það var farið að skyggja og fuglarnir þagnaðir Someone, a long time ago, had told him that lies and secrecy will be the downfall of any great leader or nation. And in that moment, he understood part of it: not because lies and guerrilla wars were dishonest (if they even were that), but because the things you were not allowed to tell anyone wanted to leap out of your mouth so bad, as if keeping them inside would make your heart explode. The words were choking up his lungs, numbing his tongue, and he kept swallowing them over and over. Was this the price he was paying for trying to come back to life? That his inherent honesty would turn all of his plans to ash? He remained silent for a long time after Mesec had spoken, still staring at the jagged horizon, eyes guarded; Mauja was a talented liar, or at least, he had been, until he had learned in the time streams what untruth could do to you. But being talented at something didn't mean you enjoyed doing it. He would rather sweep Helovia off its feet with an army, brute force and the splatter of blood, but Helovia was too vast a foe. There were times for frontline crashes, and times for subtle tricks, and this was not the time for the former.

So it was either subtle tricks, or sit and wait for better times that would never come.

"Then why do you not stop?" Mesec had asked him, and Mauja wondered if that was how simple the world could be. To him, it was a horribly naive opinion, but then again, they were worlds apart; Mauja was old and bred from a different sort, different blood in his veins. Sometimes, you had to do difficult things, and simply stopping was not an option. Maybe his tired heart wanted to, but he wouldn't allow himself to. His comfort was nothing in the long run.

"Nothing is ever easy, is it, Mesec?" he murmured quietly after what seemed an eternity of silence. Slowly, the frost-wraith's neck bent and his eyes returned to the moon-white ones of the god-child. Once, his own eyes had looked like that at night. "It's a fool's hope, that things will pass, or simply solve themselves, and I am a fool." A heartbeat's silence, surprise at the genuine desire to be able to tell someone, but the only one he could confide in was miles away in the cold of the mountains. No matter how much he wanted to lift the burden from his heart, he simply couldn't let Mesec know. "I wish I could tell you, but I'm afraid I can't. Please, do not ask about it." And again, his pale eyes left Mesec's young face and found the horizon, narrowing as the first rays of sunlight arced across the peaks and stung his eyes. His path, for now, was a lonely one, and one he must navigate alone. And his only hope was that his plans would come to fruition before the end, or he would die a man who had wasted all his breaths on a pointless task and given up his chances at the things that mattered the most to others. Dedication to a futile quest would not earn him longevity on the tongues of others.
þegar úlfarnir opnaði augu hans í myrkrinu.