Mauja Frosthjärta

"What is so dangerous on the surface?" He was beginning to regret his choice to eat more. His muzzle was against the ground, lower jaw grinding slightly from side to side, but to speak, he would need to hoist his head up again. Reluctantly he swallowed, and hauled his head up a little higher. Amazing, how much one head can pound. And it was doing it all by itself, too. Just wonderful. "Shadow creatures," he responded, each word painstaking and carefully pronounced, flown from an aching mind to a tired tongue. His voice was barely more than a rumble and a whisper, carried through the still, silent air but with no force behind it. "A child, with a wolf's head." A child with a wolf's head, whose teeth had slid through skin like a hot knife through butter, leaving long, red stains and putrid flesh. If Mauja had meant to say more, describe Ktulu and the hell-mare who had woken him, it was lost. The graceful descent of the dragon eclipsed his attention, one blue eye tracking it slowly as it fell to land upon the moss. It had stopped hissing. Had stopped acting like a menace.

The colt was proving to be less of a pain than Mauja had first expected. Of course, the first blurted query had been as blunt and head-on as to be expected of a child his age, but if he had a leaven of morbid curiosity, it was well hidden by some kind of concern. It was touching, almost, that a stranger—a young stranger who likely had little concept of altruistic kindness—could seem so caring, of another stranger. One who was nothing but a broken piece of horseflesh lying on the ground, chewing moss like it was his lifeline. Unable to make heads or tails of it, he couldn't put his hoof on what was the strangest with the whole thing, but something was just.. strange. Everything was strange. But his name was Abraham, it was a good, solid name, and then everything really derailed.

He cut himself off mid-sentence, and turned to look at something in the vicinity. It wasn't just a glance to see what was around, but a pointed look, sort of like what the hell are you doing here?, and just as Mauja began to turn his head to try and see what it was, an oddly familiar voice cut through the pleasant air in an unpleasant way, and Abraham jerked around. "Why... Are... You.. Here?!" The growl was unpleasant, grating against his ears, and as the mare went on, it still took him quite some time to realize that she was, indeed, talking to him. And it had been a jaguar, that thing to have caught the child's attention at first, and slowly, slowly, Mauja's head swung to watch the mare. His eyes traveled up from heavy hooves to strong, black legs, up a bleeding chest to a bleeding face, all piercing blue eyes and white lightning stripes. A horn spiraled from her forehead, voice spitting venom and eyes a-gleam. She wore a smile he could only call deranged.

It was with a kind of slow, slack-jawed feeling that Mauja listened to her tirade, and to the colt, who moved to stand between them, lowering his horns in obvious threat and telling her to back off; a sentiment shared by the dragon (had he really disliked it first? his prejudice wasn't doing her justice, and he quickly amended his opinion of it to something a lot more benevolent). Inwardly, Mauja smiled, still not quite comprehending everything that was being said but pleased someone had waved something sharp in Delinne's face on his behalf.

And was that Circuta hovering somewhere behind Delinne, looking quite perplexed and lost?

He drew a deep breath in through wide nostrils, tried to clear his head even as he listened to the many cruel words falling from Delinne's tongue like poison water, pus bleeding from an infected wound. Some part of his mind told him he owed her as much, for what he'd done, the games he'd played with her on the chess board, but the major part of him was just annoyed she was taking it all out on him. ".. Isn't it ironic that you seemed to have escaped death... when death is all you deserve?" It sounded so much like that pegasus girl by the Heart, who yelled at him that he deserved it, too, that he had to wonder what was up with him and deserving what he got. As if Karma ruled it all, when it was just the actions of mortals. By now, his ears had fallen back, but through the haze and the pounding of his head, the only expression on his face was one of polite disinterest, as if he really couldn't be bothered with her right now. And if he could've, he would've told him his office was closed, and she could come back another day, please and thank you.

As it was, he couldn't tell her to just piss off, but the ever-patient King had no patience, not when sick and bleeding and tired and not even a king, despite her bold flaunting of his ex-title. Truly, it was flattering, the respect she had held for him: the respect which made her tongue call him such fancy things, and hate him so much. Flattering, and bothersome, that he'd been enough of an idiot to lose it all.

Abraham was silent, but Circuta butted in, shoving past them to put down flowers by his maw. He felt a bit dumb, just lying there in their midst—dumb, and vulnerable. But Delinne wasn't enough of a reason to get up. Getting up would mean acknowledging her as a threat.

No, he was more powerful on the ground, listening in with black-rimmed ears to the low murmur of the Nightingales' voice, like a black creek on a starless night. He grunted in response, not finding it in him to distrust her. Irma peered down at her, chuffed to herself in an owl's way, but did not acknowledge her further. And Mauja, he didn't care what it tasted like, just ate it all up, listened to Circuta try and hammer some kind of sense into Delinne. And since when had he saved Circuta? He was under the impression it was the other way around, because let's be honest here: without her showing up to tell him he had a means of survival, that wolf-child would've been feasting on him by now.

He should've let it be. He should've left it at that. He should've just shut up, and let Circuta deal with the crazy mare, talk sense into her or just tell her to sod off; he should've let Abraham stand guard and Circuta talk, and all would be well.

But he was tired of being sensible. He was tired of righteous fury aimed at him. He was tired of always, always being blamed. He was sick and wounded and the more that what she'd been raving about sank in, the more the black, black fury in his heart awoke. It growled like a waking beast in its cage, the warning hiss of a viper uncoiling; Mauja's blue eyes were frigid as the northern snows, mouth moving even as the small, sane part of his mind yelled that he should save face—not wanting to disappoint the brave, protective colt, nor turn the enigmatic Circuta against him.

He didn't listen to that voice.

"You should've thought of that before you did as I said," he rumbled through the pounding headache, still neatly on the ground with no intention of getting up. If what he said seemed odd, disjointed, it was because it was, going back a few pages in a conversation which had moved on without him. His gaze was pinned on Delinne. "You could've acted instead of fled like a child, waiting for him, instead of taking him." His voice was no more a whisper; the anger in him was a beast, a shadow in his eyes and all the strength of a slow-waking lion thrumming through his tense neck. It was the only thing making sense through the pain and the fever, a ray of blackened light arcing through the haze. "Your accusations say more of your own shortcomings than they say of me," he ended it with, too tired to speak at length, but his gaze was cold and hard, unforgiving.

What she had done, had been her choice. A King was only a King for as long as his subjects obeyed.

the path to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell