Mauja Frosthjärta

[ NO THEY ARE NOT ]

Dig up her bones but leave the soul alone...

Lies. All lies, thrones built on the backs of others, castles made out of wind and swirling snow, with no walls but words and groundless conviction. Where the kings and queens ruled with blackened hearts and let their minds sleep behind closed eyes, while pretending the sunlight cascaded in like glory, when in truth it was dark and damp, foul and smelling of death and decay.

And for a long time, he'd been the blind king sitting upon the throne of skulls, listening to the groan of those it stood upon, denying the fact that it was just the groaning of his soul slowly dying.

In the end, you kill yourself along with the rest.

Unless you break away.

But there's a reason few do. There's a reason he'd kept his head down and tried to keep going, all those oaths and promises, a brotherhood: they'd said brother and sister, family, and leaving that isn't easy. Not when it brought to mind just how keenly you cared for them, despite the darkness in their hearts and minds. And it tasted vile, betraying your shared morals and ideas the moment they walked out the door and out of sight. His heart was still thundering. If this was honesty, if this was living for yourself—he wasn't sure he'd made a good bargain. He didn't want to spend every day with this; it was too much, too vibrant and real, raising its head like a sea-monster and roaring at the skies. And there was nothing he could do to quieten it, except kill it and return to what he'd been, a meaningless existence, leading with an empty heart.

"A crime of passion," she murmured, as if his judge; he clenched his jaws harder and closed his eyes. A crime. Death was death, wasn't it? And condemning someone to it for what they hadn't done..? Wasn't that the definition of murder? Didn't he know all too keenly how it was to be on the receiving end of that? A wanted man, for the death of Torasin.

I didn't murder him.

".. I never understood why." But he did, all too keenly. "Power," he breathed through his tense jaws, ears falling back slowly, the spitting image of desolation and mournful loneliness. "Try to convince an army to kill those they do not hate, take the homes from their friends." He shook his head solemnly, long white hair stirring against a thick, tense neck. "You need a cause. It's all about tradition. Do you use a grudge, or traditional rivalry? Or do you invent one, such as racism?" His voice was oddly soft, truth and tactic slipping from a philosophical mind which had seen and shed too much blood—and maybe the worst thing was that he knew it wasn't the end of it. There would never be an end to it. He was not meant for total peace, far too restless and haughty. He'd come to realize that while he could no longer stand by the Plague.. he would not cease to hate idiots, nor to want to rid the world of them. It had just become a matter of re-defining his use of the term "idiot".

"When was the last time?" He had not looked at her for a long time, locked in his quiet self-condemnation, staring out across blue lava and the sunlit sea—but then he did, neck slowly bending, defying its ice-like appearance, and blue eyes falling on hers. She was looking at him as if he was a mystery to solve, a keen curiosity he didn't deserve, for all she'd find beneath his skin was darkness. The last time I what? he thought, not quite sure what she was asking and unwilling to make a fool of himself by assuming the wrong things. Hadn't he just told her he didn't believe in those old, worn lies anyway? His cold silence held a moment longer, something soft and sad hinting behind the icy guard of his eyes, until finally he spoke the thought aloud.

"The last time I what?"

A million miles from home, I'm frozen to the bones, I am... a soldier on my own, I don't know the way.