en natt så kall och månen den var klar

"Companions think they're so clever sometimes."

Irma kindly informed him that, in this case, there was one major difference between her and Delinne's cat: the cat only thought it was clever, whereas Irma was clever. He snorted quietly. Irma was a stone-cold, heartless bastard with enough icy arrogance to fill an entire mountain full of it, and still have enough for an avalanche. But, he had to agree—there was a keenness to her, and she saw things clearly. Diego, on the other hand.. well, maybe it was an age thing. So far, he seemed to take after Irma where the arrogance was concerned: and where would that leave Mauja? Trapped between two haughty birds? Fortunately, for him, they seemed to like him.

Dezba. She'd gone off to hunt, probably, to stalk the burnished glow of the fading day, but what would she catch? Memories, or mice? Would she play with the wisps of energy, or track something tangible?

The attention turned back to him. And he suddenly wasn't sure if he could do this: stand here, and chat, like nothing had ever happened and gone wrong. It had become too normal, too much about him—he'd said too much already, too many intimate things, confessions he usually kept somewhere where not even he acknowledged them. And yet, and yet.. she was part of a past he longed to return to, she called him King and in some dim corner of his mind, he knew what that meant. It meant pride and glory, the scattered glitter of sunshine across a vast, snowy field; it meant followers and friends, those who trusted in him to guide them...

"Irma is the oldest," he said absently, his pale eyes somewhere else, not even seeing what she was doing, or looking at. His heart rate had increased uncomfortably, and he wanted to breathe faster, heavier, and run away. "Supposedly she was destined to be mine, but something went wrong, so I was sent back quite far in time to fetch her." He'd never told anyone that either, had he? Damn. Saying too much. "The other is Diego. We found him during the... plague." His voice had dropped into a mumble before drifting off entirely, and Mauja shifted in the sparse clearing. One hoof clipped against the fallen ice, and his head swung around, to peer into the distance—freedom.

He longed for it.

"I don't– I mean, I—" He'd opened his mouth without thinking, the beginning of sentences tumbling out before he swallowed them again. Irma came out of the woodwork, pale even in the light of day, and settled on his withers. He turned back to look at Delinne, an odd moment of a fervent intensity burning in his eyes. I should've let you leave me in the river. He should never have followed. He should've left things as they were. He should've known to shut up, to stay away, isolated; he wasn't sure he would ever understand what had driven him to harm her, and it heckled his mind even as her baffling, strange kindness to him now did.

But he couldn't forget her demented laughter either, or that somewhere, deep inside, she had—maybe still did—hated him. He couldn't forget the many ways she'd called him King over the years, or the fact that she was broken now: but he was broken too. He had nothing to give her, and no way to help her.

He was poised on the edge of flight, struck aflame by the sun rays.

Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål
Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål

en natt så kall och månen den var klar

And just like that, the tables turned again.

Her voice grew venomous, her eyes darker, and Mauja's turned flat in turn, as cold and unyielding as the northern glaciers. His ears fell back into the mess of his mane. This was why he shouldn't have followed, because now, any sort of good ending seemed way out of reach—and why? What had triggered her diabolical change?

He understood soon enough. She must've read something in his slight signs of restlessness, assumed his staring at the distant horizon meant he considered leaving.. never mind the fact that he had considered taking off just moments earlier; did he really wear everything upon his skin these days? Of course, whispered that irksome voice in his mind. Of course he did. He'd forgotten how to be Mauja the snow-soft ages ago, because instead of smiling with cool amusement, he used anger as a shield. It throbbed in him, uncomfortably hot, demanding he be the one to bite first so she would never find his weaknesses.

"I think you should stay some more... Mauja. Already tired of conversing with an old subject?" Her tail was lashing, her tongue stinging, but he had long ago filled his share of her heartful rants and raves, and found that he did not care. His face fell into a cold mask of dislike, darkening even the pale shades of his eyes. "You were like this, you fucker," he hissed, throwing his head up as her tail came flying. At least there were no hooves to back it up. "Except... sluttier." His lips curled into a sneer, the cold fire burning in his gaze—they were too similar, now that he thought of it.

Deranged. Unpredictable. The other one lay dead. And he'd keep attacking and attacking, because it was the only way of he knew to protect himself from this kind of witchery.

He refused to be threatened by her. He refused to be scared of her. What could she tell Helovia, after all? That he was mad? Not surprising. Depressed? If they weren't inclined to believe her, they'd think she was lying, or if they did believe her—so what? And what meaning could it possibly have that he'd gone back through time to fetch Irma? What else had he said?

He'd just have to take what he'd told her, and make it his, shout it to the skies of Helovia so it would hold no weight against him.

"Think I'm scared of you repeating something I've said?" His voice was cold. "Think again. And cut the damn victim crap, and take a step back and look at yourself instead of blaming me! You destroyed your family more than I did, because you were not strong enough to stand up to me! Is that somehow my fault?" Each time his voice rose slightly, it dropped back just as quickly, full only of his heartbeat and cold anger. He was outright tired of her fits, of her blaming him, instead of solving the problem why she still could. He'd not heard of more than maybe a single, half-hearted attempt to get her mate back, and how much had they been watching him in the end? Barely at all? His dark nostrils widened in warning.

Make all the coffin nails hit home. Too deep to ever be pulled out.

"I lied to you and abused you, and you know what? There was no reason. There was no plan, it was just me and Psyche having a bit of fun—I made you destroy your family on nothing more but a whim! And I kept doing it, because I could. And you let me." His harsh voice rang through the space between them, tinted with all the blackness of his soul; in the fading light he stood in all his frigid glory, pale and unreachable, untouchable, the ferocity of his awakened soul blazing out through his eyes.

His heart kept hammering, his lungs kept heaving, somehow, he kept breathing. His ears stayed flat against his neck.

"I'm going," he declared after a second of silence, tail lashing one against his hocks—and he turned half away, before pausing, and looking over his shoulder.

Was this who he was? Who he had always been? An angry, frigid titan, who did what he wanted to others—because he could? This heartless, cruel man?

Something in his eyes softened for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Delinne. I cannot help you."

Then, he turned away again, to leave.

Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål
Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål

en natt så kall och månen den var klar

[ 800th, yay. <3 ]

He hadn't meant to stop. He'd meant to disappear, like the blizzard moved onwards by the blowing storm, leave her with all her shattered dreams—leave her for her own good, so he would stop dragging her heart and life through the sharp-fanged jaws of his impulsive nature. So that she could let go of him, and let him disappear, a shadow in the sunset, and better left that way; memory, smoke, and scars. He'd meant to let his eyes freeze over again, to let hell freeze over, and move away.

"You fucking asshole... I wish I had stayed in Dixtrod."

No surprises there. His black-rimmed ears lay flat against his neck already, as if he could somehow shut her words out, but there was no way he could not hear. And no way that he could not listen. "You're pathetic. I shouldn't have started talking to you by the river because this... You hurt me for fun and I kind of liked it." She– what? He refused to turn back, stood staring into the distance, jaw set and eyes dark. She was out of her mind. She had to be. There was no other way she could be saying what she was.. but was he surprised? Hadn't they'd been dancing along the edge of madness for a while now? She'd told him, and he shouldn't be surprised. "Why did you choose me to mess with? You could've chosen anyone - why me?" His cruel admission had smashed through her defenses at last, and he closed his eyes, grateful that his head was turned away. He didn't count on her to remain this way, sorrow coloring her broken voice. Sighed, almost silently. "Coincidence," he said quietly, loud enough for her to barely hear. "You were on the meadow. We were on the meadow. And then, it just.. happened."

The sun's rays were long, clinging to the last of the day's warmth as they stretched between the sparse trees, painting his shadow larger than life—and his soul felt like that, vast and black and heavy. "I wasn't used to having a family that I loved... that loved me back." She fell, and he gazed up for a moment. How much could one being hold in? How much emotion could one feel, without shattering from the pressure? How much damn conflict can you be part of, be, without going mad? Without slipping into the eternal darkness? He swallowed. Looked back again, the same feverish intensity burning in his glistening eyes.

His voice had grown hoarse.

"Learn from it. And for fuck's sake—hold on to them."

He'd reached his limit.

His head whipped back into the direction that pointed away, into the dying sun, and he picked up his feet in a fleet-footed trot—a ghost disappearing back into the veils of memory, and time.

Se dem brinna över verkan se dem dansa framför bål
Se dem mässa inför satan se dem smida sina stål