Mauja was not blessed by the god of time, and yet he had a particular, natural skill with it—the creation of pauses, of silence, of deep and detached moments of contemplation. They were in his hushed breathing, in the lull of conversation, in the words he weighed before giving voice. For him, those moments of infinity interspersed into everything were natural, and he never noticed how his presence seemed to slow the world down.. much as it did when preparing for the long, long sleep of winter.

”I see more sides to you than I can reconcile, and I do not forget.”

And yet, he thought into the icy stillness of his mind, thoughts running like air through crystalline corridors, perhaps it is to you I have been the most honest. From the detached, practical mind, to those boyish grins she used to draw from him, to the way it had once been easy—the words never weighed so heavily in his mind before they found their place in the world, because.. because she had understood. Because she had responded with much the same ease, and it had just buried her deeper within his heart. She was still there, somewhere, glass fragments and splinters buried beneath so many layers of ice, and.. and part of him desperately wanted to feel that flame again; to love her still with the nearly worshipful devotion he had once felt.

For many years, it had been the flame scouring his soul clean, but just as it had kept him alive, it had also been his downfall. He had burned up in it, and now, there were just.. ashes. He swallowed, not sure what he could tell her; that all she had seen of him was still, him? But that he had also changed? That he would still consider it cumbersome to move a dead, or unconscious, horse? Because he'd thought much the same thing when finding Shadow washed up on the beach? So there was nothing he could say—more than he already had.

She wasn't easy to remember, either, nails hammered deeper into the coffin with each beat of his heart. He did not have her memory, so pristine and pure, but he doubted he would ever forget her reaction upon that sandy arena. His ears flicked back uncertainly and he moved beside her, half a step behind. He had buried himself out of fear of everything, pain and death and life, and then.. and then, he hadn't been strong enough.

And now...

Now.. now... Now was now, still playing out before his eyes, washed in the silver light of a distant moon. And the world, was about to change, lines eradicated and borders re-written.

History was about to be made.

”The World’s Edge is invading the Hidden Falls,” but he barely heard the rest for the sick pounding starting in his chest. Kahlua. War. He wasn't afraid for her (shit that's a lie), it was, uhm, it was—

Things were being set in motion. Things were changing again after eons of stagnancy, and.. and he, the blade, would find a home in flesh again. Someone's grasping, fumbling hand had found the dusty hilt of his mercenary mind, lifted the sword and found it notched and rusty but still whole; the gore dried on it simply testament to what it could do.

She asked, some kind of life back in her eyes or maybe it was just that she was coherent now, and he knew what his answer was. "I will be there," he promised the ghost of his love. War. It was time.. to go back to war.

And maybe, he had thought he would be left alone at that point, with the promise of blood written in the words between them, and the curiosity of one owl and the deep, primal satisfaction of the other.

But no.

Her eyes were flat and angry and he had the time to think oh shit what have I done now? before her voice came out in a thick, ragged growl.

And her words hit him like a brick in the face.

Daughter. Roskuld. Your presence, intentions are pure, bury you, pure, love, buried love,

her daughter,

a name he had heard before, once, vaguely, remembered only because it had been she who had said it, Roskuld and Mesec are safe...,

—intentions are pure—

and suddenly he was two yards behind her, cross-eyed and trembling, staring vacantly ahead.

“I thought my Ma left me the first time ‘cuz she hated the daughter she had...”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.”

“—instead they got me and now TOTO’S DEAD!!”

She's a hurricane and she's lightning.

Spark.

His mind was straining, trying to connect dots, spindly hands reaching out to form a spiderweb he wanted to no part of but was caught up in all the same. He had thought it then, feared it as the kind of wicked irony the world would play on him—

It can't be.

"Roskuld," he said, for the first time, weakly and kind of pathetic in his confusion, legs moving to catch up and fall back in by her side. "Roskuld," he said again, mind reeling, heart and voice trembling.

It...

He didn't know why it mattered.
Didn't want it to matter.
And it didn't.
Except that.. that...

That he hadn't know.
Or, well, he'd known, but he hadn't known and he still wasn't sure because he just called her lightning anyway and—

"Spark?" he blurted, graceless and inelegant, voice and mind stumbling like his heart.