och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen

då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,

He's seen this before. White hind-legs flashing over dark earth, her small shape bulleting through distant horizons, fleeing, fleeing, fleeing, trying to outpace both him and the world. The dual images burned in his mind, reality overlapping with memory.

He had seen this before, but that time, he had lost her.

This time, he was determined not to.

But how do you catch a shadow?

Frosted hooves struck the ground, again and again, heart laboring in his chest and sides heaving—there was only so much he could do, keep running, keep chasing, his winged eyes soaring high above and tracking her mad flight. How had it even come to this? What had happened? He knew nothing of her—not even her name—but something, something must've happened.. something that tore the ground from out under her, fractured her very world, and went deeper into her heart than any poison could.

He had no understanding, no guesses, no nothing, only his empathy, and it drove him forward even when his lungs burned.

Down, Irma whispered, her voice a touch of winter ghosting through his skull; Diego voiced a silent agreement, and wings angled down for a quiet descent, braving the cramped quarters of the underground.

So much had happened, and so quickly; his frosted hooves slid on the rocky path as he checked his pace and ducked into the darkness. The revelation, a god-child dead.. Psyche dead.. somewhere down in these very caves they had shared an odd moment of peace, a sliver of glass from a long-forgotten artwork nestled in his heart, its sharp edges pricking him each time it beat. What they had been on the road of becoming.. was lost.

He blamed the wind for his weeping this time as he plunged into the magma-warm darkness, his subtly wavering shadow draped over the walls as his body painted itself in whichever hue it was presented with. This way, her words said, the lightest touch on his mind as he barreled down a corridor, chasing ghosts and memories. Underneath the ringing of his own echoes he thought he could hear something..

A sharp cry reverberated both through bond and world as Irma swerved, sharply, nearly colliding with Diego in her haste to get away as the room erupted in lightning and exploding crystal. Mauja's ears fell flat against his neck. What was she doing?

He didn't know how long it took for him to reach her—a minute? Ten?—but suddenly he was there, in the halls of peacefully glowing crystal, their many hues reflecting in his white coat.. but the calm was broken, in shattered pieces and dust, flashes of too-bright light and the sound of things breaking and hooves ringing on a hard, unforgiving floor.

The flustered owls settled on his back in their customary order, worried eyes darting this way and that, but he barely felt their claws resting against his skin. He saw only the dark-light shape of her, crashing this way and that—he saw her through his lashes, eyes narrowed against the sharp bursts of light.

He didn't think she would hurt him—if she knew he was there. So he kept his distance, watching her in silence, heart heavy in his chest. Someone—maybe the Earth-child that had fallen to save them all—must've meant much to her. Mauja swallowed. He knew what it felt like, to lose.

He knew the feeling of helpless rage, the overwhelming sense of grief, loss in its purest form: a darkness expanding in your heart, in your thoughts, in the vacant space they should've occupied by your side.

He knew it and watching her in the throes of its grip was.. more than he wanted to bear, but those blasts kept him away, until finally it seemed to calm. Their part of the cavern lay in ruins, all sharp edges and dust, wicked spires left standing where there had been walls. Mauja's gaze traveled around once, before it went back to her.

Ljós he had called her, and she had been his for that day, but this was not the work of the light—grief was not evil, but it was dark, and he thought it was what had moved her. And calling her Loudmouth now would be too insensitive for him to stomach.

"Elding," he finally called in a lilting and soft voice, moving from his safe distance. He hadn't come all this way to abandon her now. He hadn't come all this way to let himself be turned away, either.

He had come all this way, to show her that he cared. That he was there. For her.

[ my post pales in comparison to yours. /cry ]

och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen

då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,

The cavern had become like their hearts—a beautiful ruin. Shards of still-glowing crystal lay upon the ground, discarded like forgotten toys of some infant god, but they were growing dim, and dull, as if whatever magical light had blessed them was dying, too. Mauja's gaze slipped from Elding for a moment, to watch the last of the shimmering dust settle, and to, maybe, give her a moment to breathe, free from the intensity of his pale eyes. “Le—Leos,” and she had turned to face him. The gentle glow of the cave reflected in the wetness on her cheeks, glistened across her dark eyes. Leos. It sounded like a mangled variant of ljós, and something about it tugged at his lips, but his smile was weak and fragile. Had she heard him whisper it? Did she know what it meant?

Did it matter? He could be her light anyway, if she would have it, and not be afraid of the shadows he cast...

But the smile faded as she backed away, her breathing drowning the sound of his own, and the clanging of her hooves in the ruin masked the sound of his own heart, until he wondered if he was drowning along with her in her misery—because he could practically taste it in the charged air, and he knew that it hurt.

One step.. two steps.. three.. stumbling and graceless, she did as he did, fled from the comfort of others, but did she flee for the same reasons? Was she, too, afraid to let others in? Unable to do it, because she didn't know how to? Did she feel like she had to weather everything alone? Like she had to be strong enough to deal with everything, no matter what it was, and when it came?

Did she know how it broke your heart, to watch her recoil?

He had spent his entire life shutting others out and it was only now that he knew how it hurt, still-sharp glass dust pressed into his heart. Each step she took was a weight in his soul, a half-formed word upon his tongue, don't go, a need to reach out and hold her in place but.. did she back for the same reasons he closed all doors, or did she genuinely not want him there? Respect and fear kept him grounded, his soft eyes sad in the gentle light.

When Psyche had died, he had needed someone—anyone—to anchor him, to sling their head over his back and hold him.. but none had been there. His daughter had needed him, and as a father, he had to care for her before he cared for himself, and no one else present had been there to keep him afloat.

Until Kahlua had come with her accusations and her anger.

Elding was up against a wall, and stopped moving; his ears strained in the distorted soundscape, listening to her broken, quiet voice. Helovia was a cruel place. “Do you…ever have nightmares?” "No," he had the time to say from where he stood, unmoving and frozen in his fear of rejection, until her resolve to fight was broken, and sorrow took its toll. Tears, reflecting the defiant light, fell from her eyes, and Mauja found himself moving. She didn't need to suffer this alone. She didn't need to suffer this unguarded.

She didn't need to think she was the only one who ever felt like that, fighting the sadness tooth and claw but not being strong enough to win.

The owls left his back, found perches among the ruin, talons delicately gripping sharp edges and eyes turning outward; white knees bent and touched the hard ground, tiny gouges of red ripped in his skin where his weight pressed against shards, until with a grunt he lay beside her, long legs neatly folded beneath his bulk. His eyes glowed with the pastel lights of the cavern, and his soul beneath it glowed with the strange, warm things he felt. For a moment he simply laid there, almost hesitant to touch her, afraid that she would keep recoiling from the comfort he offered, but.. what kind of friend was he, if he did not dare to risk himself for her?

So he reached out, a warm, dark muzzle to brush against her tear-stained cheek, until, finally, it came to rest by her ears, and with a trembling heart he whispered—

"It is when awake that I am haunted."

[ @[Roskuld] ]

och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen

då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,

It's never easy, and he damn well knows that—all that pain filling you up, threatening to explode.. until you wonder how your heart and lungs haven't burst yet, because they're packed full with it.

He didn't say anything, asked no questions. It didn't matter, anyway. Nothing mattered, because he had spoken the truth—it had hurt, forcing those words off his tongue, but it was the truth. The dead were dead. The void carved in his heart, the empty spaces they had left in the ruin of his life, would never be filled; their smiles were nothing but a memory, and he would never again be able to touch them; hold them; see the sunlight in their eyes.

He hadn't let himself mourn. Starting that bloodied, cold night seven years ago he had simply bottled it all up, locked it away in the frigid, perfect armor, steel left out in the snow.. tears and blood freezing in his veins, heart growing cold, mind numb, uncaring. How else could he have inflicted this upon so many? How else could he have ruthlessly taken life, even believed he had a right to?

That night.. he had lain broken in the snow, the only one to live, but the only one who didn't deserve to. Vaguely, he remembered the feeling of tears freezing on his cheeks, of starlight refracted through crystals and wetness, and the ache in his chest could just as well have been from his injuries—never mind that his heart had shattered in his chest, that he could smell winter freezing death over, and that he knew what he had lost.. what he had lost not because the world had taken from him, but what he had made himself lose.

"It's all my fault, too," he breathed brokenly against her mane, lipping and pulling at it, running his muzzle along her neck, not expecting her to hear, not wanting her to hear, but needing to say it. Seven years of grief and never once had he let it out.

Seven years of a lost future; seven years of isolation, of distance even when two bodies touched.

The dead were dead. Mistakes couldn't be rectified. Life couldn't be breathed back into empty lungs. It was the only truth, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt—that it hadn't hurt to have to let the fire descend on Psyche, or to hear the pain in d'Artagnan's voice as he told of Kou, or of seeing Tolio dead in that tunnel, or watching Hototo fall to save them all and hear the raw agony flaying Ktulu from within. In the end, they all lost.

A broken, bitter sob forced its way out of his chest, and he buried his face against her mane. This wasn't about him. This wasn't about everything from Psyche to seven years ago. This was about her, and her dead cousin, and whatever mountain of guilt she wore upon her shoulders.

It doesn't get easier he wanted to tell her, eventually you just sort of forget about it, and, how the hell is he your cousin? (Literal cousin? That left some unsavory options; grand-daughter of Paladin, or daughter of a God, and if it wasn't for the fact he was pretty sure those two color-fringed colts were Paladin's get he probably would've exploded on the spot once his subconscious mind made the connection...)

From time to time his body convulsed with the wracking, choked gasps as he fought to keep his grief in its bottle, rocking against the cold hard floor and her sprawled shape. A few, bitter tears had left a wet patch on her neck.

But as all storms do even this one blew over; she stilled but he had to keep on fighting, just lying with his neck extended over her back, as far as he could reach, eyes pressed shut. He wanted to help her. He wanted to say something, to ask her what she meant, what had happened, how could it be her fault?

But there was something in the way, a painful lump burning in his throat, an ache behind his eyes. There was no way he could speak without losing his fragile grip on control.

[ @[Roskuld] ]

och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen

då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,

I don't know how I ended up here. Eyes pressed shut tightly and heart beating, as if tried to outpace something, but how could it, when it was in his blood? When it came slipping through his veins, harsh breath pounding out like the war-drum beat of predators? It had spelled his destruction with crude claws and sang his name to the night sky, and he wondered if he was meant to battle it—if it was even possible to win...

His darkness was warm, full of the body pressed against his, and the salty scent of tears. It lingered on the edges of his consciousness, muting out the otherwise oddly sterile scent of the ruined cavern. He wanted to stay there, now that the burning, aching lump was receding, because it was oddly similar to.. peace. There was just this sense of pleasant numbness slowly filling him up, and it didn't have anything to do with cramped muscles and throttled nerves, but more to do with sinking back beneath the surface of the lake he had drowned in so long ago. It was better there, better that way, water filling up his lungs and his mind, diluting the tears and silencing his screams.

“Leos,” she whispered, that word again, that name, or was it something else? Had he guessed right he thought it came from ljós or was it some other language, some curse on her tongue? It reached him from a distance, slowly sinking through the water down to where he lay, and it tugged at his senses.. bidding him to return; working him closer to the surface, where the refracted sunlight almost reached him.

Because, after all, this wasn't about him.

It was about her. He had followed her, not sure what to expect, but ready, willing, to deal with whatever mess she'd found herself in. And in order to understand her, he needed to understand himself, and for that to happen, he needed a little bit of pain .. a little bit of memory .. scattered and bloodied, broken pieces strewn on a game board where hands that weren't his moved them.

He neither moved nor opened his eyes—just laid there in the darkness, the weight of his head resting against her back, and listened to what she said, mind churning softly beneath its thin layer of numbness. He would have to tread carefully within his own memories, lest he cut himself too badly on their edges, and lose what fragile grip he had on himself. So he listened.. and he wondered.. who this Elding was, and who her Ma was, and who her Pa was, and why the world was oddly cruel in the sense that they gave him as good an upbringing as you could wish for with loving parents and siblings, but not everyone else. Idly he wondered, if she had been his kid, would things have been different?

Probably not, his black heart whispered, just look at Snö.

After a moment Elding fell silent, her words spent, but her teeth still working, moving, sometimes tugging at his long hair and sometimes on his skin, pinching kind of restlessly. Mauja finally opened his eyes, pulled his head back a little so he could see her properly. When he'd been young, he had only had one path to walk—a path he slipped on, hit his head hard on, and finally fell off into some dark abyss.

Then, he'd probably landed in a snowdrift because he hadn't died, but he certainly hadn't known where to go, stuck in a dark forest in a blizzard that had raged on for the better part of his life.

"Be who you are," he finally said, voice husky with unshed tears and swallowed pain, "and become what you want to be."

Maybe it was cheesy (let's face it, it is), but it was another of those things he knew to be truth—and the truth isn't always pretty, dressed up in corsets and lace and with perfect skin. Truth is.. what we all are; scarred. "Your life is your own," he went on after a moment, wondering why his chest felt so heavy, and tight. "It's.. not easy, but.. your life is yours; live it not as others want you to, but as you want to.. and if your parents have any sense at all, they will not try to force their lives upon you," he was murmuring, it felt awkward, talking about someone's unknown parents like that, "and.. well.. if they can't be bothered to tell you what they want.. it's their loss if you can't stop to consider it, right?"

He felt like it was spiraling into the realm of "shitty advice", and pretty fast, but how do you explain to someone what you just know, what's nothing more than this feeling in your gut, your soul? "I just.. be who you are." And he had to end it there, because he could not find the words.

[ @[Roskuld] ]

och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen

då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,

We'll search our hearts before you die, let the times fade away,
It was given as a promise to each and every man...

“They tell me that,” and of course he would hardly be the first attempting to tell her such a thing—probably not the last, either, but he wanted so desperately to burn the truth into her mind as vividly as it was burnt into his.

But who was he to speak.. dog that he was, always a follower; someone's tool, the bloodied sword swung, the one who let the world kick and bite without retribution. Could he claim that he was who he wanted to be? Could he say that his life was his own, when the only meaning it had ever held was the one given unto him? Who did he even want to be? Hadn't he spent years trying to be someone else only to find that he couldn't change who he already was? That the so-called frost heart wasn't black with frostbite, but just as red as anyone else's? He wasn't sure he was who he wanted to be—he just knew that he was who he was, and that was.. that was just Mauja. Just Mauja, no more, no less.

It wasn't about being who you wanted to be, but rather it was not being who someone else wanted you to be. But.. ah, well.. it is easy to be wise in hindsight, and he didn't think it really mattered, because the landslide pouring out of her mouth probably needed to come out regardless. It sounded like he felt: infected. Whatever had caused this had been left to rot inside of her for too long.

He only wished he was as brave, that he one day could spit all his poison out too. It lay thick and black on his tongue, but it stuck against his teeth.

“I’m here, and this is how I ended up being, but what if—what if it’s not what they needed? What if they needed someone great who could do all this amazing shit—but instead—instead they got me and now TOTO’S DEAD!!”

Her voice rang around the cavern, the multitude of echoes giving way to the last word she'd screamed, dead, dead, dead, and Mauja felt something in his heart pick it up like a song, humming the word with soft sadness. Dead, dead, they're all dead. His road was paved with bones and lined with corpses; ghost-lights glowed in their hollow-eyed skulls, cheerily showing him the way to Hell.

Hell-o-via. He was already there.

The warmth her body had offered left, and while his ears were glad to no longer be so viciously close to her shouting, his soul missed her presence—not so much for the heat, but for what it meant, some kind of trust that she'd lain in his embrace and cried and spilled out all these things that really, her parents should be the ones hearing.. that it should be them here, soaking up her tears and trying to.. well.. help? But it wasn't helping as much as listening. A soft sigh escaped him as he took the opportunity to shift on the floor. He felt.. not exactly comfortable—it was a hard place full of uneven edges and something was pricking him pretty badly between two ribs—but it felt right to remain there, slowly shifting until he was more sprawled than anything. Still, he peered up at her, and then snorted. "Don't worry, you're about as stupid as the rest of those present," he told her with a slight twitch of the lips, a half-smile with an edge. "So you're in good company."

It was a bitter truth that he could probably lay there and mock himself all day. There was something so sickeningly refreshing about putting yourself down, almost liberating in some way—it was something he both craved and feared, like some kind of drug. It felt so good and at the same time it made him feel awful.

But maybe it's why he can't let go.

"Look, Elding..." And it suddenly felt so cheap that he was just sprawling there in her ruin, like some wastrel too wasted to get up again—so he rolled over on his belly again, tucking blood-scabbed knees neatly against his chest and sweeping the dust with his tail. He was so old, so far removed from the days of his youth, and she seemed so much stronger than she was (in this moment, at least); he'd seen the kid in her that first time on the beach when she—they—had panicked, but it was easy to forget.. but it was there, and he hadn't realized how important it was, and that just added to his mountain of guilt. "I can't claim to know what it's like to grow up with the sense of being unwanted, without the love of your parents—I.. was very fortunate in that regard," and he never would've traded that away, and certainly not knowing what he did now, "But..." And this was the hardest part. Laying your head beneath the axe and wondering where it will fall.

If it'll fall at all, or just loom there above you, some half-spoken threat, or truth. But it ate at him, at his guts, a fire that was spreading and going out of control. He had to know, or at least ask, but he was terrified of the answer. So when he spoke his voice was so soft, there in the wrecked cave.

"You sound as if you.. owe them—us—everyone.. as if you owe something, like, your life or something—" Not as death but every waking minute, every purpose; her death, if it was called for, but by whom?

He didn't know.

Or maybe he did but he didn't want to.

"—ah, fuck it," he muttered after that breath's pause. Curiosity aside, he felt like he was better off not knowing, better off not finishing that train of thought, or maybe just like it was too early for it. He.. didn't know. He felt as scattered as the crystal panes broken all around him.

Dead, dead, dead, his heart sang softly in the back of his mind, whispering in the lull between the pulses. He realized his gaze had dropped to the floor, and raised it again—soft blue searching for hers.

"Is this the first time.. you lost someone to death..?"

[ @[Roskuld] ]

och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen

då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,

And suddenly it was just there, a thought in the back of his mind, some kind of revelation—not the kind that lanced through your skull like the first sunlight over jagged mountains, but rather the pre-dawn glow of a pale blue sky slowly lightening up with rose and peach, the whisper of a scent upon the wind... It was soft, and gentle, grasped him with its tender hands and momentarily choked him on the spot.

And I'm not talking about her heritage—gods it'd be so stupid and the utmost, cruel irony if she turned out to be the child of Ophelia and Sparkplug of all gods, it was ridiculous to even think it was that way(and yet there's this voice in the back of his head whispering cousin like a curse)—I'm talking about him, and his sorely misplaced mental health.

Because, he's found a few pieces of it again.

He had lost more in the recent months than he had in a long, long time. He had found Tolio lost, realized he'd lost Kou a long, long time ago—he had lost Ophelia after a fashion, and then..

And then, he had lost Psyche.

And almost.. almost, he had lost Kahlua.

But instead it felt like he'd won—like out of all those ashes and losses a fire had risen from some forgotten ember. He had finally caved in, he had gone home with Kahlua, and.. in the time since—the time leading up to him lying here in a cave and soothing a shadow from his past—in the time since he had been happier than he could even moderately remember being.

It had been a long time since he'd thought about going to sleep and never waking up again. It had been a long time since he'd snarled at the world and put himself to sleep on bitter, stinging tears. And it was in that moment, listening to her speak about her fear, that he realized it—that something had changed, within him. Darkness still chased itself around his soul and seeped through his ice-crusted veins and winter still coveted the remains of his heart but it was different now. He wasn't meant to be thawed and become some pansy—but he wasn't meant to sink in dark, cold waters and wish for the end either.

Life was about living, and to die willingly when so many had died unwillingly was sacrilege.

“Have you…? …have you ever lost someone, Lee?”

"Many," he says softly, voice barely more than a breath. Something in the blue of his eyes grew sharper as he looked at her again, and not at whatever revelation he'd just stumbled upon. But how do you go on from there? How do you confess to having lost so much—parents, siblings, lovers and friends—and just keep on talking..? What do you even say? Do you pick up on what she'd said, that she'd lost anyway, and admit to having found the body of one of your oldest, closest friends laid to waste in this mayhem of the gods?

Or do you just sweep the mess of your shattered heart back under the carpet?

The first time he really lost had been back then—that night, as his mind liked to call it, the night of cold and blood, stars and the scent of iron.

"I was around three the first time," he said, his jaws having worked soundlessly for a few moments before it finally came out, "and.. then it just.. never stops." He swallowed, found his eyes and nudged them back to hers. "You just keep on losing." It was a whisper infected with fear and pain, a glint of something hard and desperate in his eyes. After a moment he dropped his gaze again, to stare at something—anything—nothing. Just broken crystal and dust that had finally settled upon its own graves.

Bitter and rough, the half-snort, half-bark-of-a-laugh drew itself out of his throat. Look at him, trying to comfort someone who had lost for the first time (and having revelations about being happier, whatever happened to that?) and instead just pitching the unfortunate truth at her face without any warning; you will always lose. The more you love, the more it hurts, and the longer you live, the deeper the and more numerous the wounds. Why everyone didn't link arms and collectively jump off a high cliff escaped him.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, apologizing for everything—her loss, his words, his existence. "I'm not the best at being optimistic and comforting."

[ @[Roskuld] <3 ]

och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen

då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,

Som det strålar från ditt hjärta
Som en motorväg av ljus
Genom hålet i mitt hjärta
Kommer räddningen till slut

Heart.. to heart; breath to breath, flesh to bone and back again. It moved between them, in them, unseen, bounded with the force of a pulse and creeping out with the tears and the words and the worries. The past couple of minutes became a tumble and a cascade, a rush in his mind, some kind of blurred memory insisting on overlapping with the present when really, it should just stay where it was, cached away for later introspection. He'd been fighting so hard to keep his own darkness at bay, to leash and chain the demons and cauterize his tears, but here they were anyway, the spotlight slowly shifting onto him.

All because he couldn't keep the stupid shadows out of his voice, out of his eyes, out of his goddamned life, but how could he when that shit was in his blood? When it was like a blindfold, shutters half-closed against the sun and refusing to come up again, a filter between everything he saw and everything he felt? Like it had to pass through something embedding a sharp piece of memory in it, robbing him of any moments of peace and bringing the cathedrals down all around in a shower of rubble and a halo of light through broken windows until it was nothing but a testament of failure and shattered glory. Like nothing could ever come to pass without his heart going ouch between two beats, a sharp little stab to remind him of what the future held.

Never to just rest in the light, and soak it up, well fuck, because he hid in the darkness still and each time he came out something had to remind him of why it was better there, consorting with the monsters he knew rather than the ones he didn't. It was familiar, an old kind of pain, but now it was lathered in a fresh edge of guilt. I'm sorry, he wanted to say, glancing up at her as she rocked into violent motion, for somehow making this about me.

But I tried.

What happened then wasn't really what he had expected—not that he'd really expected anything, mind, it was.. just.. whenever this had happened the past few years.. he could count the times when he'd received anything but the whole "you used to be so much more" deal. Years ago, Psyche had turned out to be not at all who he had thought (ouch), but then he'd been starved for it, until, until.. until her, and.. until Kahlua.

She could've just walked away. Taken her grief and left him in his pool of blackness on the floor.

Or rushed him to stomp out the fluttering, pathetic flame of his life.

And for a moment, he almost thought she was doing the latter, someone finally seeing a bit of sense—no, shut up—and he had a moment's wild panic, struggling in the throes of hope and denial and despair and betrayal and guilt and shame—

But then she was just there, a tidal, ancient force smashing into him hard enough to make him grunt and nearly topple sideways, and they were back where they had begun, her voice rattling fervently against his neck.

And she was the one apologizing, when it should've been him, and he didn't care at all that she'd just landed on him—didn't even think about it—just felt his ears flick back kind of sadly as his gaze slid off the point of her hip and onto the wall. This had been about her and he didn't want to take her words and her apologies and her soothing presence because it hadn't been about him. He was a thief in her ruin.

He was an ice revenant with his heart carefully caged away.

And she breathed fires of—shut up.

þor.

He could've sworn that was his brother's voice right there, but there had been no whisper of the wind, nothing stirring in the cavern, so it must've come from within—a memory, a guess, an excuse?

Dare.

So he dared, slowly turning his head to cradle her neck, her voice still beating against him, so soft, like a moth's wings—you're here, and he wondered what he had tried to do. Let go? Let her in? All it felt like was like freezing over, nursing the ice around the wound back into its place, and feeling it settle over his mind like a chilling numbness, all soft smiles to make it not quite so dark.

Or maybe it was just resignation, lips pulling at her skin, at her mane, cheek rubbing against withers—he wanted to say, don't worry and you didn't bring me back; I live there, but he was silent again, the words dying upon his tongue. It wasn't about him. This wasn't about him. And it hadn't been her fault. And.. the.. it... He'd felt guilt when it had been about him, about the darkness devouring his thoughts and the light and hope and—so why bring it back? Why not just.. take where she'd left off, pressed against his chest, hidden in the long tendrils of his mane, and just.. let the rest be?

"No," he finally said, and he wondered what it was that he said no to—her apologies? Himself? Agreeing with her? With a soft sigh he laid his head upon her back again, as if there never had been space between them, as if nothing had driven her to her feet and away—as if nothing had pulled her back, when she could've just left this mess on the floor and walked out.

The good thing about armor is that it keeps you together.

Keeps your heart from spilling out the cracks.

"I am tired of breaking all my promises," forgive me for making it about me again, "so I can't promise to always be here," because I tend to disappear like smoke in the wind, "but I will never leave you until death takes me," and that's the only thing I can give.

"And," he went on, the corner of his mouth curling up again, "maybe not even then."

How it beams out of your heart
Like a highway of light
Through the hole in my heart
Salvation comes at last

[ @[Roskuld], the clunky bottom quote is my free-hand translation of the top one ]

och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen

då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,

Mary Shelleys dröm
syr en sick-sacksöm
över allt som vintern gömt
över allt som hjärtat glömt

“But—“

No.

His head was starting to pound again, a pressure situated somewhere behind his eyes—it wasn't pain as much as it was weight, all of the world gathering within his skull to push it down. Her back was warm against his jaw, but his mind was cold.

Things were slipping, ends not connecting, pulled too far apart and threatening to break. It was harder to listen, to understand, to string two things together and watch them form a coherent whole.

Like trying to grasp smoke with your hands.

Elusive.

How many things had he promised over the years? And how many of them had he fulfilled? He recalled telling—promising—Ulrik that he would never again allow hornless to share the Edge with them, and.. well.. Mirage had made sure he did good on that, by removing him from the one place in which he could break it. What else had he promised? To take back the Edge, for Snö. To never leave this or that person. To protect Elding during the darkness. To stop running, to.. be honest.

How much of it had he done? And how much of it did he know he would never do?

You can't gamble with your honor if you never had any in the first place.

He felt infinitesimally small, lying there next to her.

And the world was a vast, vast place, full of unfortunate corners and sharp edges, pitfalls and dead-drops and quicksand and shit. If he stood upon his road—that bone-bricked road haunting him, blood-painted signs—what could he see at the end of it? Along it? Pain. The promise of pain.. red rose petals scattered beneath his hooves as he thundered along blindly. He would love and he would lose and it had drained the world of color.

He breathed in the scent of her, and breathed in her voice, heard it with his ears as much as he did with his heart. He heard it, and he knew what he was missing: courage.

Not strength, nor hope, nor the bravery needed to rush in front of a bear to protect someone, but..

What he lacked was the courage to love.

He was so blinded by the fear of pain that he would rather isolate himself, slip back into his icy fortress, than risk it, and he knew it, but how do you convince someone who is riddled with burns to play with fire again? How do you just close your eyes and leap off the edge, and trust that either there will be someone there to catch you, or that it just would be worth the impact anyway? Life was a journey, a voyage, but he was too busy running to savor it—dashing headlong for the end, which meant nothing more than a long, bitter sleep for him. He saw no paradise, no heaven, no place of sanctuary. Just.. nothing.

“Thank you for letting me cry.”

I wish I was brave enough to do the same.

But he wasn't, so he felt them freeze in his soul, stuck trying to go somewhere they couldn't. How many years, how many deaths, can you bottle up? What happens when you're just full? Or are you always expanding that lightless vault, finding new, dusty shelves to place the bottled grief upon? Delving deeper and deeper into darkness.. could someone find you there? Retrace your steps through all those secrets, read the carefully labeled moments, and tear it all out of your soul?

She had leaned back again, tongue stumbling over words, or maybe it was her courage getting stuck in her throat. He felt too beaten to guess at what she was trying to say, too unfocused to do anything but just lie there. Maybe.. maybe that was what happened, when you ran out of space for all those things you kept within—you just sort of.. ceased to function.

Was he erasing memories of other things? Was he allowing the darkness to eat him up, and swallow everything else?

“….whatever,” and her warm breath beat against his skin again, tangled in his mane, stirred it and (in his mind) whispered things he knew the gale would've whispered, had it been able to blow in here. Little words of truth and honesty and courage, that word þor ricocheting around in his skull with destructive force. Each time.. more things came lose.. and not just what he had lost but what he had made others lose—years with his horn bathed in blood.

It nearly frightened him, how cold and cruel he had been.

"I—" he heard himself say, but his voice was strangled, as if it couldn't properly make its way out of his chest, and.. he didn't even know what he had meant to say, just knew what his heart whispered into the silence, I have damned myself.

He didn't deserve to have her this close, to.. hear her heart.. through his chest. To feel each of her breaths expanding against him.

But it wasn't his choice. So he didn't say anything about it. Just pressed his eyes shut tighter, wondering why it was so hard to just dare—his heart trembled in his chest, but still he swallowed his tears.

Mary Shelley's dream
makes a zigzag seam
over all that the winter concealed
over all that the heart forgot

[ @[Roskuld] ]

och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen

då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,

“Whatever,” summed it up well—there was nothing more for them here, nothing else to find, just lost shards of thoughts, memory, and pain.. wandering souls, strewn across the cavern floor and half-hidden in the crystal dust. There was nothing more for them in the words. Nothing she said would bring her cousin back; nothing he said would soothe the pain in her heart.

And nothing he said would bring         

His heart timed out, fell through the bars of his rib cage, and sank ten thousand feet beneath his body; the air grew cold and thick in his throat, a rattle like panic voicing a paper-thin whisper in his lungs.

And nothing he said         

He couldn't finish the thought. It drowned in a shrill cacophony in his head, taken and dragged down to where it came from; chained against the blood-splattered floor, not even a sacrifice because it was meant to be fucking forgotten, buried beneath so many layers of stone, iron and snow that no thaw would ever reach it.

This was the most vividly he had allowed—slipped?—himself to feel it—remember it—acknowledge it... could it really lay at the heart of everything? Could it be the point he could trace everything back to?

It seemed so.. small a thing, scarred over (scabbed over; there were no scars in that place, his heart, just raw wounds hidden beneath maroon crusts and tarry tried blood), so long ago, but every damn thought he traced led there—that night.

His first loss.

The depthless sea of guilt and shame.

She was asleep against his chest, unaware of what she had set in motion, what he had set in motion by allowing his mind to roam and thoughts to play with words—

—he couldn't finish the thought but he knew what came after it; "nothing she said would soothe the pain in his heart".

He wished he could sleep, too, let his eyelids fall to hide the light blue eyes, but he was too awake—too aware—and not exactly falling apart but the cracks were growing wider, a little light and a little love slipping through, spilling out in a tide of calm tears and words she would not be able to understand, but they needed out and there was finally no one there to hear them.

And so it was that Mauja spoke of his life for the first time, as he laid there watching over the child of his most heart-breaking union, until the words ran out or she woke up or he fell asleep or whichever happened first—it didn't matter, because he became lost in himself and the moment, blissfully unaware of the delightful irony of it.

[ the end. <3 ]