Things didn't always make sense, alright?

(And hearts can't run forever—)

Had they found peace, the Elephant King and the Frozen Light? Had they made amends? Had whatever fragile bond which had begun to pull them together again lasted? Mauja knew that he hadn't been easy—he had never been easy, always a trial to be near him—and that he had, once again, become a ghost. Hours had turned to days had turned to weeks and still he had lingered in the fog like the frost-wraith he had once been. Once had he run across Tembovu since the end of that meeting (—and thinking about it is like a stab going through his heart, a cold lurch, dark claws and guilt, guilt, guilt), and ...

It was something best left untold. Unthought of. He only needed the point of it: it had been a long, long time since that day, and a long, long time since the cursed words had slipped unbidden out of Mauja's mouth, and he was tired now. Tired of running. Tired of barely existing beyond the flighty beat of his heart. Tired of being scared.

But even coming to that point left him more exhausted than he had been when it began; the world was blurry in the sunlight, his pulse a rapid, shallow thing fluttering beneath his skin. No more, he whispered in his mind, no more, but even as he stumbled a little he knew that it was far too late. He should've made amends before it went this far. He didn't care anymore, but it wasn't true—he just didn't have the energy to feel it any more.

Still, it was somewhat of a relief, respite from the towering, black tide threatening to crash down upon him and sweep him away. He took his blessings with his curses and stumbled on.

“Roskuld! Birdsong has come!”

Oh, yeah, because, you know—while you were busy begging for death and going out of your mind, Elding came here, and she's still here, and you don't know why. Idiot. You're not even supposed to know her name, but you do, because her Ma told you, while threatening you to keep yourself to yourself.

For a moment Ophelia shone in his mind, as she had been so long ago—pristine, her white coat cold to look at, her red fringes like a spatter of blood, also cold. Her voice had been cold, too, her judgment icy and pure and as rational as the sharp edge of a knife. And as Mauja pressed his blue eyes shut his heart ached for what had been, and what could've been, a future (and a love) he had bled out over his chest as he cut his own throat.

It was an old pain. Decisions had been made, for better or for worse, and hearts had been hurt. He swallowed. He couldn't turn back time, go back to that point and pick up where they'd left off—they had both changed, irrevocably, and what they had become...

No point thinking about it.

But it had been a long, long time since he had.

The crystal staff was slung over his back, as usual, and the owls went on ahead to listen in as Mauja picked up his pace, knees and thighs aching with exhaustion, and answered a summons which was not his. But it was important all the same, because—

Because he had no idea—

So he ran, a fleet-footed ghost sweeping through thin spring mist and sometimes making the most irrational of choices, like breaking out from the trees by ruining his rather graceful leap over a stand of bushes by stumbling in the landing. Rugged, ragged, still thin, he caught his balance before he had the opportunity to somersault. He blinked sluggishly, drank in the scene as he kept moving at a dogged trot. There was Erthë, all a-glitter in the sunlight, and there was Tembovu, looking rather happy (shitshitshit) and there was Roskuld Elding, and the elephant cuddling some skunk he knew was Chico, and—

—and there was Mauja, slowing to a walk, sides heaving more than they should've, and his black nostrils were wide as he carelessly heaved his heavy head across Elding's back and whispered, "Stay,".

[ look at this piece of shit table, it's so old it's actually a *table* and not a div XD Though this image is still like, *the* Mauja image to me... @Roskuld @Tembovu ]