Of course.

The hunger for knowledge was like any other hunger; it demands the grandest, most satisfying of meals, frolics into the buffet when unleashed.

There was one marked difference, though: where food sates hunger, knowledge simply breeds more hunger. When your view of the world expands you start to notice all the holes in the patterns, the flaws in the logic, the shadowed areas of the timeline your eyes trail—then you dive deeper, delve deeper, ever deeper.

And thus, the hunger consumes you; burns you out, leaves you a hollow husk as you lose sight of the world. You can't eat knowledge. You can't eat history—it eats you.

But part of him had wanted her to respond as she did: "Then, tell me everything—"

He would tell her much, but not everything—never everything. Some secrets ought to remain buried, some promises never gone back on. Loyalties to be upheld, even though the rest of the world had forgotten. Mauja's eyes closed, his face serene as his depths shuddered with the power of remembering. Those first, early days with a world ripe for the taking, and powerful allies at his side... His first meeting with the gods; being crowned by the Moon; accompanying d'Artagnan to the Veins to meet Earth and learn about poison; making love to Psyche to seal their future, drunk on life and dreams of glory.

His fire had sputtered and gone out, and now, he, too, was but a memory.

"Seer?" he rumbled, eyes still closed, voice managing to sound vaguely amused. Sightless, his head turned to her, and he gave the distinct impression of peering at her through his closed lids. "My, such aspirations."

As if he had been any less ambitious in his youth.

"But, the first time, then."

And his eyes pressed closer, conjuring up memory upon memory as his voice said nothing; frozen flashes of the north, of grief and guilt and shame driving him from his precious glacial homeland, and the world around him turned to blood and ash and acrid smoke, burning flesh. Leaving, as it would soon be remembered that he, too, was a witch.

And then: "Helovia," he said, voice a quiet rumble as his tail flicked in the still, fog-moist air. "A realm rent by grief and loss and senseless violence. It was not the same as it was today. The Ancient Rotunda had not been ..found, and the dead lands at the southwestern tip was a place known as the Spectral Marsh. In the far north, the entrance to the Aurora Basin was hidden, and there was no way to access the caves beneath the Heart. The God of the Spark was not known; we all thought we had three Gods."

How wrong we were, about so many things.

His eyes opened, but he looked at the horizon, not at her, and his voice was calm; steadfast as the mountains, as his brain ran ahead to filter the story of Mauja from the story of the Edge.

But sometimes, they were hard to tell apart.

"The native population was but a shadow of what it had once been; scattered, few and far between, for all intents and purposes forgotten by their Gods as the three siblings sought to rebuild all that had been destroyed. Their three realms were leaderless, no different from the Wilds in all but memory. Earth's land was known as the Windtossed Foothills then, and was neither more nor less than its name.

"Then, one day, not too long after I came to Helovia, the three Gods returned, and each announced a leader for their realm. Ra the Sun Emissary—" (A name all but forgotten, a name he had not spoken for years and years.) "—was chosen to lead the Dragon's Throat, and ruled his lands alone. He was the head of the Order of the Sun, accepting any who claimed to worship the Sun God. Gossamer the Benevolent was chosen as Chieftess of the Foothills; she picked Indy the Righteous to lead by her side. And, finally, the Moon appointed as King of the Edge, one Mauja the Frostheart."

And in the same vein, it was hard to tell the history of Helovia apart from the one of the Edge.

"Outside forces gathered in the Wilds of Helovia. A band of moon-worshipers known as the Qian followed their leader, Mirage, and the wandering Pegasus came under the guidance of Kri and her Tuuli. The Edge was spared from the first of the renewed waves of violence; Kri became known as the Resolute after she drove Ra from his throne in the Throat, and the Sun Emissary fell to one of her warriors.

"The Sun, angered by the death of Ra, cursed Helovia with sweltering heat. He appeared in the Edge, burning the forest and the herd; light rains eventually doused the fires, and I went to the other leaders, asking them to come to the Veins with me. Together we approached the two less angry Gods, and they agreed to heal the Edge, for all the good that it did—shortly thereafter, the forests were set on fire again, done by a vindictive mare. I found no time to beseech the Gods again, for Helovia was stirring. Paladin the Valiant rose up against Gossamer, and took the title of Chieftain from her. And after that... We were then a reclusive herd of unicorns, and our tenuous peaces and pacts were not upheld. Promises were broken as the Qian brought both Kri's and Paladin's forces in against us; we fought, we lost, and the Edge entered into a new era.

"While the ousted unicorns fled into the north, and were taken in by the newly appeared Spark and given sanctuary in the Aurora Basin—" (.. but the sentence was already too wrecked for him to fit Psyche the Dark Empress into it, so the name of his once beloved went unsaid) "—the Edge changed. Mirage took the title of Dragonheart, and declared the Edge be a place of peace and acceptance while building a glass wall to keep us out. She placed the dragon glass statue here. She burned pyres in the forest at all times, heedless of its history of burning and the suffering flames had caused. And this, this is the Edge I know the least of. Mirage eventually led together with Thor the Gentle Heart. They remained as they were for a long time, while Helovia changed around them. Ophelia and Ktulu led their mercenary band The Grey to victory in the Foothills, taking it from the absent King of Thieves. Torasin, one of the Moon Doctors, died. Soon thereafter, darkness descended on Helovia.

"The Gods disappeared and left the realm in complete darkness. Nothing worked as it should; magic was erratic at best, dangerous at worst. Why and how the darkness ended I do not know, for I had briefly returned to my homeland." (To fight a war everyone else was too cowardly, too stubborn, to win.)

The only time he had been any kind of honest hero, and it still left a bad taste in his mouth, like ash and rot and foul waste.

"I returned, finding the Edge under the care of Mirage and Lace the Silverthorn, but there was someone else there, too: Kahlua, serving them as Glazier." (It was impossible to keep the pain and the fondness out of his voice.) "The glass wall they begun so long ago was finished—but Helovia was not to be at peace. Darkness swept across the realm again, devouring land after land after land, and almost all caught in the embrace of it were turned into decaying monsters, capable of nothing but vicious blood-lust and savage violence. All the herds fled underground, into the caves by the Heart. The passage to them had opened but recently, and some.. some of us didn't quite make it there in time." Absently, his head turned, black nose brushing against scars lining his flank and back. "I had been gifted with immunity to the curse, but how it was ultimately lifted, I do not know. I left Helovia again, and returned to find it ..saved, but changed.

"Kahlua, now the Sunshower, had been elected to lead the Edge, together with Kaj, the Stormbringer. Deimos the Reaper remained as Lord of the Basin, together with Illynx the Gilded Blade. Africa the Starry-Eyed and Ampere, the Mother of Companions—" (whatever the hell that means) "—were chosen to lead the Dragon's Throat. The Foothills had been sundered, becoming the Hidden Falls, and placed under the care of Midas the Gallant and Seele the Necromancer. The Ancient Rotunda appeared; the Marsh remained dead, screened by shadows.

"And then, the murders began."

He had drifted, in and out, but hadn't firmly returned until he found Tolio dead in the Frozen Arch. His eyes closed again, lids pressed together. "The Gods had, as a sign of unity and peace, made a floating island—Caela Insula, the Sky Island." He paused, again, thinking of the black body laid out for all to see upon it. "Helovia chased itself trying to figure out who left the trail of bodies behind—at one point, Kahlua accused me of having done it, threatening to drag me back to the Edge in chains. I talked her out of it, and shortly thereafter, the truth came to light: the God of the Moon had done it, using Gaucho as her proxy. In a final act of defiance she attempted to destroy those who accused Gaucho, but Hototo the Earthsinger, the child of Ktulu and Earth, threw himself between them.. and died for his valiance."

(And his sister had fled, crying and broken, with only Mauja to witness her grief.)

"Kaj and Kahlua elevated Archibald the Dauntless to lead with them. They were uncomfortable to remain in the Edge—Moon had simply been banished to it, confined, and if her siblings ever punished her, I do not know of it. So, the Edge allied with both the Basin and the Throat, and made short work of the Falls, where Seele had passed on and been replaced by Ghost the Cadaverous. It was a disgusting thing hardly worthy of being called a 'battle'. Midas had been, as noted, taken prisoner, and as I understood it, he died in the north. Archibald and Kaj became the new leaders, and a handful of the minds behind the invasion's planning let it be known the Edge would need new leaders.

"And so, I found myself there, unimpressed with the others who sought to rule. Ophelia, then Lady of the Basin, called for those who sought to lead the warriors. Kahlua, caught between two herds, called for diplomats. The diplomats departed with Kahlua for the Throat, and somehow, I found myself entering the fray with them.

"Ophelia had chosen Torleik the Bloodskald as King; Kahlua chose me, and I named myself Queen. We agreed to not rebuild the wall, which fell into ruin at the same time that the Hidden Falls were made, by the way. Elsa was declared our General, and at some point, I found myself being referred to as 'the Frozen Light'." Slowly, he shook his head. "We began to grow. Rebuild. Tembovu came to us as a Glazier. Lace returned, but in a fit of true male pigheadedness on both our parts it ended up with me beating him senseless and nearly killing him—I heard he died later, for some other reason, in the Deep Forest." (Where everyone goes to die.) "And then—the Rifts opened. New lands were found, old Gods destroyed, and lives lost."

He paused, again, thinking of Shadow's death.

"I saved your mother's life once. I could not save her again."

He opened his eyes, and blinked.

"My eldest daughter died in the final battle. I abdicated on the spot, promoting Tembovu in my stead. You know what happened after that, how Torleik was stripped of his position, and Elsa made Queen. Shortly thereafter, Mirage came to the Edge's borders to die."

He shifted, subtly, the tiniest of shudders—or was it just the wind, ruffling his mane?—passing through his body. Time was such a long and damned thing, remembering a curse as much as a blessing. After a moment, he snorted.

"I probably forgot a lot, and there's gaps in my knowledge, too."

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 . . .