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We will always be a team, no matter what.
Remember?
Please tag Delinne in all posts. Attacking is not allowed without my permission.
Want to meet Delinne? Post in this thread c:
the Rift
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[PRIVATE] änglarnas svek
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We will always be a team, no matter what. Remember? Please tag Delinne in all posts. Attacking is not allowed without my permission. Want to meet Delinne? Post in this thread c:
05-03-2014, 11:47 AM
en natt så kall och månen den var klar
There was a certain order to things—you came, you saw, you conquered. You came, you saw, you fucked up. Mauja walked in the shallow streambed, clear water rushing around his striped hooves and wetting his feathers; they clung to his fetlocks, plastered against the skin beneath. He didn't think he'd fucked up too badly this time, but hey, he was pretty sure he always fucked something up whenever he met Snö. She was still, somewhere in the dim corners of his heart, his princess: his first, his pristine, the spawn between him and Psyche.. destined for so much greatness simply by virtue of blood, yet both her parents had become so different from the time when they had made her. If he spoke his heart, it was not enough; and he was silent, she seemed to scold him for all the things he did not say. He assumed it was his own doing, because he hadn't done enough to bring her back into the fold each time she left.
But if he had done more, would she have resented him for that, too? The fallen monarch sighed, and lowered his nose to the cold water. Its rush tickled his whiskers, and he drank for but a moment before moving on. Sielu was somewhere around, at least he thought so. The way he'd found her was every father's nightmare, but he was willing to take the blame for that, too. After all, he'd abandoned her and her mother, breaking his oaths for the sake of some futile quest to reclaim his glory—and he was paying for it yet again. The water kept streaming past his ankles. At least Sielu didn't seem to be quite as prickly as her older half-sister where Mauja's tendency to disappear was concerned. A two-faced, guilty relief. An owl rode upon his back; not the usual white one as Helovia was accustomed to seeing him with perching on his withers. Irma was somewhere above, in the blue, but the still-smaller male had touched down for some rest. He didn't yet have the stamina to remain awing as long as Irma, but Mauja didn't mind that, either. He had a decent amount of growing left to do, but it was a relief that he was fledged and able to hunt for himself. He knew his place, too. Not even when Irma remained in the air did he dare to take her perch on his withers, but he rode further back along Mauja's spine, talons gripping fresh scars and scabs. His fiery eyes were closed, his young mind drifting through the heavy seas of sleep. There was a certain kind of peace out on the meadow on that day, as Mauja meandered slowly further west (not strong enough to take the straight way) with the sun on his back. It sparked like sapphires along the water, and as with all too-perfect settings, he had the niggling feeling that it was going to end. Maybe just something as bothersome as a swarm of flies, but it could be spectacular, too. So he tried to enjoy it while it lasted. Because end, it would. It was a tree, a shadow, a shape, and a scent. All the world's darkness seemed drawn to a certain point, a fixed point upon the map, and Mauja's quiet sloshing ceased some fifteen paces away. The stillness of the air had masked her scent, but now that he was close enough to see the stripes of white cascading through her black hair, and like jagged scar-lines across her body, there was no doubt at all about it. Delinne. Another failure, though of a different kind, and his 'brows drew together. He didn't like to think about it, about his reasons, or lack thereof, or anything he'd done in that mess—because he didn't know what he felt about it, not even now. Regret, because he'd been an ass? Or could he lie to himself and her again, and say he'd tried to do it for her own good? She hadn't exactly been kind to him last time they met, and if he'd been feeling less awful, he probably would've attacked her down in the caves just to shut her up. Because, and he was sort of ashamed to admit it in the midst of all his "starting over" nonsense, he didn't really care. He didn't care about the way she was trying to take her own flaws and push onto him, like it was somehow his fault she hadn't been strong enough to fight his verdict. Mauja let the quietest of sighs escape him. Perhaps she was asleep. Perhaps that cat of hers was asleep. Perhaps he could just walk by unnoticed.. and so, like a memory of last season's pristine snow, Mauja began to walk again, hooves rustling quietly over the gravel streambed and water rushing, dazzling, past his hooves. Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål
05-03-2014, 01:07 PM
We will always be a team, no matter what. Remember? Please tag Delinne in all posts. Attacking is not allowed without my permission. Want to meet Delinne? Post in this thread c:
05-03-2014, 01:42 PM
en natt så kall och månen den var klar
For a time, it went well. A few steps down the river, with only its quiet whispering to keep him company and the tips of his long tail dragging across its surface; the turbulence of his passage rippled out towards its banks, only to still and leave things exactly as they had been before he moved through. He'd even begun to hope he would be able to pass her unnoticed, slip past like the ghost he was, but isn't it always so? That the harder you try, the harder you fall?
She stirred. The shadows of her body lengthened and rose above earth, and there was never any hesitancy, never any question: she came straight for him. He stopped where he was. The river went on without him, still murmuring its quiet, sunny song—and life would always go on without him, whether he lived to watch it flow past, or died in its grasp. "Mauja..." Her voice echoed across the years, a familiar memory speaking his name, but where she had always been angry and upset in the past years, she sounded different now. Slowly, his ears tipped forward, and his pale eyes showed not the scorn he'd reserved for her as of late, but the kind of openness and honesty he wore as his armor. He had to give her that; she'd surprised him. Thoroughly. Unless she'd flip out in the next moment and start yelling. Which, given their history, was quite likely, and would be less surprising than this.. this, hesitantly genuine welcome. Or whatever it was. Wordlessly he nudged Diego awake, and told the bleary owl to take flight. After a moment's grumpy loitering he did, spreading his wings to join Irma up above, querying her in their own language as to what was going on, but she didn't answer. He let them disappear into the blue, like so many other things. "It has," he replied after a moment, as she backed away, silent. It wasn't often that Mauja actively thought questions, instead of asking them or already knowing the answers, but now he did; what's going on here? He was wary, yes, but Irma said they were alone—and so, curiosity remained. And patience, glacial patience, despite the way he wanted to know what was going to happen. So he stood in the stream, immovable in the ever-moving, frozen, until her blue eyes opened again, and she came closer, pulled in by him. He didn't shift. Just kept on breathing, blinking, his pulse fleet under his icy skin. What do you want, Delinne? She was very close all of a sudden, with just some half a yard of shallow water separating them. The tip of her horn glinted in the sunlight, and the white-dirty streaks through her coat shimmered; her sides were swollen. At least it couldn't be Azzaron's demon-spawn, because he was supposedly dead, something which had been both relieving and sort of disappointing to hear. "I... Uhm.. How... Are you?" What. His 'brows arched upwards. What was she doing? Acting like it suddenly didn't matter at all that he'd lied to her, and done his best to tear her and her precious boyfriend apart? Was this some kind of.. strange show of forgiveness, to be the better person, or did she do it just to nullify what he'd done? Like it didn't matter at all? If it was.. but was she capable of such callousness? To just, betray the memory of Azzaron like that? He had to admit, if she was doing it for those reasons, it was sort of irksome, because even if he didn't care anymore he still didn't like Azzaron. He didn't .. he didn't like failing. He didn't like the idea that his cruelty was nulled by.. by this. But he didn't like being cruel, either. Not really. So it made the whole thing doubly strange, because he didn't beat himself up about what he'd done to her. He didn't have nightmares about their tears and proclamation of love. "Mauja, I'm going to be honest with you." Well, it could still be interesting, even if he knew what he was doing: shutting off his emotions. Shutting off his sanity. She was offering him the opportunity to hurt her more, to do all the things he didn't want to do, and it teased the beast in him. It teased the darkness and the ice. "I... I regret everything." Why did he have to retreat into the beast, just because something became uncomfortable? Why did he have to become the ice-cold, heartless bastard she thought him to be around her? Because he wanted to? Felt obliged to, because it was what she thought he was? Because he couldn't let go of the past? Couldn't step down from his icy mountain and admit that he was fucking stupid? He was a drowning man who clung to a shipwreck, but none of it was real—he was drowning in dreams and air and for some reason couldn't stop thinking it was water. "I hate you like nothing else, but I've missed you." At least some things were still the same. It teased a weak, humorless smile from him, just a curl of his dark lips, remnants of his far past, but the spark in his pale eyes was gone and he looked aside from her. "You always make it too easy for the devil in me," he said quietly, watching the spring grass wave at the brook's edge. "How much would it take? A wicked smile and a tilt of my head, some well-chosen words with a nasty meaning hidden within?" His gaze swiveled back to her, intense. "It's so tempting Delinne, to be the bastard you call me." And maybe that alone made him the bastard? Because he had it in him, and in a way, wanted to let it out—to hurt her and drive her away. He was silent for a moment longer. What was she to him? What did she mean to him? She wasn't on his list of those he cared for—hadn't been since.. well, since when? If he'd truly cared for her, would he have given in to the devilish bent that day with Psyche? Was he lying to himself if he tried to be kind to her now? He was no saint just because he'd laid off his old ideals. "I think you do well to hate me," he finally said, an edge of defeat in his voice. "I am probably not very nice at all." Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål
We will always be a team, no matter what. Remember? Please tag Delinne in all posts. Attacking is not allowed without my permission. Want to meet Delinne? Post in this thread c:
05-03-2014, 02:35 PM
en natt så kall och månen den var klar
"Mauja, for fuck sake. Man up a bit. You don't scare me anymore."
"I suppose I'm not very frightening either," he muttered. And of course not. How could he be when he was the very definition of a walking mess? He didn't want to push against the wound, he didn't want to strain against the pain, because it hurt, so crystal clear, always shimmering in the corner of his eye. Truth hurt—and he'd always known, how he'd fallen from the cold, clear heights. When he lost the Edge, he lost everything, heart and soul and strength and courage. Every once in a while black lightning struck and set the world aflame, but it always faded. It had been a long time since he'd been worthy of Helovia's loathing and wariness, a long time since he'd been anything at all but a pathetic creature who crawled around on the dirty floor while pretending he still shimmered like cold steel in the moonlight. If it was one thing he was an expert at, it was running from the truth. They had both changed. She laughed, and it chafed against his ears and against his mind, because it was neither the Delinne of his past, nor the one who had shouted at him in the caves. It was someone else, and Mauja's jaw clenched a little tighter. It reminded him way too much of the fact that he'd killed her, once, on this very meadow. Suddenly it seemed a lifetime ago. Whatever had happened that time? Who had it been? Was this the same? If he killed her again, would she still be around? She stepped into—onto—the water, and he drew a deep breath. It was shallow, but not that shallow. She clearly stood on it. Well, whatever. Helovia was strange. His gaze came up again. She came closer, close enough to touch, but he didn't move. Suddenly the breath hitched in his throat, and his heart pounded like a caged beast; her smell filled his nose, her voice his ears, her neck his vision and her touch filled his mind. He was barely breathing, just feeling her teeth massage his skin just a tad too roughly, and he tried to remember, to perfectly recall, what she had said. It was, he decided, not something he was normally subjected to. So he grit his teeth and endured her violent little nip, until she suddenly bounced back, still on the water. Normally that kind of behavior pissed him off; now, it just stunned him. What the hell did she want of him? To say sorry, but what now? What did she want of him? He wanted to flail and scream and run away. "Do you remember how friendly and kind I was when we first met? How nice you were?" Well, yes, sort of. "I think all of that is gone now." Like a punch in the gut, a splash of cold water in the face, but neither false nor new; she laughed again and looked at her cat, who went off sulkily, and Mauja frowned, concerned. She'd clearly gone somewhat insane, and he had a feeling he'd played a rather large part in making it happen. "You've really lost it, haven't you?" he asked her, one 'brow arching in a mock display. He couldn't handle this, not on a good day, and least of all when he didn't have the slightest clue what was going on. Humor her? Out of the question. He didn't humor others, and didn't feel too inclined to tell her what he'd been up to. Not that there was much to say, anyway. He'd just been moping. Like he had for the past three years. He let his eyes, pointedly, fall to her sides. "Who's been up you?" he asked flippantly, with that cruel twist of his lips. Isn't attack the best defense, they say? Because after all the shit he'd put her through, and all the ways he'd mauled his heart, he just didn't think he could stand catching up with her. Like they were friends. He wasn't strong enough for that shit yet. Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål
05-03-2014, 03:02 PM
We will always be a team, no matter what. Remember? Please tag Delinne in all posts. Attacking is not allowed without my permission. Want to meet Delinne? Post in this thread c:
05-03-2014, 03:29 PM
en natt så kall och månen den var klar
He just shrugged, a rise and fall of his pale shoulders, because he had nothing else to say. Yes; there was an edge of insanity to her laughing. It was oddly placed and borderline evil in its sound, at least to his ears, and she kept dancing as if torn between wanting to come closer, and wanting to move away. It wasn't a stable behavior, it was unhinged, deranged, demented, and if it was one thing Mauja hated, it was not knowing. And everything she did just solidified his belief that she was unpredictable. Unstable. At any moment if could be her horn she hurled at him, and not words, and he wondered why he didn't just politely excuse himself and move away. Did he think she'd follow? Maybe. And maybe that was why he remained in the stream, because going seemed pointless if it was your shadow you ran from, because your shadow followed you anyway.
But clearly, his comment provoked her, because she came bounding in. Mauja threw his head up and away, but she stopped halfway anyway, called him clever in a way he didn't like (but had made himself guilty of), and then reached in again to snap at his cheek. He let her. The pain was a sharp reminder, but of what he wasn't sure. A surge of adrenaline, a little bit of you're mortal, and gods knew what else—but the whole thing was just baffling, and he wanted her to go away. Go away, and leave him to his misery. She was the one thing in his life that made no sense, and the actions against her the ones he found no real justification for—nor any regret. He liked his things in black and white, he wanted them guilty or innocent, and he had no real trouble pinpointing what had been genuine acts, and what had been lies to keep up the charade. He knew when he'd tried to deceive, tried to be something he wasn't, but this fit none of those categories. It had just.. happened. And he'd gone with it. Felt some slight remorse, but sucked it up and those wounds had turned to hard, unyielding scars. "A stallion from the Aurora Basin. You know, you have very clever soldiers there." Except, he didn't have anyone there; he hadn't been there for, what, a year? Year and a half? The Basin was no longer his. The Plague was no longer his. Their cause was no longer his, but she kept on talking, and it'd be rude—not to mention utterly pointless—to interject the fact that he'd been a lone wolf for a long time now. He knew about Destry, of course, but not of this Azarel, the last of Azzaron's spawn. She was smiling, but he didn't think it reached her eyes. He wasn't smiling, just looking at her with that unreadable mixture that was not quite concern, but not really something else either. "Though... I can only hope that my kids accepts this one." His ears, which had begun to fall sideways, flipped forward again. He hadn't worried about it before Tamlin's birth, but had experienced the harsh reality of a parent who slept with others and had kids with them. Snö had run away, and nothing had every really been right between them since. For the briefest of moments he felt a sting of pity, but then it died. She'd put herself in the position. She had to reap what she sowed. They all had to. But, as capricious as the weather, she turned around again, voice and eyes cold, and asked a question entirely unrelated to children. "How do you deal with it?" Winter, dark, cold—and bloody, painful. The stars are out. The scents stung his nose. Too many questions amidst the consolation, what happened?, and he wouldn't tell. Never told. And not ever really woke up from it. Not ever really recovered. His eyes grew empty but for a few traces of sadness, and he turned his head away from her. "Whatever I do, I don't do it well," he answered her glumly, squashing the streak of self-pity and shifting his weight slightly. His left hind hoof came up on its tip in the water and he hung on the other hip; his first real movement since pausing in the stream. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "You think I wasn't murderous? Who do you think fueled the Edge's secret racism? Who do you think killed those who stood in our path, or threatened to tell of what they knew? Why do you think I did it? Glory?" Despite what he was saying, his voice was not heated, just bitter and tinged with sorrow. "I hid my own failures behind the ruse that we were better anyway. But it was all a lie, and I've spent all my time running from everything I should face. I tried to heal behind it—and for a time.. I deceived even myself." Why was he even saying all of this? And to her, of everyone? She'd made it clear she had no fear of him, and he didn't want her pity either—but if she took this weapon he offered and shoved it into his heart, was he strong enough to take the blow and just deal with it? "It's just a way to occupy the mind.. to forget everything you've seen and done," he said softly. Blinked. Looked at her. "I am crazy with it, Delinne, with all of it; I'm just good at pretending otherwise." It was, perhaps, the most honest thing he'd ever said. Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål
05-03-2014, 03:53 PM
We will always be a team, no matter what. Remember? Please tag Delinne in all posts. Attacking is not allowed without my permission. Want to meet Delinne? Post in this thread c:
05-03-2014, 04:11 PM
en natt så kall och månen den var klar
He actually expected her to lash out, to strike the tender spots between his words—to call him out on his weakness, and the truth that just tasted like bullshit. It was, after all, what he would've done. Smacked the bruises to make them ache, to make them not see everything he carried within. Never mind that the ice lay across it all, locked it to the bottom of his heart, and that his eyes never showed the bloody reflections of what he'd seen, and done, and not done.
But she didn't. She didn't laugh, didn't tell him what a fucking weak pathetic moron he was. Just stared as if he'd slapped her, and maybe he had, because after all, since when had Mauja the Frostheart, the frozen bastard of the north, said something like this? Since when had he ever confessed that it had all been a fucking lie all along? Something he'd told himself as he kept his eyes closed? Passion had scoured his soul clean from everything that ate him up, but now that the fire had gone out, there was nowhere he could hide from the monsters. Bit by bit they ate him, gnawed at his soul, and still he kept denying it. Because still he had the moments when he didn't know what was up, or down, or what he actually wanted, or if the monsters were real or if he was just telling himself it was that way.. was this whole thing, this whole backwards quest for redemption and retribution, just some thing? Like his racism had been? It had all been so fucking convenient. His upbringing, the witch-hunters, Psyche—he'd actually believed it, breathed it, lived it. And it's only when you open your eyes you realize you'd lived with them closed. "Why are you telling me this? Am I not someone less worth than you? Am I not someone you can just lie to and hope for the best?" Well, he'd tried that, too—and look where it'd got him. One corner of his mouth gave a twitch. And she definitely had lost it, no matter what she'd tried to say earlier. There it was again, the laugh, and her head came up, breathing too rapid, words and confessions spilling out, voice fading to a whisper. Her horn fell down through the air, until its tip pointed straight for his chest. It was, he decided, quite un-charming. He didn't like anyone pointing their weapons at him. Least of all when he didn't know if they were going to use it. "Please, help me." "Delinne," he said softly. The brook murmured around his feet and slowly his head fell too, horn angling down. If she attacked, it'd be easier to block her that way. "Did I ever tell you, I killed you once?" And still his voice was gentle, but his heart was pounding. He actually couldn't recall if he'd told her—or anyone, for the matter. Almost telling Prometheus had probably put him off confessing it to anyone else. He didn't even know why he was telling her now. What was the point of it? Could it forestall whatever doom was waiting just around the corner? Because surely her heart was pounding like his, and surely she could taste the disaster lying in wait in the charged spring air, and what the hell were they doing, and saying, anyway? He was dancing with a tiger. Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål
05-03-2014, 04:39 PM
We will always be a team, no matter what. Remember? Please tag Delinne in all posts. Attacking is not allowed without my permission. Want to meet Delinne? Post in this thread c:
05-03-2014, 04:59 PM
en natt så kall och månen den var klar
Why anything, why everything.. why could he touch with his voice, and why could he still alter things with a mere breath? It seemed cruel, almost, to give him small tastes of the things he'd lost when he cast off his cloak of lies, because he still longed for them, for the power he'd held over others—power, when he'd sworn all along it was an honor, that he were there for his people and not for himself. And still, the simple, small change he wrought with the softness of his voice, was enough to send his heart cracking, aching, with the desperate longing for a time gone by.
But there was no going back to it, not re-capturing the lost moments. Because that was the way of time: it moved ever on, but he'd forgotten to move with it. So in his future, he was mired in his past. "I'm right here, so you can't have killed me before. Are you sure that you haven't lost your sanity as well?" His ears fell back, but not all the way in anger. Hadn't he just told her he was crazy, too? That he didn't know what the fuck he was doing anymore? But if it was one thing he knew, it was that he had killed her, here in this very meadow, when she had been someone he didn't know—said things that the Delinne of that time would not have said, but that she later had come to say. Was it some weird intersection of time streams? A piece of the future acted out in the past? "I just want an end to this pathetic thing I call 'my life'." The words echoed through his mind, kill me now, end me, but this time, Irma didn't surge through his mind and veins to guide him in that final act of anger—she remained somewhere far above, vaguely curious about what they were doing, but not interrupting. Not helping out. Not shredding his mind. She asked him a question and he opened his mouth, with no idea what would come out, but in the end it was only silence because she spared him, and herself, from having to hear the truth. He swallowed it, the answer not even he was sure of. Some things were better left unvoiced. "Come on now. Taunt me. I'm pathetic, too caring for my family so I can't even take my own life. I bet that's what you really want to do." The sunlight struck a single tear on her cheek. It was ironic, that they felt much the same way; Mauja did not wish for death, precisely, but he'd spent two years walking blind through a dense fog, where nothing ever went deeper than his skin, and nothing ever made sense. He was desperately tired of it, sick of never knowing who the hell he was or what he wanted, and never feeling anything for longer than a few moments. He clung too desperately to life to consider death an acceptable exit, but if there was some way he could just come back to life... He realized he'd been silent for a while, just staring at her. Wordless. Because what could he say, when he had nothing to offer? Neither comfort nor cruelty came to his tongue, because he would not lie to her—not right now, not anymore, maybe not ever again. He didn't know. Just sighed. "I don't see the sun anymore," he said, quietly. It was out in the sky, of course, bright and vibrant with new life for the new year, bathing them in its yellow light. "Everything is just gray, and shallow. It's like I've forgotten how to run, or even walk—I'm just crawling through the gray sand by a waterless ocean. And sometimes, I think I hear a bird chirping, or catch a glimpse of sunlight striking waves, but there is nothing but a wasteland of dust..." And he'd struggled, and kept on crawling, for so long that he didn't remember what it felt like to live anymore. The glimpses he had, of emotion, of feeling, were like the faintest cold breeze on a too-hot day, so quickly forgotten after they faded. "I've died within, but my body lives on." Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål
We will always be a team, no matter what. Remember? Please tag Delinne in all posts. Attacking is not allowed without my permission. Want to meet Delinne? Post in this thread c:
05-04-2014, 09:06 AM
en natt så kall och månen den var klar
She didn't understand. She didn't understand—and how could she? How could anyone relate to how he felt, if they were not him? Surely there was someone, somewhere out there, who knew what he meant, who recognized the desolate, gray shoreline as their own land, too.
But that was a thin comfort when his faint hope was crushed by disappointment. Somehow he'd thought she might know what he meant, but maybe her wounds were not old enough; she was still bleeding, all over, and it spilled through the cracks in her voice and the moments of silent. All that spirit blood—but he'd been bled dry, with nothing but dust coursing through stale veins, pushed around by the blackened lump of a frostbitten heart. Maybe, in a few years, she would be where he was, crawling across that very same desert, throat parched and dry. With no sun, no wind, there was no direction, no point. It was just a long, long crawl towards nothing, and he crawled simply because there was nothing else to do. Her lack of comprehension was written clear on her face, and in the depths of her blue eyes. It was a strange change, almost like the sun breaking through clouds; they weren't clouded with her own misery anymore. Something about his confession had gone through to her, but not the important part. He met her eyes for a moment. His were a bit sad, a bit heavy and tired, and a small, emotionless smile pulled at his lips. It wasn't her fault she couldn't understand, not really. She shouldn't try and follow him to where he were, anyway, because it was not an enjoyable place, and he wondered when he'd let himself go so far into it. Was it because he had not noticed how the world grew more and more desaturated, until he stood in that place where only the lifeless gray stretched from horizon to horizon, with no trail to follow back to where he had come from? "Open your eyes again. You are not dead, you are fully alive. You just have to feel the sun showering it's light onto you, feel..." But hadn't he just told her? That yes, his physical shell was alive, full of red blood and strong flesh, and bones? It was his spirit that had withered in its winter of defeat, his spirit that had gone out, like a candle in the wicked wind. He was almost tired of trying, because each time he'd pulled himself to the surface, and blinked in the harsh light, he'd just slipped down again, into the meaningless gray. "...this." Her shoulder was warm, sun-warm, but his was warm, too. I can feel you, he thought quietly; he could feel the heat filling the space closest to her, smell her, and see her scars and stripes, and if he focused, feel the faint, fleeting rhythm of her pulse thundering below her shoulder. He could feel it, but it held no meaning. Not anymore. "Asylum?" he hummed quietly, questioningly. It niggled at his mind, like something he thought he'd been told, but wasn't sure he could place anymore. But he didn't like the sound of it: he was not mad, he was just.. adrift, slowly sinking into the dark. "They welcome horses like you... Like me." He reached out, breathed in deep by the side of her neck. She smelled of trees and water and mountains, of the place his mind referred to as Windtossed Foothills and Heavenly Fields—did they live somewhere there? But if he'd thought to ask, she wasn't going to stay and respond. She began to pull away, tugged on by something else, and with a few words of parting made it onto solid ground, stepping elegantly from the water's surface. Her cat came running out of the surrounding trees and bushes, and together they disappeared, leaving Mauja standing dumbstruck in the river. It murmured as happily as ever, rushing away to some unknown future, carrying the bright sunlight with it and forgetting the cold of his shadow the moment it was past. Wings stirred the calm air, and Diego came down again. His talons gripped Mauja's spine, but for once the youth made no attempt to intrude, and kept his brash emotions to himself. Irma, on the other hand, winged away, trailing after Delinne, but it was hardly necessary. Soon enough even Mauja heard her cries echoing towards the heavens, tearing through the air, her voice filled with all the things she could not put into words. Mauja's ears came back, and his tail dragged against the surface as he flicked it once, twice. She still had everything he had not, even if she hurt, but surely the pain was better than the nothingness inside of him? Irma came back, and settled on his withers. With a sigh, Mauja tore himself from the meandering river, and set his cold hooves upon the spring earth. Ambled along into the forest, until he saw Delinne's shape on its floor. Quietly he approached, and settled against a tree, the flat of his shoulder against the rough bark. He wasn't sure why he was there—to witness the pain of life? The pain of living, and hope that maybe some touch, some spark, would fly back to him and re-ignite his flame? Slowly, his ears came forward again. "Life's a real bitch, isn't it?" he finally said, as if commenting the weather. Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål
05-04-2014, 09:53 AM
We will always be a team, no matter what. Remember? Please tag Delinne in all posts. Attacking is not allowed without my permission. Want to meet Delinne? Post in this thread c:
05-04-2014, 10:17 AM
en natt så kall och månen den var klar
Some part of him told him he ought to have walked away, and let the conversation become memory, store it in the vast halls of his mind. But he couldn't. He'd never been good at letting sleeping dogs lie, but always nudged around with his nose, too thirsty for every answer and every mystery. And so far, their meeting had been one of the most baffling and strange, his mind fluttering between all the shallow emotions he knew, and sometimes he wasn't quite there at all. In an hour, or two, a day and a night, he would've sorted through it, and felt all the things he ought to have felt at the time, and kicked himself for all the things he said or hadn't said, and all the questions left unasked, unanswered.
He'd even forgotten to feel confused about what he'd done to her, that paradoxical treatment, too caught up in the strange swirl of their conversation. By all rights they should've been bloody by now, having flown at one another's throats, but somehow, they hadn't. Not that this was much better. At least there was logic to battle and life in the adrenaline—this was just baffling and utterly confusing. The cat got thrown aside as Delinne hauled herself off the ground, and Mauja's owls followed suit, dispersing into the surrounding trees. Their eyes gleamed whenever a stray ray of sunlight struck their irises, cold blue and burnished amber. Nothing made sense anymore, and she was smiling again, but Mauja barely noticed it anymore. Somehow, they'd gone deep enough into the strangeness than it seemed almost like it was supposed to be that way. And deep in his chest, his heart slogged on, and his detached mind floated somewhere above the pleasant chill of his body. She answered him, after a fashion, but just like he had never been able to answer her straightly, and always went off on some tangent, she did, too. She rewound the tape, as if she'd never left him standing in the stream at all, picking up where he'd left off, speaking of monsters—but hers were tangible, and she was driven mad with half-remembered snatches of a past she didn't want to remember. He thought of Ophelia, and her wiped memories, and how it had done her no good at all. Forgetting was not an option, but remembering was too hard, wasn't it? So you were never strong enough to move on. But their main difference was that Mauja remembered: Mauja remembered everything, especially the starry constellations glittering so far up above, out of reach, on that cold, dreadful night. It had smelled of blood, overpowering even the smell of bear, and he'd floated away in the haze of cold and agony. For as long as he'd lain there, it had been pleasant, like some distant dream of cold beauty, and perhaps it would've been better if he'd died, too. Mauja remembered, and remembering was what had forced him onto his knees. The darkness swept back in again, clouded up her gaze and voice and spat words; it struck a chord deep in his soul, rang through the hollow ice, and spiked his blood with a sudden, bone-deep chill. The sunlit day seemed darker and sharper, and one of his breaths pooled coldly into the air before dissipating. "Like punching ice through a heart," he whispered, his faint voice tinged with darkness. And of course, it was there, the blackness and the frigidity, snapping at his mind, whispering that he'd done this before, it wasn't hard, it wasn't bad, it's okay— A spire of ice punched up from the ground, struck towards the mocking sky and strained against its bonds; it towered higher even than Mauja's back, its deadly tip glinting in the sunlight. He remembered the crimson blood slowly sliding down it, out of a golden chest, too. It sobered him up. One mistake too many. He blinked the darkness away, and the spike shattered, fell down onto the ground with its magic broken, little pieces reflecting the harsh sunlight as they slowly melted in its light, but lay longer in the dappled shadows. "Too many times, Delinne... I've killed too many times." He seemed weak beside her, mewling and pathetic as she was the hungry beast—but he was done with irrational anger, wasn't he? "Death is pointless, and to rob others of life is cruel." Yet it's a drug I can't resist. Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål
We will always be a team, no matter what. Remember? Please tag Delinne in all posts. Attacking is not allowed without my permission. Want to meet Delinne? Post in this thread c:
05-05-2014, 02:54 PM
en natt så kall och månen den var klar
It startled her—maybe even frightened her, the power of his blood. His legacy from the cold northern mountains. It was not some gift given by a God of Helovia, not something he had begged for, but something he'd been born with. Something that was cold and dark and terrible, and rode his fury like a curse. Something that almost seemed alive when it reared its ugly head in his mind and soul. The beast within purred, delighted with the reaction, and itched to send her dancing across a field of ice spires. Mauja beat it down. Killing someone on accident sucked, and if he killed Delinne right now, because of his mood.. he'd classify it as an accident. Not just "unplanned", or opportunistic.
In many ways, Torasin's death had been his turning point: when he could no longer deny that he'd laid off the hunt. Or had he given up before that? Had he died before that? In many ways, yes; he had been a broken creature even before he met Torasin. His quest gave him temporary life, seated flame instead of blood in his veins, and living on the edge of danger made him feel alive.. but then, Sarazheha had come, and he'd saved a nation and worked miracles, but life felt just as gray as it had before. Had he spent his years running from the truth, and wasted what life he'd had on nothing in particular? Had his time run out, and he was simply loitering around, waiting for death to come and take him? He didn't like that notion. He didn't like the idea that he was like the ice scattered on the grass, slowly succumbing to their own particular deaths in the sun's glare. He was Mauja, damn it, and much as he hated wolves he was one at heart. But nothing in his soul stirred. She came up beside him, reached out to touch him again. He peered at her from the corner of his eye, white forelock falling over his face. What did they linger for? There was nothing left for them to take here, nothing left to give, but cynicism and empty words. Why had he followed? Why had she let him? Why did she come closer, when she ought to hate him, and want to kill him for the injustices he'd done to her? "Death is peace," she said, but Mauja shook his head. Death was not peace; death was bloodied, foaming mouths, tears and saliva freezing on their faces, limbs tangled in stiff, bloody poses. Death was flight frozen in place, and fire going out, not even beautiful. Death was just.. death. But death was also the smile on Torasin's lips as he slipped into oblivion. "We're creatures with brief, meaningless existences; I wonder why we bother living at all when in the end, all we've ever done is going to be swept away by time. We will not be remembered, not by our grand-children's grandchildren, and no empire we build will last a hundred years. We've forgotten our pasts and we will not experience our futures; the heroes of our ancestors are unsung, and lost to us. Who remembers what happened to the forest of the Dragon's Throat, and remembered when the ocean licked the shore much further inland? Who walked among the sparse trees of the Frostbreath Steppe?" Mauja knew, because he had seen it, lost in time-streams and taken on mysterious ways by the God of Time himself. He blinked, sighed quietly, and looked aside. "Only Gods leave some kind of mark, here. Only they remember, and to them, we are nothing but petty, amusing for a time, but ultimately, unimportant. They play with us for their own amusement, and never bother to take care of the shredded souls they leave behind." Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål
05-05-2014, 03:17 PM
We will always be a team, no matter what. Remember? Please tag Delinne in all posts. Attacking is not allowed without my permission. Want to meet Delinne? Post in this thread c:
05-05-2014, 03:40 PM
en natt så kall och månen den var klar
Well, clearly he'd misunderstood her question. His mind was never quite where it ought to be, running too deep, or not deep enough at all; this time, his cynicism had dribbled through his teeth and filled the minutes with his dispassionate ranting. "That answer was too complicated and irrelevant to my question, Mauja." One of his ears flicked backwards in a display that could only be called "the most lazy way to express that you think your conversation partner is being stupid". She'd asked what they were, and he'd answered her question—was it his fault if she hadn't asked it properly, if she'd wanted some other kind of answer? Apparently it was. Whatever. What difference did the reason his eyes were cold make, when they were cold all the same?
Not that it discouraged her. Blue came in many shades, and through the veil of his silken hair he let her stare—and stared right back, cold and empty. Because he had nothing to fill himself up with but bitterness and old aches. "What are we, King?" King. So long since anyone had called him that, except for Delinne's venomous words of the Ice King in the presence of Circuta: King, King Mauja the Frostheart, King of World's Edge, King of.. the world. He'd never been Lord of the Basin: he'd never, ever been less than a king. Sovereign. Somewhere in him still lived that frigid monarch, who paced through his trees with the fog swirling dramatically around his legs, who listened to the birds and the winds, and kept his borders safe. But you couldn't be a King when you couldn't even govern yourself. If his life lay in shatters, how could he ever reclaim the title that was his, and somehow find purpose—and balance—in this chaotic world? The game board had changed, the rules had changed, his resources had changed. He needed conflict, but didn't want to cause it, and no one else seemed strong enough to do it (not even he). But none of that answered her question, and his silence made her go on, questioning out loud. Enemies? Maybe; he'd tormented her rather cruelly after all, hadn't he? Friends? Maybe once they could've been, but as her ruler he had been both distant and available, warm, but detached underneath. He didn't know. He didn't know how to figure out either, when he didn't even know why he did what he did, and felt what he felt, or even what he felt and thought. How could he possibly answer that kind of question, when they'd barely met for two years, and each time had been full of tears, hurt, anger, and furious words? She'd hurled insults at him and he'd done his best to cause her pain, and yet.. here she stood, saying friendship as if it was a possibility. If it was—would he want it? "What a rude, little cat." Said rude cat was disappearing deeper into the trees, leaving them to head away, and Mauja knew enough of bondmates to know that she'd left with some parting comment for Delinne. "Yes, and no," he replied with vague amusement, glad to let the other question lie for now. "They have their moments." Just like he'd had his earlier. "What's her name?" It felt too normal, like.. like, he didn't know what; he didn't even know if he wanted to be where he was. He didn't even know if he wanted to keep talking to Delinne, yet he did. Because after all—what did he have to offer her? Nothing. Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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