Mauja Frosthjärta

Question: What's the sick idiot doing out on the shadowy sea?
Answer: Being a sick idiot.

He just couldn't help it. He couldn't stop himself from crawling back onto the surface like an ant hungry for sunlight; couldn't stop himself from traversing the blackened realm looking for signs of life. It was there in his heart, in his blood, the flickering flame of a sentinel, the deep, driving need to guard and shepherd and, most of all, protect: safeguard life. It was the warmth in his blood keeping the fever company, the reason he drifted through the shadows like a stray ray of moonlight. His breath was a cloud in the cold, dark world, betraying the life in him—and the gentle glow of his face was a beacon for all things both dead and alive, but he didn't care. Not in that moment. So be it; they saw him. If they came, he'd lead them on a merry chase to the caves. He wasn't all that far from them, anyway. He paused. Looked about him in the darkness. Breathed. In, out. What a cursed, desolate place Helovia had become. Why did it always end up this way? This wasn't the first time the sun had fallen from the sky and endless darkness wrapped itself around them. Did they have such powerful foes, or were their Gods this weak?

He moved again, walking slowly across the seeming graveyard, senses alert and thoughts drifting through his slightly pounding skull. Part of the reason he was out here wasn't only to find stragglers (or shadow-creatures to cure), but to find those he hadn't seen since coming to the caves... d'Artagnan, Loudmouth, Ophelia, Faelene, Arah, and everyone else he cared for, or thought he did; the list was long, too long. The idea of losing them to this darkness filled him with shameful wrath—some of them, he'd lost on his own, had let go of. He'd allowed d'Artagnan to walk away from him (months ago, but still), and when Loudmouth had fled back towards the beach, he'd been unable to stop her.

And Ophelia.. he sighed.

Movement, at the crest of a hill on the horizon, caught his gaze. He stumbled to a halt, stood stock-still, breath pooling tentatively into the air. Friend, or foe? It moved slowly, and trying to smell it was no use, because up here, everything smelled dead.

His heart was pounding in the silence, too loud in a dead world. He was life and light, where there should be none.

He was not directly in its path, but if it went doggedly straight ahead, it would pass close by. Warily Mauja held his ground, pale head raised towards the fallen stars; it was tilted to the side, long forelock falling off his face in a cascade of white. Only time would tell what it was, coming down that slight slope. Only time would tell if he had to run, dodge his way back to the sanctuary where help awaited...

And thus, he waited.

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

Mauja Frosthjärta

His breath pooled in the dark world, counting the moments as he waited; it was the only thing he could do, under the circumstances. Stand. Breathe. Live, for whichever precious seconds he had left. The shape was nothing but a vague outline, the suggestion of equine anatomy. No light, no rays of starlight, fell from the sky to trace the curves of her musculature, or light up the lighter patches of her body; she was simply another shadow in their already shadowed world.

Then, something happened; she exploded in a flash of bright light, the low roar rolling towards him like a wave. When she, a split moment later, re-appeared closer, Mauja wasn't standing exactly where he'd been either. All four feet had taken off the ground in a startled jump, and come down again a foot or so to the side. While his head didn't appreciate it, as it was telling him with a rhythmic pounding, it was the kind of instinct that kept you alive in these troubled times.

At least he knew who it was now. The rumble of magic, the bright flash, the way she moved from one place to the other through that eye-biting light.. she'd left him behind in that fashion, run back to whatever precious dream she'd forgotten on the dark beach, but here she was again, clearly too impatient to simply walk the distance down to him.

His heart was pounding. He might know who it was—or, rather, who it ought to be, but the question of her state of being remained unanswered. Did she come with empty, angry eyes? Slavering jaws? Rotting flesh sloughing off her sides? His ears flickered in the darkness, suddenly aware of another sound, of someone else; already skittish and on his toes, Mauja's head flung to stare at the dark, hulking shape looming closer, and so, the sudden light of Loudmouth's second travel, and the resounding roar marking her arrival, had him jumping once again, nearly sitting down on his haunches in an attempt to get some distance. You know.. just in case.

“….OH,” he exclaimed, and Mauja breathed out in a tension-relieving snort. She looked normal. She sounded normal (brash, that was the word), and smelled normal, and didn't launch herself at his throat with vehemence. His eyes darted to the side again. The black thing was still approaching, too straight a path for Mauja to recognize him, but Loudmouth's open staring and rather blunt question sheared through the dumb haze of surprise, illness and relief. It was, he decided, a rather warranted question, given his state—somewhat bleary-eyed and covered in mostly-healed cuts and gashes. "Uh," was all he got out, and then, "It's good to see you too?" with an arched 'brow, until the dark, approaching thing demanded his attention again. It came out of the darkness like some hulking hell-beast, of a size with Mauja himself but somehow looking thinner, as if he didn't fill out his black skin with bulk—

Tiny. And he, too, had the silver tongue of a bard.

Or not.

"Well," he replied acerbically, "that's why I've got you to watch me, too." He'd deserved Loudmouth's scrutiny; he wasn't sure he'd deserved Tiny's remark. Not that he got to ponder it long, because something else decided to steal the spotlight again. And this, this didn't feel friendly.

It came out of nowhere, morphed into an equine shape, wings spreading from the shoulders and towards the distant, murky horizons; gold filtered through the darkness, touching the ground, reaching for the sky. From his angle, Mauja couldn't see the things face, but it was obvious what it was. Only a few tattered feathers clung to the wing bones, bone, tendon and muscle showing through bleeding, infected wounds. But where the hell had it come from?

Somehow, he found himself looking over his shoulder, ridiculously twisting his entire aching body and flicking his tail to catch sight of the holly branch. It was brown, with its deep green leaves, and a few blood-red berries still clinging to it. There was no blue glow of protection, no shield to chase the nightmares away and stand fast for daylight: his eyes snapped back to the shadow-creature, not daring to trust the branch's truth. What if it had just run out of magic?

But what were they going to do? Drag it back to the caves? It stood facing Loudmouth, clearly intent on her, and Mauja did what he'd done before: waited. Waited, while the cold darkness crept through his veins, and the edges of his vision grew blacker, crystalline ice creeping along every outline and throwing it into stark relief. The cold air bit his lungs, the scents sharper, noises louder; he stood poised to strike, waiting, for the right time.

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