there is good in me, I swear
there must be good in me somewhere

He had come. They had asked, and he had come, a blizzard sweeping down in the wake of an earth slide and finding—nothing. He had been as needed as some more rains after a downpour, superfluous and useless, a worthless winter wolf dancing on the outskirts of a hunt already won. Maybe the Falls had thought they were brave when they put up a fight. Maybe they had thought they had had some kind of chance. Or maybe they'd been standing there, praying for their golden, glorious Midas to show up and save them (where the heck was he, anyway?), hands held together and throats straining against the futile evening sky in devout song. The outcome had been inevitable. They hadn't been brave when they stood their ground, and when they fought, and bled.

They had been stupid.

Utterly, irrevocably stupid, but at the same time, understandable. Predictable. Who wanted to just walk out of their home because they were outnumbered three to one?

There's something about the fight; he thinks of the far, distant north, of fires glowing upon the mountainside.. and he thinks of huge, monstrous bodies, white as the snows themselves, dark noses and eyes and blunt claws rigged on too-strong paws. They hadn't walked out just because the Magnar held them by the throat. They had holed up, too afraid to do anything but keep fighting.

Mauja had taken on the mantle of being their hero—a hero they needed, and desperately.

But he wasn't a hero.

Wasn't even an angel.

He was Mauja, the Frostheart, the first chosen King of the World's Edge, the first miserable Lord of the Aurora Basin, the Time-God's personal (and discarded) plaything... Hated, feared, and finally, forgotten.

He was no one, nothing, just a shadow slipping through the fog-threaded trees, breathing in familiar air and drinking in familiar scents. And the trees, they whispered to him, as they always had, whispers of change but also of futility: the land cared little for who ruled it. The land would remain.

The mortals would die.

What am I even doing here, he thought as he found his way, appearing like a ghost behind Kahlua. This isn't the way I do things.

If Mauja wanted the Edge, he would take it.

But he was curious, so he was there, soft muzzle reaching out to trail along Kahlua's hip as his heart constricted with the sound of her pained voice. What had done this to her? The war? Those asshats she ruled with? Her so-called family? Jaws locked together, pale eyes hot and harsh for a moment as they swept from her face to Ophelia's—Roskuld, his treacherous mind whispered, and he felt that other name upon the tip of his tongue.

Strange, seeing them both here, next to one another.
Even stranger to find nothing in his heart but ashen emptiness.

But then it began, the circus, the show they all had come to witness. One by one they would bare their souls, clamor to the skies that they were worthy, they were the best, listing merits and heritage and things and.. and... and Lena was there, and he nodded to her, but his mind was spinning and his heart was growing more desolate by the moment; bitter anger swallowed it, despair blackened it, until finally his reality was nothing but a dark, roaring vertigo of memory.

"I hate all of you," he managed to spit out into some space of silence, but it hardly sounded like he meant it—more like it had been lying there between his teeth, chafing, until he finally found some air to push it out with. Inhale. Exhale. Dark nostrils widened and shuddered, blue fire wearing away at already frayed nerves. His grip on control was fragile at best, as thin and brittle as bleached bones.. or ice. This was pointless. It was stupid.

It was disgusting and humiliating and he wondered how any of those present could stomach themselves. If he had been any of them, he would've flung himself off a cliff for good riddance, and probably not regretted it at all on the way down.

He wanted to just charge into them, lay into them with his horn, impale them on ice like sacrifices and laugh as they bled to death.

He figured they would look surprised, stuck there on spires of ice, heart's blood trickling down from their broken chests.

"I hate this," he said next, still sounding tortured, like someone drew the words from his swaying soul with perfected violence. "It's making me want to vomit. It's degrading."

Who, who, had thought this was a good idea? WHO had had the goddamn fucking brilliant idea that this would be a good way to elect new leads? Let a call go out for the greedy, for the needy, for the lost and the dreamers and—

He couldn't even remember if he had wanted to be King. He couldn't even recall if the Moon had asked him, or if she'd just shown up in her usual fashion and told him to deal with it.

Smoldering blue eyes settled on that idiot who had spoken about the Moon. He hadn't given his own name, so Mauja just settled on calling him Idiot 1. "You're about as perceptive as a dumb idiot," and really, insults had never been Mau's forte, "if you think that she ever was glorious. You're going to trip over your own feet and fall headfirst into some tragic, common trap for leaders who fail to learn from the past.

"And you," his attention swung to Rostislav, and maybe there were some old dislikes flaring back to life, "are full of shit. Or yourself. .. wait. No. They're synonymous anyway." Some part of him wanted to hold back, to stop and just slip back to the shadows he came from, and not have to make Kahlua witness this madness—because the dark rim around his eyes, the bite of his voice, they were all signs of it.

Mauja was, at least momentarily, out of his mind.

"And what, exactly, did the Qian ever amount to? Aside from the great achievement of following the most hypocritical bitch in history? She was dumber than dumbdumb over there-" Nose pointing at Idiot 1, of course. "-and now you're trying to pass that off as some kind of merit. Impressive," and he felt as if his voice was growing shrill and deranged but it was all in his head; the words came out in waves of passive aggression and bursts of white breath, the ground beneath him trembling with ice waiting to be let loose. "And who cares what your mother did," he spat to the dragonhorsething. "Honestly, who gives a fuck who your parents were when you're you?" He was too angry to phrase it better, slowly losing touch with words and other sophisticated things.

It would feel better to just slay them all on the spot.

"And unless you can come up with some new ideas I just might stick your eyes out so you can't try to qualify on fresh eyes once they've dried up," he spat at the other youngster. "Because you're useless, too." Way to make more enemies. He didn't care. He was past caring. "And if you're bitter, get over yourself," he finally told that snowy mare, wishing he could swallow a taste of his own medicine.

And then he said, because no one had totally asked him, perhaps the most marvelous thing he had ever said.

"I actually think Torleik is the least worthless here," but you're all worthless.

You're all idiots. His lips curled in distaste, head high, spirit trembling.

He didn't want the Edge when the world was full of idiots.
He didn't want to put himself through this demeaning idiocy.
He didn't want to live in the Falls because Kahlua kept some really bad company.
He didn't want to live in the Falls because he hated everyone.
He didn't want to be in this place because everyone was stupid.

Suddenly the edge of the world itself seemed very tempting. A moment's flight.. and then, blissful reprieve from this mortal coil and all the idiots stuck here with him.

"You all suck," he finally hissed, ears going flat against his neck.

And all of a sudden, all he wanted was to be alone, and weep.

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 . . .