en natt så kall och månen den var klar

[ Aurelia scores A+ in "How to get Mauja really riled up 101". Warning for some strong language. ]

The next couple of minutes could be summed up with two words: fuck life. She came awake to the sound of his rambled greeting, to the sight of his moon-silvered eyes and pale body, the cold glint of his horn and the polite, forward flick of his black-rimmed ears. Mauja, in all his insecure, curious glory, with a thin skin of ice behind which everything lay, hidden and safe. Never quite revealing just how much on the edge he was these days.

"The mind is a mystery." She sounded colder than he remembered, and his faint hope that tonight would somehow be different was dashed, cruelly, to pieces. His white ears flicked back, eyes hardening, jaws grinding together. It was turning out to be just like every other damn thing—had everyone lost their minds? Did his presence somehow inspire others to lose it? "And most people can change. It's a little dark, do you not agree?" His jaws parted, but no sound came out. She was on the attack, wasn't she? Verbally hammering on him, what did she want, for him to leave? But he didn't have the time to form some kind of reply, or say what the hell is wrong with you? because of all the things she could conjure, it was fire.

Flame flickered along her hide, sprouted from her withers like another set of wings, engulfing her. Mauja flinched and danced back a step, nostrils widened, and his owls scattering to the stars.

Fuck fire, too.

His head was up, the blaze reflecting in the bared whites of his eyes, painting the wild mess of his forelock in shades of red; his heart was pounding, hammering, adrenaline choking him and nearly blackening his vision. Fire. Fire, fire, fire and flame, damn it, he knew what that felt like, for your entire body to burn and how it roared in your ears and slid down your throat, cracked your skin and made it smell of charred meat—

"Perhaps this is why I do not like water?"

Her voice was barely audible above his pulse and the crack of flames, the sharp tang of burning in his nose. "STOP IT!" he roared at her, heedless of that she was talking, ears flat and eyes wild with anger, and a line of fear along the rim. She'd caught him by surprise, but he would not run, not anymore; "Fire isn't compatible with anything, but you've already figured that out, now haven't you?" He still wasn't listening, not really, his harsh breath pounding out in clouds, the ground rattling with inch-tall ice nubs. She'd better put the damn thing out before he ran her through.

Then, as suddenly as it had sprung up, it died, disappeared, and left them mired in an even deeper darkness. Mauja blinked rapidly, dragged in a heavy, ragged breath. What the hell had she done that for? Blinded by the glare still stuck on his retina he only saw dimly that she began to move away, followed by the sound of her voice. "So go on Mauja, kill me. It won't bother you, after all.. you are the Stone Clad." Kill her? She swept into the air on long, moonlit wings, like some sort of angel gliding towards the distant stars.

"What?! YOU'RE ALL FUCKING INSANE!" he yelled after her, still wild from her spontaneous combustion; the adrenaline was slowly leaving his body, limbs trembling. He felt light-headed and dazed, but still angry. Angry, and weak. She dropped into the water, said some more about killing, but Mauja stood on the shore, all four feet firmly planted in the swiftly cooling sand and his ears flat against his neck, head high. His eyes were narrowed, and flat, as cold and unyielding as the ice. "I didn't mean kill, kill you, I meant kill as in the damn marking on your cheek! It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw you, you fucking moron," he snarled at her, hoping his voice would carry above the lull of the ocean out to where she swam.

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