Well. That went well. Fog-gray eyes lingered upon her muted form, a faint thread of concern worming its way through his heart—her silence was ..disturbing. Had she asked him the very same question, his silence would've been damning. In it would've hung the "yes" whispered in his tensed muscles, the forlorn trajectory of an exhausted heart. But, as the moments lengthened between them—and the yards seemed to lengthen as well, unbridgeable, too long should that spindly form leap from her perch and crash into the waves below—he got the feeling that it was shock stilling her voice.

And after a moment, she laughed—and not as he would've laughed, either, bitter and cynical and full of self-damnation. No: her laugh was full of life, of mirth, of shaking ice shattering and glittering in the sunlight. Suffice to say, jumping seemed to have been the farthest thing from on her mind.

Mauja's ears fell back softly, and with a grunt of acknowledgment he turned his gaze into the gray wall of nothing again. So he'd tipped his hand. For all the good his carefully schooled gaze and cryptic little smiles could do, he'd just hung a sign around his neck stating "HI I THINK DARK AND DEPRESSIVE THINGS". For if not you, then me..?

"No, I'm not! And I really hope you won't either, because catching you would be very difficult."

Waitwhat? Why did she think she had to catch him if he took a leap? What was he to her? (Nothing, nothing, nothing—) The 'brow over his nearest eye arched questioningly as he peered at her. Did she care? (Probably not.) Did she just want to seem good? (Maybe.) Would she actually do it? (Only one way to find out.) The tension returned to his hindquarters, little snakes curling up beneath the skin, drawing his muscles taut as his eyes tried to gauge the milky distance to the actual edge—

"I, um... " Unreadable eyes slid sideways again, a mass of blue-tinged gray focusing on the little sprite. He waited, heart pounding rebelliously. Perhaps she was going to follow it up with I really don't think you should jump, it seems like a stupid idea, but .. no. She hadn't reflected the question back at him; maybe not even the assumption. "You've been living here a long time, right?" He breathed out, white smoke coiling slowly from dark nostrils, and again the tension fell like a cloak from his body and he rocked forward ever so subtly, centering his off-set weight again. In all his years in Helovia, this was probably the first time someone had asked him for a history lesson.

Most Helovians were so obsessed about the future—their future, their glory—that they forgot about the past.

A long, bloodied past, with victories won upon the graves of others—as was the way with war and hatred. But here was one, a young one, thinking that maybe there was something to be had in the past. Arah had come to Helovia after Mauja's unicorns had been cast out. What did she know of those first early, dark years?

Who knew of them at all, but Deimos? Ulrik? Who else was left? Lena had stayed out of it all, after all.

It was an icy claw curling around his heart, a sudden lurch and his knees nearly buckled with the crushing sense of isolation crashing down upon his back (—around his heart). Was there no one else left..? He wracked his brains, but they all turned up dead. Some of the opposition was left alive, but the majority of them were dead or gone as well.

His slightly widened eyes focused again, and his black-rimmed ears swept forward as he once again turned his pale head to look at her. "So what did our most esteemed lady tell you..?"

[ @Erthë! ]

lord, the demands you're making-
help the monster on two feet
walk him down the hall, repeat
and when he's strong enough to stand alone
you'll notice what big teeth . . .