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,

Mauja wasn't old in the sense that you might think of when you think old—his forehead and muzzle weren't speckled with gray, his flanks weren't sunken, and his eyes were still clear. But he was old within, tired and worn, and sometimes it surprised him that his heart still had the strength to keep beating. He had walked himself down the spiral and into his pit, and laid himself to rest in his grave while staring up at the starry sky and thinking there has to be more to life than this.

And he knew, that he was right. There was more to life than laying moored and mired in your own misery, and staring at the world and wishing you were out there, breathing the air that wasn't tainted with earth and decay. It was just a matter of getting there, and while he had so eagerly helped himself into his tomb he found that he could not easily help himself out.

That was what ate at him the most—that deep, visceral desire to experience life, but his inability to fully step into the living world. He always held back, staying in his safe grave, but the heart in his chest was too alive still and beat away at a frantic, panicked pace.

It counted down the time, terrified to end there in the place where it had spent so long being locked up.

The only blessing was that this stranger, this Ele, seemed to not be bothered by Mauja's intervals of silence. If anything, he seemed perfectly at ease with them, drifting away upon his own thoughts just as Mauja did. The result was, if he thought about it, mildly amusing: two complete strangers, from time to time staring vacantly in one another's direction. It made the corner of his mouth curl up in a slight smile.

But then he said, “Isn’t every journey?”, those amber-and-sun eyes glancing around their heavenly plateau, and something in Mauja's gut clenched. Carefully, he blinked the darkness from his eyes. He wasn't sure he agreed—you learned something, all the time, both good and bad. But there were some destinations he could've done without.

His gaze slid off the champagne draft, mind miring itself in thoughts—memories—again.

"What about you? It doesn't take a genius to see that you're troubled, Mauja."

"Everyone says that lately," he had said.

"Then why do you not stop?"

Because he couldn't—not then, not now, not ever. Life was a wheel that would keep turning without him, anyway. What he had done then.. he looked back to Ele, to his curious eyes. "Sometimes the journey is worth more than the destination," he simply said, quietly.

[ <33 no "sry"s accepted, GO WILD MY FRIEND! ^-^ @[Elecampane] "fabulous decision" haha ]