i am the vanguard of your destruction

The shadow fails.

So many circles were closing, as haphazard as sand blown about, or the ruffled wings of a fallen bird; here, where another battle had raged, the ends tied together and maybe no one would ever know.

Had he seen it, maybe he would've known—remembered—the horn that had once been the pride of his fallen love. It was just another dark thing lying in the pool of blood.

He knew the mare—knew the pitch black of her coat, knew the lines of her face. Not well, but he knew them, for he had saved her once, so long ago, but he could not save her again. Maybe, if he hadn't then, he could've now, but he was no angel—he was just a unicorn. He was just a frozen soul with the rising sun spreading out behind him like wings, and his touch could only harm.

The water was pink where it lapped against his frozen hooves.

The end had come for yet another.

He had watched a father mourn his daughter—he had been the sentinel, the one who had seen her begin, and one who had seen her end.

Now, he watched a daughter mourn her mother, and he was simply a fragment of her past, a kind stranger upon the beach. A wanderer, who simply had happened to pass her by—not even a King.

"Mama... please wake up now..?"
“Ërthe…”

It was his holy priestess who stood by the weeping child, the stars in her eyes as sharp as ever, gazing upon the fallen crow; Mauja felt too tired to feel anything. Too exhausted by this fucking nonsense to want to care.

No breath made the black sides swell. Only gravity pulled the last of the blood out of her veins.

Mauja didn't weep; cold anger smoldered in his gaze as he glared towards the Sun. He had promised peace, and instead, he had delivered death. He had left a child motherless. He—well, what the fuck did he care anyway? Mauja would never forget the raging flames destroying the Edge, the careless rage which flung an ancient mare aside like nothing of value.

There was much Mauja would never forget.

"I hope you found your heaven," he said instead, his voice cold iron. He couldn't bring himself to feel in this mess—could barely care, because the fury was so much larger than his soul.

It was easier not to feel.

Easier not to feel the dread weight crawling through his veins, the erratic sparks of anger, of fury, of helplessness—the bitter rage at the cruelty of the world, of the gods, of his own god-damned past. How many children hadn't he left orphaned? How many lives hadn't he torn asunder? How much destruction hadn't he wrought?

The least he could—should—do was feel. Give in. Collapse. Acknowledge the suffering death brought.

Stop being such a fucking coward who hid within the ice.

When Psyche died, he had cried. When Psyche died, he had lost himself in an unreality, a place where nothing seemed real. "She won't wake," he finally told the little girl, reaching down to touch her.

She was cold as Death itself.

Cold as her mother lying in the pool of her own blood.

"She's left us." Quiet voice, quiet words, quiet eyes; he breathed against the snow-cold skin.

He wasn't strong enough to feel. He wasn't strong enough to let the anger break his skull apart; to let the sorrow burst his heart; to let anything but faint echoes of the emotions into existence. Ashamed, he closed his eyes. The only thing he felt was the weight in his heartbeat, the dissonance in his veins; a quiet song humming in his blood, a dirge for all that which was lost.

We all lose, in the end.

He had saved her once, but he couldn't save her again.

He was the Light of Dawn, the last, bright star to forsake the sky—

He was no angel.

Night had fallen, and there would be no dawn again. Silence had taken yet another, and silent she would remain.

(At long last, he glanced down, and saw the bloodied horn.)

And silence reigned in his heart, too.

[ @Erthë @Maren ]