There was someone staring at him.

He was large, and black, with twain horns, a white scatter of snowflakes across his flanks—a shadow of Mauja's father, but for the eyes. These eyes were blue, a haunting mirror of his own eyes. They bridged the distance between them, nothing of the fury and the rage and the biting words in them, just.. something. Confusion, and a hand reaching out, straining against the impossibilities of touch or direct communication... And Mauja, sunken into his pit of despair and disgust, stared vacantly back at the specter from his past, saw little but the imposing shape and those two horns rising proudly into the sky.

Then Torleik nodded and it was just Torleik again, Mauja's racing heart jolting in surprise. With his spirit trembling, Mauja felt his head dip back down, reflex and reflection.

The only thing that kept him grounded was Kahlua. The only thing that kept him from turning on the spot and returning to whatever cage he had burst out of, was Kahlua. He didn't know which way it was—if it was she who needed him, or the other way around.

Or maybe they needed one another, simple as that.

She was warm against his side, comfortably pressed against his flank; he didn't mind the pressure. He barely even noticed it. He was used to it, to feeling her close enough to almost, almost, slip beneath his skin.

"Still bitter about your loss, I see, Mauja."

If she had deigned to show her cowardly, ugly face earlier, there would've been fireworks—there would've been blood and violence, ice and fire, a howl of pure rage torn from his throat as the final bonds on his control snapped. And in his state of ice-bound arrogance he was certain that he would've won.

He could, after all, kill her without a touch. Kill her on the spot. Kill her without twitching an eyebrow, without having to reveal that it was him—shoot her heart full of ice and watch her collapse, cave in on herself.

She was old, wasn't she?

Just a heart attack.

It would be so simple.

But the words, they died on his tongue, in his throat, fell back into his lungs like ash—because it was, of all the horses present, Kahlua who spoke out in his defense. It spread through his body like pleasant warmth, a fine wine on a lovely evening, a sensation so unlike the one of ice-hunger crawling through his veins. It tasted of victory, a heady kind of rush, a bone-deep sensation of.. of...

Of feeling loved.

So he said nothing, merely raised one 'brow like a polite query. The rush of anger was gone, drowned in the tidal wave of affection Kahlua had accidentally poured onto him. He didn't care about Mirage. If she thought he cared, beyond recognizing her as one of the biggest idiots ever to walk Helovia, she was wrong. Was she so full of herself she thought he placed that much value on her doings and undoings?

Maybe he did. Maybe he had—for a time, he definitely had. His hatred of her had ruled his existence. But now? It was more like something old and scarred over, but he couldn't deny the great satisfaction it would bring him to kill the bitch.

Some other bitch was talking, and then some gentle heart (Mauja felt a new wave of revulsion sweep over him; how many hearts were walking around out there? It made him sick to the pit of his stomach to know that they called him frostheart) was spewing butthurt shit about I know you're here to discredit me, like, get over yourself.

Rule number one of life is, nobody gives a fuck about you.

Nobody gives a fuck about your glory, your fall, your mistakes, your virtues and your dreams. Helovia had given a few, tentative fucks about Mauja for a short time when he ruled this place—then the tables had turned, he had failed to deliver some kind of fear-inspiring revenge, and he'd been promptly forgotten.

That was how life worked.

Then Arah was there, talking, fueling the fires Mauja had set, and apparently declared him in the running for this thing. His lower jaw opened, tongue preparing a protest, but then he shut it again. He was here, uuhh.. He was.. he...

He was here for Kahlua. If that meant accidentally backing Torleik for the throne—an endeavor he apparently had an ally in now—so be it. He hadn't planned on getting stark raving mad about this, but apparently it was a sore spot.

On the outskirts, he saw more familiar faces—Nyx, the poor sod he and d'Artagnan had nearly scared off the Veins. Some black-and-blue pegasus mare Irma recognized as having scared off together with Crowley. And finally, the tiger-striped angel from the Rotunda. His eyes skipped off them and back to Kahlua, his heart still pounding, head stuck in the battle between the complacent laziness that still lingered in his blood after her defense of him, and the world-burning anger at all the incompetent, unworthy idiots gathered here.

“You told me why you should be leaders. Now you can prove that you deserve it.”
An echo, "What exactly have you done that makes you so qualified to cast judgement upon everyone else here?"

But I don't deserve it.

He was broken, and flawed; faulty. Imperfect. Off-balance. He was haunted and hunted, weak and afraid, confused. He wasn't strong anymore.

“Warriors stay with Ophelia.”

And he wasn't a warrior either. The word was too noble for him; he was a mercenary, a sword drenched in blood, a tool, and Kahlua held the hilt of his loyalty much too firmly for him to remain in the clearing. Like her shadow, like her shield, he clung to her side, a white guardian towering above her smaller frame; and ears still back, eyes worried and still a tad too intense he leaned in, breathed against her neck, against her ears, little words hidden in the soft exhalations. "You don't have to do this," came his whisper, because suddenly he was afraid, because..

Because if she went back to the Falls, she would be out of his reach.

"You should—" But his breath was cut short, mind backtracking. Should? Kahlua should do nothing. "I'm sorry," he murmured, a little louder but still too quiet. He didn't leave her side, didn't break his stride, but his head fell away a few inches.

"None of them are worthy of this place," he finally said, quietly.

[ he's going with Kah, yep. ]

lord, the demands you're making-
help the monster on two feet
walk him down the hall, repeat
and when he's strong enough to stand alone
you'll notice what big teeth . . .