i am the vanguard of your destruction

Dragons were singing—low blending with high-pitched, wails and keens, a deeper rhythm, a harmony akin to a heartbeat (—and the sun is rising, the dawn brilliant, golden and bright). Voice-threads wove together in a complex pattern, yet so easy to understand, spinning as easily as leaves in a storm, yet with all the fervor and intensity of earthquakes; it drifted in on the wind, tugged at his heart, and carried it up, up into the air, as if he flew himself, and in the highest notes of that hymn he knew—

It was a song of mourning.

And with that knowledge, Mauja's heart fell from its divine heights, fragile glass shattering on cold, dark rocks. The song which had borne him had not been strong enough to keep the weight of his darkness afloat, and his consciousness sheared through the dirge with a kind of split-second clarity that, for a moment, made him feel as if he understood everything.

But the power-lines in the map of his head flashed once, so bright, too bright, and then it ceased, fell dark again, and left him feeling bewildered and gutted by the sorrow in those draconian voices—for they still sang their haunting song of mourning, tugging at his heart (at his soul—) in a way he would not have been able to understand had he not lost so much.

Tentatively, the sunlight fell upon his pristine form, touching him with hesitance as if not sure if he would simply burn up in its full splendor. It glittered along the curve of his pale back, struck sparks in his glistening eyes, and, finally, smiled into the misty forest as the once-Queen slunk away through the trunks. Blinded by the dragonsong he did not think; he did not even know that he moved towards it, drawn in by the power of those alien voices that haunted the early morning.

As he moved the owls came, one after the other, sharp talons pressing into scarred skin, eyes blank, hearts patient, minds wary. They had little love for dragons, but in this time of need, how could they deny him?

How could they deny the feeling of a heart cracking, of ice breaking, of a kind of lost confusion, like that of a child stumbling in the dark, searching for what comfort it could find? (—but finding none.)

Trailed by rabbits of mist Mauja swept out of the surrounding forest, leaving streaks of frost upon the fallen leaves his hooves touched, a trace shining in the splendor of the sun.

And the hesitant fumbling of his steps, the blind tug on his heart which had drawn him to this place of grief, it shattered, and Mauja stood there, raw with his own agony, eyes still wet. It was a graceless pose, as if he'd stumbled to a sudden halt, something blank in his gaze and his long, silken hair just hanging—

Mirage lay upon the ground. For a moment, that was all he saw, that black fucking bitch in his homeland, the lands she had once taken from him, the lands which had been traumatized by so much fire and still she set new ones in it, with no care for how the forest had burned, how it had screamed in agony as the fire had eaten and eaten and eaten away; he had heard it, its deep, rumbling woe, the sharp crack of it breaking, and the rising keen of the flames licking at drying wood.

The narrow-minded dragonwhore who had raised a glass wall while screeching about equality and peace and whatever the fuck she had preached, the hypocritical asshole who had passed up on chances and then come back with an army once the opportunity was lost—the one who had called for a trial when Torasin had been found dead, the one who had threatened his life with the idea of her false justice—

The word was bitter and burning on his tongue.

"Justice," he even spat into the grief-struck moment, a foul and harsh word raking across the beauty of the dragons' dirge. If he had come for such a trial, come as an honest man, had told her it had been an accident (—and that was the goddamn truth, Mauja was no murderer, not anymore, not anymore), would she have believed him? Or called for his death, simply because she could not accept that she had been wrong about him?

The blue rage had woken in him, a fury blazing in his eyes, a tension under his snowy white pelt, ice poised, the ground nearly quivering with magic waiting to be unleashed.

All he wanted was to take those last few steps and bash her fucking head in.

But he didn't—because somewhere behind the curtain of anger he had already realized what had happened.

Mirage was dead.

Mirage was fucking dead.

Mauja blinked in the sunlight, tears a mixture of rage and grief sliding from pale eyes. Mirage was dead—he had nothing to gain here. He had no score to settle. He had—he had nothing, and with no anger to hold on to he was lost again, as lost as he had been when he had come here, drawn in by the sound of dragons in mourning. The blaze in his eyes was gone, replaced with a sort of desperate confusion—a sob tripped up his breathing, and he glanced to the left, to the right, but it offered no clarity.

A mare he had seen before stood with Mirage, along with a young stallion he also vaguely knew. Something about red dragons eating and the earth bucking beneath him—something about burnt shoulders and sun gods. Something—oh, shit. Wasn't that Mirage's daughter? Wasn't that what that arrogant little fuck had said at the same meeting?

The fuck am I— "—supposed to do?" he shouted at the forest, something running rampant in his veins, in his blood (—it is fear).

Breathe—

The morning air smelled of tears and recent death, Mirage's familiar scent drawn deep into his lungs, and for not the first time he wondered why he had hated her so. In his past, there was so much he had forgiven, forgotten, let go of, come to terms with, but she had always burned in his mind like a beacon of all things terrible, all things unjust, the centerpoint of all his hatred. What was it about her that provoked him so? That she had bested him in battle? He was used to losing wars—

Maybe anger that she had tried to follow her dreams while he had crushed his. Maybe jealousy that she could spread her wings to the skies and fly. Maybe because she gained followers even though he thought she was stupid—and so he ought to be angry at the world, for failing to see that she was stupid.

He found himself standing over her, peering down at her black shape, and the golden dragoness fallen with her. How could he have hated her so much? How could she have posed such a threat to his existence? She was tiny—a small, slender black mare, unassuming ..soft-looking. Perhaps he had hated her for where he had always been spectacular in his coat of white with black spots and his imposing height, she had just been a tiny black mare and still she had seemed a fucking goddess of mystery and infinite things and her presence had been so much larger than this mere shell lying empty on his forest floor.

"You know," he was suddenly saying to her, "you're not the only one who is dead. Lace is dead, too. Psyche is dead. Aviya is dead. Snö—" and he choked for a moment, struggling for air through the smothering grief, struggling for blood through the talon gripping his heart with merciless fury, "—is dead, too. d'Artagnan has left. Kou's dead. It's just—" He blinked, trying to clear the tears from his eyes, but they kept falling, blurring up his vision. "I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know what anyone wants from me. I just—" And bitter laughter tore at his throat. "Maybe I should die, too. Since.. since all you other ones are dying. Maybe I'm holding on too hard when all I should do is just .. let go."

Was this the end of an era? Would they fall, one by one, those who had roamed Helovia in those times past? Those who schemed in the darkness of the Edge, only to fall to this mare who now lay dead before him? They had survived the frozen north, found a new God and a new home, but what was left of them now?

One of the mist rabbits nuzzled his right forehoof, and Mauja raised his head into the vibrant sunlight. "Death," he said, a humorless smirk tugging one corner of his mouth up.

He didn't want to deal with this shit anymore.

[ @Amaris @Volterra ]