still a credit to your ruse, what a beautiful excuse
to never open up your eyes and see the things you lose

[ Just wanted to point out that it's winter in Helovia, with snows all around :3 ]

It had been the cold, bitter end of autumn when he'd plunged into the dark, witnessed only by the distant stars, wraiths, and Circuta; the leaves had all been burnished red and brown, the grasses gilded with autumn and stroked with the finest of night frost as winter approached, as it did every year.

Winter was a patient beast. Mauja possessed some of that, and none at all all at once. Gashes half-healed like whiplashes upon a pale back, and a lingering trace of illness to burn in his lungs and limbs when he pushed himself too far—but all these things aside, he had a duty to his owl (owls?), and a duty to Helovia, because you could take the crown off his head but you couldn't take it off his soul. And that sense of duty, of safeguarding and protecting Helovia and it's inhabitants (where was all this pretentious nonsense coming from? he was the Ice King, not Midas).. of repaying the gift of life Circuta had given him—those things drove his whiskered nose outside of the Sanctuary's mouth, followed by the rest of his pristine body. Even within the humid caves his winter fur had grown out, but what should've been a winter wonderland, away from the roaring heart-fires, was nothing but a land covered in night and shadow, where death loomed behind every rock and tree.

His breath plumed into the dark, and with alert senses he defied Irma's protests, and set off to the northeast. Trying to find prey for the bird in the caves was impossible, and while he was at it, he could see if anyone else had dodged death's claws long enough to be shepherded to safety—or maybe some unwitting fool was about to walk into Hell from the outside, unaware of the lurking dangers.

And thus, Mauja crossed the face of Helovia on light, feathered feet, a stray blizzard through an endless night, until the shadows opened up near her borders.

Not that he was bathed in glorious winter sunlight and kissed with its warm golden glow, no.

Snow turned to sleet turned to freezing rain, a frenzied downpour plastering his fuzzy coat to his thick body; his knotted mane clung to his neck and his tail tangled up in his hocks with each fleet-footed step. With his ears flat he broke through the forest, head and senses swinging one way and then the other, watching for any small animal to be unlucky enough to be out in this, but his chances of actually finding anything seemed slim. What sane creature was out in this, honestly?

"Would you mind sharing your shelter?"

The stranger's voice—masculine, but it might just be the intensity—cracked like a clap of thunder through the pounding, frigid rain, and Mauja honed in on it. Frosted hooves struck another iced path, angled through the trees, and soon enough he found a rocky cavern with a rushing rapid refusing to freeze over. A painted stallion stood outside, and within, a chestnut mare hinted, tall and powerful in her build but relatively lithe. "Don't stay!" he cried through the sheets of rain, warily eying the surrounding forest even as his feet danced closer, breath smoking into the torrents of water. Would the sound of their voices alert the attention of the wraiths? His tail, with the holly branch braided into it, smacked loudly against his hocks.

You'll catch your death out there.
No, no, no I won't; I'll be fine.
You're sick already.
No! I'm fine, I'm better.
Stop denying it. Get them, get back.

He grit his teeth together, knowing the owl was right, wondering why he denied it—why he tried to make the truth into something it wasn't.

Because that's what you always do.

"There's danger afoot," he began, standing by the stallion's side, just as drenched as he, and soaked to the bone like that—he was frozen to the core, only the heat of movement keeping his blood running, pounding through flesh. He steamed. They had to move again, soon, yesterday. Blue eyes danced from one to the other. He could do little more than tell them, make them come or leave, and go, back through the shadow and hoping for safe passage, because he didn't want more wounds to add to the fine collection of cuts he already displayed. "Shadows and undeath.. too fleet of foot to run from, and it'll steal your souls if it can. There's safety under the ground, but the entrance is far from here. I can take you there, but make up your minds quickly, because I will not linger in one place long—it's a cursed time. Come or leave, but do not stay." His speech was hurried through the rainwater, louder than he wanted to cut through the falling death, and how do you explain what was going on? How do you explain the shadow tugging at your feet and lunging after you, of a foal with a wolf's head twice the size of its body with a grin stretching impossibly wide—of the madness that was afoot in this wicked, wicked world?

They had to see to believe, but to see a wraith was the last thing Mauja wanted in that moment.