He had never been given time to say goodbye. To properly take leave of his forested halls, to move on. It all had happened so fast — he had known war was brewing, but one day it had just been there, on his doorstep. With fire they had come, Helovia united against them. With fire they had hurt him and his friends, teeth and claw and hoof striking at them, horns seeking their flesh. He had burned with them, a fire on his flesh which had left no marks when it went out. And then, he had burned, when a dragon had unleashed her flame upon his back. If he allowed his mind to roll back, through the days and ages... he could still feel it, hear it, the crackle as it pushed through the air, the first tingle in his nerves when its fiery tongue licked his hide.. the way his skin dried, cracked, the scent of melting hair.

The agony.

He gave his pale head a shake, trying to clear the fog of those memories. Afterwards, it had been a blur of stress and pain, of trying to keep tabs on his scattered herd and bring them together. Infection had claimed him until Tor, that equine mare, had healed him, but even after that he had not been given long. Barely had he seen most of them all safe to the Steppe when he had.. disappeared.

He had never been allowed the time to say goodbye to the Edge, to the Moon. Her crescent bathed the world in silver, the fog around his hooves swirling in the way it always had, shimmering in its mysterious way. The silver traced the edges of his body, made him glow, sparkled in the frost upon hoof and horn, and accented the edges of five raven feathers.

The moon laid across his eye like a silver mask, even as he felt his faith waning.

What had once been a fierce, if but one-sided, love, was losing strength. He was losing strength, as he stood there, a ghost from the past, just outside the border, staring up at the gentle slope and the dark trees. They smelled of fire, flickers of orange seen in the night. Dragons. There were too many dragons there, and in his heart he felt the first trickles of rage. They kept fires going. They kept fires going in a forest which had burned twice in one year, with no respect for the memory of the trees that had died — fire, in a place which should be allowed to sleep for ages under the soft blanket of cool snow, sleep until the terror and anguish faded from between its thick trunks.

Mauja slowly looked aside from the kingdom he had once owned. Tonight he was powerless to stop them, and how they defiled the hallowed ground he had walked.

Roy, open.