It was such a shame, wasn't it? If things had only played out differently, if the cards had not fallen in their damning pattern, what would have happened? Surely it wouldn't have ended this way. Mauja was, after all, not cruel — at least, not anymore. Not today. Not when the snow fell gently from the sky, and when his heart felt burdened, his mind drifting aimlessly like a lost ship in a storm. He had changed, he was different, and in some ways, he wasn't different at all. So what could've, would've, happened, if one small, brown dragon hadn't loved so fiercely?

Maybe they could've even become friends.

Perhaps he'd thought time would've tempered the wounds, just like skin closed and flesh knitted, the way scars faded with time, but his was just too recent. Mauja hadn't meant to scare him, had approached openly, hadn't even meant to speak of times past. Heck, he didn't know what he'd meant, but it certainly wasn't what happened. Maybe his isolation had made him forget the reputation he had once had, or maybe it was his own attempts at curing the ever-present bitterness that had him deluded, thinking he wasn't perceived as evil as he sometimes thought?

Whatever the case, Torasin suddenly reacted, his ears playing nervously even as his green eyes fell upon Mauja — and Mauja, fool that he was, thought to soothe him. Still the white lamb, his lips had barely begun to tug into his characteristic soft smile, when two things happened nearly at the same time. First, his name and rank spilled forth in a way that didn't suggest a friendly greeting, and secondly, an ear-splitting shriek had his heart freezing, head jerking up as his blue eyes left the golden man, and was met by —

— fire.
The one thing he hated, feared, the most.

There was no time to waste on screaming, no time to waste on curses and despair; Mauja's forebody rose sideways into the air, his head straining left, away from the oncoming rush of heat. It crackled as it shot towards him, narrowly missing the right side of his face before colliding with the flat of his shoulder.

He didn't know what to think anymore. He was hurled back through time, into memories, of his entire body ablaze, inside out — the skin on his shoulder and barrel cracked and charred, the scent of burning hair and flesh spreading, and Mauja lashed out in blind terror; ice, fed by the excruciating pain, erupted at the edges of his mind. As the ground grew jagged with half-a-foot high spikes, he tried to grip the body of Kiba in his mind and load his veins with them. Anything, just to make it stop.

There was no thought behind the attack. There hadn't been any plan, any desire to harm: only instinct.
What a pity that the world is such a dark and cruel place.