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

"Forget it."

And it hurt—a pain both savage and refined, like a sharp knife's blade twisting just a little to ruin the perfect cut. Still, he swallowed both the sigh and the sorrow, locking it away with all the other dirty little moments in which he had disappointed the world.

It wasn't even that she sounded angry or something, because she didn't; her voice was soft and smooth, in perfect harmony with her mellow appearance. The biting, scathing cold-hearted Moon was shining with her absence tonight, replaced with something sincere, something .. something that had, for the briefest of moments, hovered on the border of mortality, humanity. A door, usually under heavy lock and key, had been inched open, but as always, he had not noticed until he heard the soft, unmistakable sound of it easing shut again. She had been offering him something, something beautiful and rare, a glimpse into her own mind, but too muddled, too afraid and too fucking wary, the opportunity had slipped him by and he was old enough to know he couldn't throw himself after it and try to get it back.

So he was left with a deep, lingering sense of disappointment in himself, a keen pain reminding him of every other similar occurrence in his past. His curiosity had flared, and its sudden death left him feeling nauseated. Forget it, she had said—but how could he ever? Mauja was not one who forgot.

As subtly as she closed the book on her private self he fell deeper into his grief; the soft blue of his eyes grew even softer, his head drooped a notch and he averted his gaze, ears flicked back.

I'm sorry for being an eternal failure and disappointment. The words played upon his tongue, bitter and stinging; it wasn't pride that held them back, merely the knowledge that they were as pathetic as he, and he doubted she would take kindly to his self-loathing. That wasn't, after all, why she was here.

(Why is she here?)

"You have endured much."

Endured. It took effort to swallow the bitter laughter. That she chose to use the word endure... He had not accomplished, he had not overcome, he had not done anything: he had simply endured. He had clung to his wretched life with fervor and fear, refusing to follow his long line of comrades and enemies into the oblivion in which they sought refuge one by one. He survived, but he did not live. He had endured much, and for this, he would be rewarded.

"It is not an apology or an excuse, merely an acknowledgement of those you have lost. What you have sacrificed. What has been asked of you."

Those he had lost. What he had sacrificed. (What had he sacrificed? Pieces of his heart, with each death? His position as King, when the Qian had come? Sacrifice was a noble word—Mauja was not noble. He was a weakling and a coward.) What had been asked of him.

If they had asked, they had asked in silence; he had never borne the weight of their gruesome, harrowing tasks. Without knowing why or how he had just kept on existing in Helovia, drifting this way and that, breaking and ruining and destroying—

You are pitiful, Irma whispered in his mind, the dry amusement tinged with sorrow—for she could see what others saw, sometimes, but she wondered if they would keep seeing it if they had ever known of the deep, dark seas in which he drowned while appearing so steadfast, so resolute.

"Touch it, and you shall see."

Touch what?

And then he realized something had been going on in front of his nose, except he had been looking somewhere else, blinking a little too often to keep the tide of helpless anger away from his eyes. Slowly, his head rose from its bowed position, looking at her for a moment. Untouchable once more. Mauja swallowed, and let his gaze fall on the object she had summoned between them. Darkness still swirled about its shape, the edges fuzzy, as if it needed something mortal to pull it into this realm. Touch it, she had said—a gift for his .. enduring .. half a lifetime in Helovia.

So in a weighted silence, he reached out. His plush muzzle bumped against something solid and smooth; it was cold and hard, and for a moment, resisted his gentle push.

Then it began to fall—

—and he had it in his teeth without noticing, holding it. The balance was off because of his grip, but not by enough to make him drop it. Wordlessly, his gaze slid along the crystalline edge, drawn in by the sharp, cold glint of moonlight along the curved edge of a blade.

She had given him a fucking scythe and he didn't know whether to laugh or cry or be amazed.

Had she known? Was this—did it mean something, or was it just coincidence?

Did it matter?

No, not really. But it did matter because he was Mauja and the day he stopped thinking too hard about everything was the day he was dead.

His head twisted sideways, planting the staff's butt amidst the frozen flowers and letting go of it; it slid down his neck to rest against his shoulder, a thoughtless move betraying his familiarity with the weapon. The blade's tip rested flatly against his flank.

Puzzled, he turned to look at her again. You have endured much—

And giving him a weapon hardly made his future look brighter, right? But.. his teeth ground together, once, twice, white tail flicking. She had startled him with this gift, snapped him out of his self-loathing, but he did still not understand—nor did he understand what she had asked him earlier either. He supposed it was just one of those moments when she thought she had been clear as day and he still couldn't comprehend her. It happened sometimes. (It happened, but it still left a bitter taste in the back of his mouth.)

"Thank you?" he hedged mildly, not sure what was the appropriate thing to say when .. acknowledged as a depressive constant in Helovia's ever-changing history. "Though it hardly leaves me hopeful about the future." His dark lips curved into a small, hesitant smile, heart stumbling in his chest before falling into a fast-paced racing—was he trying to joke with a god? What if she took offense? What if she.. ugh, he didn't know. There were a thousand things that could go wrong, or he could be wrong about, and everything, anything. Miserable, he said no more.

Mauja

the white queen