but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams

Things were different now.

(That's a lie.)

Things were always different—

It changed, from one moment to the next, the world ever shifting, ever moving, the balance quivering as the universe raged. And in that celestial, astral storm, Mauja had always attempted to stand fast—a frozen pillar withstanding the force of storms, a constant, a fixture: unmovable. Unyielding. Safe and steadfast.

But the world was not meant to be defied. For years Mauja had tried to dig his roots in deep, and hold on as the world spun and bucked, as the universe shifted and tore and roared—a razor sharp wind threatening to flay the skin from the flesh of any who defied its constant movement. Mauja had not wanted to be moved. He wanted to be stable, to exist within his sphere of sparse sunlight and soft snow, to be left to his own devices as the world devoured itself.

He had been torn loose. Year after year he had been worn down in the knife-blizzards of life, until his outline had grown blurred and ragged, little pieces of him sheared off and thrown to the winds. He had been made a tired ghost, exhausted by fighting his losing battle, translucent and shattered. Everything he had known, everything he had been, was lost. Mauja was lost.

He had fought the world instead of moving with it.

And he was paying for it now; he had built himself upon stagnancy, upon a foundation as unstable as the ocean. There was nothing of that left.

So Mauja walked the World's Edge at a slow pace, a dream-like haze over his blue eyes as he phased through the mist. Irma rode upon his shoulder as usual, the pricks of blood by her talons dried to near-black, the pain of it forgotten. It almost felt like he was looking for something—hunting for something, chasing some vague, abstract idea, or perhaps something more tangible.

He didn't know which, so he simply ambled along, hiding from his demons and floating in the slow currents of other, safer thoughts—and he thought he would spend the next few hours in the same state, but again, the unpredictability of the ever-shifting universe proved him wrong. A pale stallion, someone he had never spoken with but vaguely recalled having seen, was jogging through the misty forest, following some trail that seemed just on the verge of attaining permanence. Mauja stopped, black-rimmed ears flickering forward, as he peered at this new curiosity. Who was he? What was he doing? Was he going to stop, perhaps abashed at having been spotted training (who knew about the prideful quirks of others?), or was he going to simply pass Mauja in silence?

With a sense of detached amusement, Mauja despaired—because he did not know which he would prefer: to be acknowledged as a living, or passed as a ghost.

[ @Lithium :) ]

Mauja

the white queen