[ AMGWHAT?! should I tag someone for this?? ]

Winter is coming.

Heart and eyes turned up.

He stood there, somewhere in the Edge's forest, pale marble and porcelain cracks in the pallid wash of moonlight—silver rays filtering down between storm-dark clouds, sweeping up the scatter of stars in their black embrace.

Until even the moon was hidden from sight, her luster paled by the lack of her divine presence in the sky anyway. The world was cast into a foggy darkness, the shimmer of his outline fading away and leaving him a dreary kind of gray. Without the moon, night did its best to hide him, to keep him from sight, to keep him from turning into the torch that was a white creature's curse—or blessing.

A soft sigh slipped out of Mauja's mouth, curling upwards like smoke, dissipating into the blackness. The fog was thickening, touching his legs, his chest, his face, with small, wet hands, running them along his limbs, leaving a trail of water droplets (so that when the stars come out, he'll shine, he'll shine, he'll shine like the light of dawn)—but it's a cold pallor, like ice freezing on corpses, glacial and snowed over. Crystalline and frigid.

And then—she's there.

The attention of an owl sparked in the back of his troubled mind, night-silvered eyes snapping in her direction. The shadows drew aside, and the clouds along with them—and the single ray of moonlight that fell, fell upon her, lightening up in the fragile path she walked towards him.

Once, he had stood here, in the mystical forests of the Edge, and looked upon her—and thought, that she would look better without those wings cradled to her lilac sides.

Now, he stood there, watching her with tired eyes and thinking that she was divine and perfect in her arrogant royal garb.

They were gods—bitches and hounds.

And he, he was mortal, a creature carved from marble and glaciers, with a red, red heart that was tired and too easy to kill. (He'll never forget the stumbling way she charged at him, the only unwavering thing her aim—her resolve to run her pearly horn into his chest and put an end to that cursed motion. He'll never forget the fact that he had wanted her to.)

That he had wanted to end.

Come and play with me, bitch. Come and play with fire.

He turned, slow and regal, his eyes staring daggers at her sleek advance. She was a panther of a mare, all smooth, streamlined curves and deadly power crammed into an elegant body—she shamed him with her grace.

Astral appearances will not save you.

Dark fire smoldered in his heart—a slow, blue flame flickering into life, unfurling, hot and painful in the ruined mess of his chest. Second by second it spread, heat running through ice-lined veins, clouding his gaze and scorching his throat.

Here, after all this time, stood Psyche's end—beautiful and deadly and right in fucking front of him.

"How interesting to find you here again, Frostheart. Why?"

Just as velveteen as he remembered her—just as soft looking in the halo of her own light, like silk and satin to touch, but laced in fine razors and lethal poison. Interesting, his mind answered, dripping sarcasm and bleeding hurt. Frostheart.

Why?

"I could ask you the same," he whispers, hot and rough, tears of fire and love and pain burning his throat and pressing behind his eyes—

—and instead they got me—

—and now Toto's dead—

—and all the tears Roskuld had shed threatened to fall from his eyes too, heart cracking with the vivid memory of her raw voice as the pain tumbled out of her.

He drew a deep breath.

He had defended Gaucho from the wrath of mortals.

And his logic prevailed, even as the beast in his soul snarled and demanded justice—

—but justice is the coward's vengeance—

—and he was too old for that. He was too old to spit fine words about justice and vengeance and no blood-price would ever fill up the hollow this bitch had blown in his heart when she had taken Psyche from him.

It growled in his soul, a frostwolf on a chain with links of snowflakes, fragile and perfect—it growled and howled and part of him wanted to see if she'd bleed stardust or blood.

What had been taken from him could never be restored.

His gaze was hard as he peered at her through the fog, sparks of blue fire dancing along their rims. He was mortal—he cared for other mortals, and his brief life was long enough to remain bitter and wounded in. He had torn the callouses off his heart and left them all open to bleed.

"Why did you do it," he demands of her, hating himself for the edge of desperation crawling into his ironlike voice as he hunts the one thing that might ease the ache—

—understanding.

Who am I, Gamling?

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 . . .

Arrogance.

She was steeped in it—and with each breath he took he breathed it in, water washing down his lungs, her shape distorting, growing huge and monstrous before his eyes—blotting out everything as the mist did—and it was in him, crawling through his veins, water in his blood, and he knew there was nowhere he could go as she loomed like some kind of titan, something that would not let him leave—

Well you've got me cornered, bitch.

But where to would I have run, anyway?

I've got nowhere left to go to.

"I'm not afraid of you."

"That's because you think you've got nothing to lose."

Black nostrils widened, drawing in more of the cold, humid air, and blue eyes blinked, trying to return her shape to something normal—to the statuesque lioness she ought to be, all dark smiles and those eyes—

It made his soul crawl, until he wanted to grimace at her and hurl spears of ice after her and yell at her to fucking leave him alone—

Because that was his problem.

He just wanted to be left alone.

But they always came, doing one thing or another, wrenching him from this dimension and into another, burning his home, sending others to burn his home, and, ugh—

He was just so desperately, desperately tired of it all.

And then they expected him to be graceful. Thankful, even, like fuck if he was going to worship these haughty beings who did not see fit to apologize to those they fucked up—

And just like Spark had laughed in his face, in his own way, at Mauja's hesitant worship, at what he had done to him—and all it had done to his mind—this moon god taunted him with shapes in the fog, dredging up old .. old things, ripping at scar tissue and taunting, like she was proud of how all she'd done had affected him—like she was proud of his pain—and his jaw set itself firmly, but his eyes.. he couldn't keep it out of his eyes.

The contempt. The disappointment. The frustration. What were they, really? Divine guides, or entitled assholes with enough firepower to blast your soul to hell?

He knew that she was dangerous—and the less of her shady-foggy stuff she played, the more he respected that. Didn't she know that he knew that he was out on thin ice? Didn't she know that he knew that she could let oblivion swallow him instantly, and none would be the wiser? She didn't need to try and intimidate him—or to try and break his fragile mind with these visions—she could just stand there in the moonlight and he'd know anyway all that she could do.

But he was tired—of them. Of everything. He was tired and some part of him hadn't re-learned how to care about his life.

"Why do you play the injured party when I greet you with an open mind?" he hissed in return, his voice turning low with the effort of not snapping at her—she could be so much more and yet all he saw was a child with too much power.

Someone who never had learned to grow up—or if she ever had, had forgotten it and regressed.

When would they start acting like Gods?

"It doesn't suit you," he concluded, his voice cold smoke in the neat, foggy little cage she had made them. She still seemed out of proportion, and he wondered idly if she was messing with his mind.

She probably was. She was certainly capable of it.

"Why did you see fit to end the lives of so many Helovians—and of Hototo?" A heartbeat's pause, freezing the tears before they could threaten to reach his eyes. And the next, so much quieter, "your siblings didn't exactly give you much time to explain yourself."

Don't you get it now?

[ idk what to say about his attitude ]

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 . . .