en natt så kall och månen den var klar

"You fucking asshole. You're pathetic."

It was the sum of their conversation: an obvious bit of truth, and an adjective that stabbed him, rubbed itself raw against his mind with its grating. He was not pathetic. He was.. selfish and cruel, imaginative with a sadistic bent, but pathetic? He was not the worms wriggling in the earth, or the spineless bastards who brandished lies and cowardice like a fucking shield—he was a fallen angel who left a burning streak in the sky, and poisoned the air around him with acrid, stinging smoke.

Oh, who the hell was he kidding; his glory days were long past, his pristine brilliance reduced to muddy, sweaty gray, and the light that had burned in his soul had gone out, replaced with an endless, starry night. Weren't the past years proof of that? That no matter how hard he tried, that which had once made him the Ice King had gone out of him? Melted, disappeared, he didn't know, but that which had made him capable of commanding such loyalty from his followers was gone. Erased, and replaced, by his black-stained bitterness.

In the sunset of yet another day, it wasn't hard to admit: he hated himself.

He hated the fact that he couldn't pull himself from the strangling grip of the past, and the fact that he couldn't move on because his mind just ricocheted back into whatever hole it had come from. Helovia had once painted him as its enemy, a mark that had probably faded and grown dull with time, but the memory of all of it—Outcasts, Foothills, and Throat—allying against him made the pain flare up each time he was faced with it.

His defeat was an inflammation, and it had ravaged his body and mind for two and a half years. Time should heal all wounds, but this one, he just kept getting more and more aware of.

A brook bubbled along by his feet, murmuring happily, peacefully, in the calm evening air. Bronzed spears of sunlight lanced through the forest, striking long shadows where they met resistance. Their play upon the water's surface had grown from blinding to simply bright.

Mauja stood by it, the side of his face leaning against a sturdy tree, and his eyes closed; he had four other eyes to spy for him, and ears to hear with, and a keen nose. He did not need to see this wretched world, or his own distorted reflection. He felt his own body. That was enough. He felt his long, tangled mane stir against his neck, felt the itch of dried sweat by his joints, smelled the stale scent; he should go down and roll in the creek, emerge some sort of pale memory of what he'd been, but what was the point? What was the purpose? Why did it matter if he griped for the image of who he had been, when that creature no longer lived in his soul?

Truth was a damn hard thing.

Slowly, his pale eyes opened to the streaks of red on the sparse clouds, and his head tipped back. It had been, what, a day since he'd met with Delinne? And told her the hard truth—partially because he was frustrated and tired of her, and partially.. to drive her away. For her own sake? Or his?

Pathetic.

He snorted. With the way his thoughts had been going recently, he might even agree to that in a few days.

[ Open for anyone. ^^ He's a ways away from the Rotunda, so he can't see it/doesn't know it's even there lmao ]

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

[ Mau would cry if he could read her mind, Frostie. < /3 ]

She comes again.

Irma's voice was a feather-light whisper, a touch as subtle as the moonlight. It entered his mind so quietly, so lightly, that maybe it was just a thought echoing in the vastness of his skull—but the words thrummed through his blood, seeped into the walls, and he blinked. Turned his head to the side. And true enough, there among the trees, walking along the shallow stream, was another ghost, pale like snow and bearing her peculiar, proud crown. Arah. This time, it was not he who came to her, gently calling her name, but she who came, and stopped, and was silent. His heart counted the seconds, but the silence held. No greeting. Nothing.. just, nothing. Was this what he'd reduced his entire life to? Empty, and meaningless things and bonds? Oh, there where so many things he could've, and maybe should've, done differently; he always should've cared more.. should've shown how much he cared.

Maybe it wouldn't have been like this, then. All soulless silences, deafening even the birds and brook with its heavy weight.

"From a ghost to a ghost," he murmured, and cocked his head. Then, a little louder, "Arah,". Her heavy hair fell to the ground, partially obscuring her face, but as he drew nearer he saw more of her—and of.. of how nothing seemed right anymore. Was she even real? Or was he imagining her? Her heart, which had been gentle, if hurt by him before, seemed lacking, speaking of its absence through the dull silence of her lovely, warm voice. And her eyes... It was as if they mirrored his emptiness. Dead within. His throat constricted. Not her, too. Delinne was already dying within, drying up in the throes of her madness, and he had since long fallen—why Arah, too? Was nothing of joy to be left in this world?

Ophelia.

He'd probably failed her a hundred times over, too.

"Is everything alright?" he asked, quietly, his voice bleeding all the concern he'd never known how to show, and still didn't know how to: it just tumbled out like a flood, coloring the pale depths of his eyes with its gentle blue. Would she answer, and would she answer honestly? Did he deserve her trust? Another chance? The ugly bitterness snapped at him, told him he'd just botch it again, so why bother? Shouldn't he push her aside, too, for her own sake? So that he could never accidentally hurt her with his absence again, because she would not miss him?

He swallowed the monster and its venomous bile. If he gave in, and gave up before even trying—how was he ever going to do something right?

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

"Mauja." Was he never a harbinger of joy, and good news? Did the sight of him always make the cracks in the heart ache, like old wounds in winter? Would eyes never light up again when they saw him, and lips tug into small, shy smiles? Anger, and emptiness—and was that what he brought with him? Her voice was tinted with sadness, and he couldn't help but feel like he disappointed everyone he had once known. That they saw him, and remembered what had been, and the stark reminder of that loss was like a hurt, something that ached, and so when they saw him, they said his name with that mournful note in their voices, and that sad cast of their eyes, or spit venomous words at him to cover up their own losses and flaws.

She chuckled at his question. Did everyone laugh when the truth hurt too much? Some kind of hysterical reaction, to stave off the gaping, roaring abyss? But there was nothing deranged about Arah—she just seemed.. sad. Mauja's 'brows drew together. Had he been sad, too? Or had he always gone from the painful things and straight into this empty, desolate wasteland, where he felt nothing? He didn't know. Emotion seemed a very faraway thing.

"What say you Mauja. Does time heal?"

Then it was his time to laugh, a short, dry and bitter thing. They kept saying that, everyone who offered consolation (not that anyone offered him consolation, but he'd heard it passed around like some kind of miracle cure), but what did they know? What did they know of crippling bitterness? His nostrils widened. Anger was always so startlingly close at hand these days. "No," he said, watching with dulled curiosity as a small griffin came down from the trees. "No, it doesn't." The little creature glared endearingly at him, and Mauja stared back levelly, until it went off, down towards the brook.

Irma sent him a brief, cold trail of disapproval.

"At least.. not by itself." He sighed, and took yet a few steps closer. If he wanted to, he could reach out and touch her, but he kept to himself. He'd had a surplus of time. He'd had all the time in the world—years and years of it. And not a damn thing had healed. Just scabbed over, so he didn't see, didn't feel, unless something made it tear. No scars, no closure, just raw, inflamed wounds. Maybe, if he hadn't always run from it, things would've been different.

He'd thought he'd healed. He'd thought his recent victories would be his redemption.. that it would put the old ghosts to rest. Instead, he'd been thinking more than ever about it, but when you cannot go back and make something undone, or different.. how do you get over it?

"New friend?" he asked quietly, blackened muzzle pointing in the direction of the fishing young griffin.

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

He was watching the carefree griffin, and her playful-yet-serious splashing in the brook. The fading sun struck her feathers and fur, and the water; each time it splashed up, it hung like crystals for less than a heartbeat, before falling back in shattered perfection. Merging, seamlessly and scarless, with the water it had come from. He watched, with a detached kind of envy—envy of her oblivious, simply joy, and envy of the water. It healed itself without struggle.

You think too much. Irma, ever so precise. Diego just clobbered him with his agreement.

"It sounds so final."

"It is," he answered quietly. It was, after all, the only truth he knew. Time had not healed his wounds. Nor would it; he needed something else. Something more. Something to truly bring about the change in his soul, to pry his stiff, frozen fingers loose from its desperate grip on everything he held on to—everything painful. Every mistake. Everything he had no control of; everything that had come to pass.

Perhaps, as Ophelia had said, if he obliterated his memories he would wake up happier: different, and he would lose everything he held dear, but all of this would be forgotten. Everything reduced to scars.

But he knew that he couldn't do it.

He looked back at her. His eyes displayed little; maybe the slightest hint of sunshine on the surface, but beneath, they froze into the usual glacial ice, covering up his secrets and his soul. Met her eyes for a moment. He remembered their golden shade, but had they always seemed quite so burdened? She reached out, for what? Salvation? He couldn't help her—he couldn't help anyone. Not even himself. He glanced back at the griffin. Wynter. A fitting name, for she was as pale as her mistress, as pale as the winter itself.

The sound of his name had him looking at Arah again, black-rimmed ears perked forward. She was silent for a moment, eyes down-cast. "I think I'll fight to be happy again. Once I'm on the right path again." What is the right path? he wanted to ask, to drag all the answers from her. But he didn't, just remained silent, until she spoke again. He snorted. "I don't expect anything anymore, Arah. Though, compared to my last conversation, why, this is almost like heavenly light and angels singing their pure songs in my ears." His voice grew sour for a moment, before he sighed, and shook his head. He shouldn't let that witch's words linger and poison his soul, and least of all should he let some of it out on Arah. His eyes softened.

"Don't apologize. I don't think I could have a very upbeat conversation right now, either. I'm just.. sad, that you're unhappy."

You shouldn't waste life like this, he thought, but I don't know any other way to live.

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

He was not a shepherd anymore—nor the leader of wolves, singing his victory songs and setting their blood aflame with battle-lust. He was no divine crusader on a quest of purging, no two-faced politician who danced upon a knife's edge to bring glory to his own and devastation to all others.

He was just a broken man who was used to so much more, that just life itself was not enough. A restless beast who had lost its strength.

"If only," he echoed her quietly, thinking of the vast, black cavern underground. Hidden from the sun, he'd felt more alive, somehow—or maybe it was just the near brush with death that had hammered some temporary sense into him. It had been a whole new world to explore, and there, he'd almost found some kind of peace in the blue lights of the glowing room. Could someone full of light have lit all the distant walls of that cavernous, vast blackness? And what would those walls have revealed? Wondrous displays of light in the crystals, or the dried, old blood from something much darker?

Or just a plain old cave?

Arah suddenly seemed naive, and innocent, and his heart so dark, and heavy. She smiled—and it was beautiful on her, she ought to smile more, be happy—but he could not. The words died on his tongue. I've been trying to come back to life for years and I'm still dead. They tasted of betrayal, and weakness; had he given up the fight? But he was so tired, and everything that mattered.. everything was wrong, and he didn't know how he could ever make it right again. If it was even possible, or if some things were so deeply out of joint that nothing could ever set it right.

Surely his silence spoke volumes of his mind, even when his distant gaze and voice did not. Hiding behind the tangled locks of his hair, he didn't think of it, of the things his lack of words hinted at; just watched the young griffin quietly, as she came back to perch upon her bonded. "Tell me Mauja... How do you think we should spend tonight?" He'd barely reflected on the time of day, but that was not the reason his entire body suddenly froze, and his slightly narrowed eyes turned full of suspicion as they landed on her again. What, he wanted to hiss, suddenly afraid of her smiles and her kindness and the warmth of her voice—burned too many times by his own stupidity and lack of control, too many mistakes, and Snö's words ringing in his mind like an earthquake and the shrillness of a keening storm.

"I really do hope you did not mean for that to sound that way," he managed to force out, his voice cold, but his soul desperate for her to smack him for even daring to insinuate she might've meant such a thing—

And he felt even more the villain, knowing how he stared at her with a mixture of frigidity and desperation, when she looked at him only with the warmth of her golden soul.

But he just needed to know: know, that he was safe.

[ -smacks the idiot pony- ]

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