það var farið að skyggja og fuglarnir þagnaðir Lost in his thoughts he ignored her soft-spoken question, and it wasn't until his cool eyes regained their clarity, and the feathers had burned, that his wandering mind returned to earth. Slowly he raised his head, somehow surprised to find that no long, sleek feather brushed softly against his neck. His body had known the touch so well, that to be bereft of it felt.. strange. Like expecting something that always came, but suddenly it didn't. A slight frown marred his features and he peered into Leyra's face, then over her back at the stranger as she demanded his name. For several long moments he just stared at the slender unicorn, then the gears of his mind began turning and he realized he'd seen him before. He'd fought for the Foothills, only to yield at Ophelia's request. Mauja had barged in a moment later to steal Phi's attention, but he recalled the cascading fall of his hair, the peculiar patches of white upon his handsome face. And he called himself something that sounded like rocket.

"Mauja," he replied softly, his voice nearly obliterated by the constant churning roar of the fire below. Striped hooves danced dangerously close to the rim as he moved, angling himself to face Locket. Unceremoniously he shoved against Leyra to make sure he had enough space to stand on. "And this is Leyra." Yet standing with the flames bathing his right side, and the air cooling his left, felt wrong, and he was acutely aware of how close he stood to the brim. A single shove.. and he'd fall, too, incinerated within the chasm of fire. He knew the feeling of burning all too well, and did not wish to experience it again. Not trusting the stranger in the familiar body he took a few jagged steps forward. Sometimes when horses changed, it was for the worse. If he didn't know her, didn't recognize her, he trusted her even less. And besides, she'd always seemed vaguely irrational to him.

Aware that he was not himself, that some piece of his soul had fallen to burn with the feathers, he paused where he was. He felt tired, now that the fire in his veins had cooled. Tired, and the hurt was falling down the same steep slope to crash into that pit of exhaustion. Emotionally spent. Strange, that just a single revelation could be so powerful, and silently he mocked himself for his weakness. It had just been a God, but with a single, merciless stroke, he'd ripped old wounds opened and sent his paranoid mind spinning, until he'd worn himself down and buried himself in the ashen layers of bitterness. The hot air buffeted him, and he gave his had a rough shake at Locket's question. "No." His voice had fallen deeper than it usually was, something rough, almost feral, about it. For a moment he seemed content with only that answer, to speak silence, but then he frowned again. "You're Ophelia's man now, aren't you?" Wake up, wake up. Another halting step away from the edge, going down some unknown path in his life after standing at a crossroads.
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