He let the silence be, simply walked across the sun-warm earth. Tall, coarse grasses, still green but not with the vibrant hues of spring, waved gently in the faint breeze, whispering words not meant for the ears of equines. The gull cried its telltale, ugly song, a keen reminder of life in the Edge—a life a long time ago. His tail lashed once against his hocks, sticking against his muddied legs again. Curiously, he peered at her from the corner of his eye. What was she thinking? Was she thinking about herself, or the little bit of truth he'd revealed about himself? He hoped it was the former. He didn't need more mares investigating the state of his soul and mind.

When she finally spoke again, it was a question about him, but not what he had feared. He let his breath out in a long sigh. Why, indeed? Maybe because loneliness didn't affect him the same way as it did others. True, he nearly always enjoyed a spot of company to keep his rambling mind distracted, an intellectual conversation to entertain him when the duties of life became dull and boring.. the chance to glean more of whom it was he talked to, little bits of secrets slipping out twined around words. Or maybe long stories willingly shared, of foreign cultures far away, or other such things—but even when left to his own devices, Mauja never truly suffered. At the end of the day he talked to himself, because it was better than nothing else, but being alone did not plunge his spirits into deep depressions. He was fine on his own, but enjoyed leading, guiding, protecting... So while ruling with his own brand of altruism, it was as much for himself as for his people. He craved the status in society, but never sought to hold it with corruption, fear, and greed.

"Company has its pros and cons," he replied with faint humor. It was a sad thing that she, who desired company, apparently had been left alone for so long, when there were others more fit to bear the burden of loneliness. "Though right now, it's for.. political reasons, I guess you can say." He gave a small shrug. In terms of Helovia, he wasn't downplaying it: but in terms of the impact it had had upon his life and mind, he was. Helovia cared naught of who sat upon the Basin throne or what that mind dreamed of, but for Mauja, coming to the conclusion that he could no longer side with the Plague's ideals had been.. overwhelming, truly. And still was. Frankly, he didn't know how to act if he came across one of them, what to say or do—or what they would say or do. So he kept to himself, simply because he wasn't ready for that confrontation yet.

And whoever ruled the Basin could keep the crown. He wasn't interested in it right now.

"Why are you alone?" he asked, gently. Any follow-up question to his own answer would skirt onto dangerous ground, to things he did not want to contemplate nor answer—things that went too deep, and were too dark. He would not betray the Plague, anyway. He wasn't ready. He hadn't processed it enough. Didn't fully know where he stood. And so, he leaped onto the chance to divert the conversation to her, away from him, away from all things grim and dark and twisted. "If you don't mind me asking, that is," he added after a heartbeat, an afterthought of courtesy, knowing what it was like to value one's privacy and secrets highly—but also craving her answer, because if there was one thing Mauja devoured, it was the knowledge of others'.

She was silent for a little while—not that he faulted her for it. You had to take your time to figure out what to say, if anything at all, if you thought you could trust whoever it was that was asking... If not answering was worth it, if answering was worth it, lots of little things. In the end, it came down to what you thought was safe, decent, and what you actually wanted to say. Or rather, if you wanted to answer. It was what had surprised him about his encounter with Nyx.. that something in him had wanted to answer her probing questions, even though the words that left him were tinged with darkness.

His black-rimmed ears perked up, then one drifted sideways and back, listening to the brief, hesitant answer. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her gaze cast downwards, as if somehow ashamed of what she'd been through—but shouldn't those guilty be ashamed of what they'd done, instead of she? If unfortunate events and bad luck had hounded her, was she to blame? No. She was not like him: she hadn't chosen her darkness.

At least, it didn't sound like it, from the way she'd put it.

His steps slowed slightly, large head turning sideways again to better look at her. "Brisa," he said gently, hoping her name would catch her attention; a few years ago he would've thought she deserved it, wouldn't he? Simply because she had no horn? Yet now he found himself thinking it was a sad thing she'd suffered so much, and that it had all started before she'd been old enough to make any kind of damning decisions for herself. "You're in a new place now. Don't hold on to the past so hard that you lose sight of the future."

[ Short post wanted to be short, so I let it. :P ]

And maybe it was time that he followed his own advice—let go of the bitterness, the hate, all the blackness he carried around in him like a plague-cloud. All the guilt, shame, regret and self-loathing. Maybe it was time that he pulled himself from the surface of his own black sea, and rose into the moonlight, above all the negativity, and all the crippling, vindictive rancor. But if there was one thing haunting him, hounding him across the face of the earth, it was one thing: that he had never learned how to forgive himself.

".. especially when abrasive pigheaded single sighted morons are involved." It would be incredibly inappropriate to laugh, but her words made him want to, just as much as they made him wonder what, exactly, she had been put through. Life was hard for mostly everyone, and that was a truth you couldn't escape, but life was harsher on some. Starving, or being beaten, was like trying to choose between pest and cholera. Both were bad, both were hard and harsh, but being the victim of another's rage and ideas usually left deeper wounds. If he had to pick between being at the mercy of nature, or at the mercy of some idiot's whims, he'd pick nature any day of the week. Then, at least, it was only him and the world. Everything was so much harder when other people got involved.

"Mmh," he hummed when she fell silent, ears flickering to the rhythm of his pacing. "I can imagine it has not been easy, having had all your choices stripped from you.. and all your faith in the world crumbled." His voice was soft, almost tentative as he navigated the waters of words. While he had a hunch of what she'd been through, the gist of what kind of life she'd led, he didn't want to make assumptions. It would be rude. He was silent for a step or two. You could lose faith in everything all by yourself, too. And to regain it.. if he ever found out how to do it, he'd share the secret, but even after so many years he still didn't know how to. "I'm sorry life has treated you this way so far," he finally said, wondering why such darkness could exist in a sunlit, warm world, here and now, wrapped in the words between them; wasn't it too beautiful a day to let such things exist?

But alas—he was done with living life with his eyes closed.

[ Don't worry, it does! ^^; And this post is full of incredibly weird syntaxes and adjective combinations and.. lmao I don't even know, I'm rambling so bad but I feel like it's coming out like.. I mean.. "thoughtful ears".. come on. :| what am I writing. ]

Maybe it was not his fault that the world had been harsh to Brisa, but it was the kind of illogical injustice that made him seethe, blood chilling with the darkness in his veins; on one hand, he believed no one deserved misery. And on the other, he had often doled it out himself, separating lovers, ruthlessly dictating how the lives of others would be.. a sobering thought, yet another nail hammered into the coffin of his past and secrets. I'm different now something in him whispered stubbornly, I know how to value life despite its differences, and in the sunlight, that was easy to believe. But whatever his internal struggle, in the light, the angel's bright wings blotted out its shadow the carrion crow, and the only thing existing was his strange, deeply rooted anger at the unjustified injustices of the world.

"Time does," he agreed quietly, thinking of snowy vistas far to the north and cold, bitter nights with the taste of blood in his mouth and filling up his nose with its scent.. and of how deep despair, shame and guilt can be—and how far away they were now, those emotions. Some were closer than others, but not for the same reasons, not anymore. With emphasis on "most" things he added to himself, unwilling to say it aloud; with every word Brisa said, she suddenly seemed more and more fragile, and the last thing he wanted was to cloud the bright light she clung to, the hope of a better future. It could come to her, if she tried hard enough, and to try she needed faith and strength, and if he gave her doubts—told her that no matter how much time passed, some things would never heal—would she still have faith and strength? Or would she crumble in the face of such cruel hopelessness?

He didn't want to know. Didn't want to try and find out. Wasn't that cruel in the sunlight.

Somehow he'd expected a lull in the conversation, for the rhythm of their walk to silence their tongues—he was going along at a languid pace, slower now that they were fixed in the eye of warmth—but the sound of her voice broke his budding reverie before his mind had the chance to carry him away on the currents of thought and sunlight.

It was a tale he didn't know if he was worthy of listening to, if he ought to be trusted with fragments of what others had been through, but at the same time he was deathly curious of all things and drank her words up with thoughtful ears. She spoke of loss of life and the gaining of some semblance of strength, enough strength to break away, and try to end up somewhere new, somewhere better—and if his notion was anything to go by, she had. Helovia was far from perfect, not even a flawed paradise because paradise it was not, but it was a better place than others. He'd been around a bit, in the outside world. He'd often pondered his kinship to this corner of the planet, but never found any real answer.

"No, Brisa. You are no stupid." He didn't have the time to wonder why she would think that, fleetingly assuming it was because she had enough bad experiences to last her a lifetime as his mind mulled over her story. When he spoke again, it was in a soft, thoughtful voice, wanting to help her make sense of it but hesitant to assume too much. "Perhaps the child's death made you understand that death is not what we should want from life.. whether you knew it or not at the time? And in that, I expect some part of us would find the strength to break away, and go somewhere else.. to eventually, dare to dream..." His eyes wandered to the sky, to the faint wisps of clouds and the birds playing in the air; soon, they would turn south, away from the winter and snow. Absently he added, "Maybe you made yourself survive, so you one day could carry another child, to raise and love," as you yourself were not.