en natt så kall och månen den var klar

There's nothing buried here but broken dreams.

Mauja stood down the slope from the place where everything had begun, and where everything would end. How long had it been since he'd set foot upon it—within it? How long since he had swept between its hardy trees, fog curling about his legs, and the moon lighting his path? Since the wind had whispered its secrets to him, and he'd felt the pulse of the land beneath his frosted feet? Years, years and years. And how long since he'd talked to Kahlua? Since he'd said he'd come, when he was ready?

Helovia was too large. He was never going to find Ophelia at this rate. And something had begun to gnaw at him, a worry, a need to put it all behind him. To settle the score once and for all, write down the last words of Torasin's end and.. what? Breathe freely?

He knew it was never going to be that easy. Never as easy as the waves rolling in, pulling back, and rolling in again. To think that simply clearing his name would save him.. no. It was nothing but dreams, pinning his hopes on that which couldn't help him. He just wasn't strong enough to help himself.

Maybe it'd be better if he met his end up there. They'd have their twisted mockery of justice, and he'd be freed from this mortal coil; flying, soaring, with his owls.

A stab of guilt.

Perhaps he was ready to die, but they were not, two shapes gliding on the last of the evening's updrafts. Mauja ground his jaws together. He'd been distant with them as of late, shutting them out of his mind, refusing their love, anything just to keep them away. To keep whatever tenuous hold he still had on himself, and his sanity. He hated it, but he was powerless to stop himself, because anything seemed better than crossing that final line into madness.

Slowly, like the first crumble of the glaciers, Mauja began to move, from the silky silver sand and onto the rocky, white-washed slope of the Edge—but barely had he taken a step before movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. As if caught in the act of something he shouldn't be doing, Mauja paused with one hoof lifted, and turned to observe the stranger headed his way. The setting sun touched her with gilded red, struck bronze sparks in her bay pelt and darkened the shadows of her legs; no one he knew. Uncertainly, Mauja peered up the way he was going, and then back to the approaching mare. It certainly seemed like she was headed not only his way, but this way, and at the distance he couldn't pick out her scent; the ocean overpowered his nostrils with its nearness and salt.

Not quite sure why, he obeyed his hooves as they bid him to wait for her.

[ @[Leeka]. ]

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