i am the vanguard of your destruction

“No!”

And he agreed. With every cursed fragment of his heart, he agreed; back turned and eyes cast on a distant horizon. This wasn't how it ought to end. She didn't want him to walk away, with the truth and his dark, bitter secrets. She didn't want him to disappear, an ice revenant with burning eyes and bleeding thoughts. She didn't want him to leave her, because he was a monster, just another accident waiting to happen. She wouldn't permit him to leave, because she thought he was a murderer.

He didn't want to walk away, either. He didn't want this, the memory of her tears burned into his aching mind. Hadn't he hurt her enough? Hadn't his spiteful words been enough?

How much more would he have to hurt her, to make her let go of him?

How much more could he hurt her, before his fragile defenses broke down and the flood of his tears and empathy put out the fire of his rage?

She stood before him, staring stubbornly with sky-blue eyes made glassy by tears. Blocking his path. Begging for more pain. He swallowed. For how much longer could he be her nightmare? How much longer could he pretend? Flat, angry eyes glared down at her, heart stumbling and falling in his chest. Once.. once, this wouldn't have been so hard. He wouldn't have cared at all, because her brow was unadorned—he would've gladly proven her right and walked away without much worry. His lips would've curved into a small, cold smile, and he would've told her that he was her ending, and that would've been that.

“Tell me, so I can figure out who the hell you really are!”
Why, if she could figure that out, he was quite interested in knowing it himself.

Angel and demon, beautiful and evil. His cold breaths counted the moments silently, despair gripping his throat and his chest. He had to.. he had to.. he had to keep pushing her away, for her own sake, even if meant instigating a witch-hunt after his own frosted hide.

And for his own sake, because sooner or later, he would lose her, too—more than he had lost her today.

But the only things he found upon his tongue were lies and somewhere, at some point in time, he had promised the gale that he would be honest.

"I am a sword drenched in the blood of those my wielder calls enemies," he finally said, voice as stony as his eyes. The edge of raw fury had gone out of him, burned up along with the pain, leaving only gray ashes and marble armor in their wake. He didn't want to care anymore but he still did. He could hear it, his heart gasping for breath between each beat. He wanted to turn his red-rimmed, dry eyes away, to stare at the horizon instead of her tear-stained stubborn resilience, but he couldn't. He couldn't. Even in the midst of this, he owed her as much.

Owed.
Once a dog, always a dog. He didn't have enough spine and fangs to be a wolf.

Angrily his ears clenched against his neck and his teeth clicked in the air, as violent a display as anything coming from the Frostheart; frustration blossomed and ran rampant through his blood, frustration at himself, at the world, at everything.

It didn't matter that she blocked his path. He had no freedom anyway, because he had told her the truth: he had always been a tool. He had always existed for a cause, a reason, some kind of crusade—and maybe he had led it for a while, but he had still been slave to his own whims and ideals. He had existed for it, his entire life shaped around its central belief and the cornerstones of his faith the foundation for his every action, or lack thereof. For years he had roamed the world, listless and apathetic, because his cause had been taken from him, and there had been no hand to grasp the blood-slick hilt of his loyalty and command him.

He found a certain irony in the fact that Kahlua, Sunshower and such a gentle spirit, still commanded enough of his heart that if she but reached out, he would follow—if she but wanted this weapon walking, it was hers.

As long as she dared to use it.
But he couldn't believe Kahlua capable of pointing him at anyone and asking him to deliver their hearts to her. He was a life-thief, but had no strength of his own to justify it.

He had been silent for a long time, lost in the twisting pathways of his thoughts. And suddenly, he wasn't so sure at all that he could do this, push away this woman-child and forever bar her from the light in his soul.

Or maybe it was the other way around—put a lid on the light and cast himself in darkness.

But he was angry, and he felt betrayed, and he had lost so fucking much already.

Did, then, forcing himself to lose her as well make it any better? Was it the easier or the harder way out? And with as much as he had said, or hadn't, could she still find forgiveness in her heart for him, if she knew all of the truth? So hadn't he already wrecked it?

Could he have accepted her absolution anyway, knowing what he knew—that she didn't know the entire truth about all the blood he had spilled?

A sword drenched in blood... He felt his heart clench. He didn't want a life of peace. He didn't want to sit by idly in the sunlight and twiddle his ears as bunnies frolicked around him in the flowers.

He needed something to believe in. Something greater than himself. A reason to fight.

It wasn't about Torasin anymore. It wasn't about the Edge's forgiveness; he had been honest when he said he didn't care. It was, he realized, all about Kahlua.

A single sparrow of fire ignited in the air by his shoulder. For a moment it hung there, useless and uncertain, little flaming wings flapping in the air before it sped off, dissipating with a small crack and a burst of fiery light.

"The name she held, was Psyche," he heard himself say, voice rough. Why did he tell her? Shut up shut up shut up. Once he started he wouldn't be able to stop, and then she would know, and his act would've been for nothing because he wouldn't have pushed her out at all.

But maybe she wouldn't want to be his friend anymore, anyway.. and for honest reasons, and not just assumptions.

He didn't want to forgive her, but without the anger it was hard to hold on to the sentiment—faced with her tears, with some twisted demand of understanding of who this demon of light was.. how could he deny her that? He was still the same, just stripped of his icy crown and his blue rage. Still the same Mauja, witch-hunter and mercenary, failure and hero, the sword someone else wielded. A weapon left to gather dust, blood rusting him in his neglect.

"She was one of my oldest, closest friends, and the mother of my eldest daughter."

He felt deathly calm, detached—composed, dark, strong somehow, despite the way his mind floated through shadow. These words danced dangerously close to the place in him that hurt the most.

"And you think I killed her," he finished, choking on the bitterness.