself, battered and bruised and torn—burnt—coming here, to the realm of the Qian and demanding to be let back in.

Laughable. They would've thrown him over the Edge in pieces, torn apart by the hungry dragonfangs, and that would've been the end of the Frostheart.

Fuck. Off.

He had tried. He had tried so fucking hard, and what had he gotten?

Nearly put on trial for an accident that had haunted him.
His love and close friend laid down as a carcass by a God supposed to protect them.
Torleik.

How dare he, something in Mauja's soul whispered, an echo bounding between three souls. How dare he, the rage whispered.

"What he means to say is that he would love to stay here, pretty please and thank you."

No.

Liar liar.

He meant what he said. She should learn to mean what she said, too—Nyx's friend or no.. it was too late.

It had always been too late for them.

Calm descended upon him as he stood there nose-to-nose with Lace—calm claimed him, spreading with both fire and ice through his veins as his heart pounded out a war beat. This ended now. Here and now, in the snow melting from the sun radiating above them, with Nyx as their witness.

This was what he knew how to do. This was familiar, the promise of violence whispering in his blood like an old friend.

Irma fell back, a ghost sailing on quiet feathers, but Diego swept in above the dragon's back—burning eyes trained on her, trying to read her every motion before she even made it.

To always keep out the reach of her flame, her teeth, her body.

Mauja was tired of rationality. He was tired of cold intellect. He was tired of quelling his rage, swallowing shards of ice and tongues of flame and growing colder and colder and colder.

He was baited, but he wasn't going to just nibble. He was going to bite and swallow, fucking hook and all, until he'd made his way to the end of the line.

Then, he would swallow Lace too, and the world would be a better place.

Fuck. Off. He thought it for the thirteenth time that day, and then, the cool calm of his preparation shattered in violence.

His rage was their rage.
Their rage was his rage.

And they would kill silently.

There were no howls of rage—no words of challenge, a last plea for humility from the noble fool poised before him, nothing.

It would just be death and the silence of winter.

It took less than a heartbeat, his crowned head dipping down—he dove for Lace's neck, hoping to split his skin and embed his horn beneath the equine's left shoulder blade.

Hoping to take him by enough of a surprise to drive its point all the way to his fucking heart and pierce it.

Today would not know mercy.

Ice erupted from the ground again, this time directly beneath Lace, three spires of hate and vengeance taller than both of them shooting for the sky—and in the sky itself, his youngest owl descended into his first real battle. Sharp talons extended into the air, seeking the wing joints of the dragon, his curved beak hunting for the base of her head.

Irma glided on silently, watchful. Thoughtful.

Waiting for her moment to strike.

[ Pride challenge against @Lace ]
[ 1/4 || 620 words. ]

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