His mind was a pendulum swinging between two extremes: apathy and agitation. There was no steadfast rhythm, nothing like the drum-beat of a relaxed heart, simply long, jagged movements, or fast-paced switches. And sometimes, some strange equilibrium held him for long, long moments, until either force won out and the whole movement triggered again. Slow descents and lightning strikes, from the pangs of loss at leaving his brother to that whole debacle with Nyx at the Veins and the apathy when he met Parelia and Silk, and the slow, careful flicker of life Circuta breathed into him: and between all those moments, he'd swung from one end of the reach to the other, his soul out on some kind of roller-coaster ride, uncertain of where he was heading, or what he was doing, or what he even wanted to do. He was plagued by the desire to solve everything now and his inability to discern what "solving it" meant. So he struggled, uselessly, against himself, and simply plodded on in the same well-worn tracks, looking for some peace that lasted longer than half a day, and something more worthwhile than wasting time chatting with strangers.

Not that chatting with strangers was a bad way to pass time, at least not normally, but whenever the restless frustration came upon him, he simply wanted to eat the face of whoever was nearest and run away screaming until he settled down again. Either that, or his emotions overwhelmed themselves and lay like beached whales for a while, and his mind would whir numbly. That was what had happened the last time he came here, with that vile Silk trying to cozy up to a not too receptive mare, but this time.. this time, a long morning's unbroken rest had soothed his heart, and his mind. He was no closer to achieving whatever it was he wanted to achieve, but he wasn't climbing on the walls of his skull at least. It was progress, and the steadfast shuffle of feet over earth was soothing, too. The simply beauty of the world coupled with the simple thing of walking, of the fine machinery of a body moving, without thought, yet somehow gracefully, perfectly. Even though his mind was elsewhere it was still in his feet, lifting over roots and rocks.

"Well things have been rather complicated for me before I came to Helovia..." You don't say. The unwanted, the disgraced, the lost and the misplaced—outcasts and vagabonds and royalty fallen into the dust, fanatics and victims.. they all came to Helovia. They left their tarnished pasts for one reason or another, some casting them off entirely, some to erase the blemishes and start over with half-truths. They were the ones who no longer fit in the perfect pictures of their homelands, the ones who took to the four directions of the world and left. Some, came here. Mauja: failed soldier turned mercenary, witch-hunter. Redeemed, and now a hero from whence he came. He watched her, his white-brown shadow, knew that she was another of the lost and tattered souls to have come here. She said as much herself. But what was she? Who had she been, what had she been through? Which demons were hers, to haunt her in the darkness? What did she fear?

"We can search all our lives for that, and never truly find it," he said in a low voice, turning his head back forward to see where he was going again. "Or find it and lose it, over and over again. The world is ever-changing, and where we belong today, we might not belong tomorrow." The silence felt abrupt to him, as he swallowed what else he might've said; he wasn't sure, but.. he felt like whatever place he had held in Helovia, he no longer had. Whether it was because they would reject him, or because he had cast it aside, he wasn't sure. But there was truth in the back of his mouth, waiting to take flight from his tongue time and again, and hammer the coffin nails in deeper. Some ruses you can only live for so long before you either become them, or suffocate, and throw them off.

Mauja closed his eyes for a moment. He hated not knowing who he was, or what he wanted.