He hadn't come here for company.

Nor had he come here to be alone—he was always alone these days. What had once been his paradise, his kingdom, his fortress and his haven, had become his grave. Hemmed in by ice and blocks of dark stone he withered, bit by bit, soft and slow, falling into decay.

How many times hadn't he stood upon this limestone edge? Hooves digging into soft stone, toying with the dangers of the world, as the fogs of his goddess curled around his legs like a false promise of wings and mysticism and glory... Once, he had stood here a King, safe and secure within that fortress, heart and mind guarded closely by his glacial walls. Then, it had lent him strength. At the time he had thought the glimpses of something darker beneath the pale light of his eyes was what had drawn others to him, but even as he became a spiteful beast hissing from the deepest corners of his abode he charmed others.

He had stood here as a Queen, up on the worn battlements of those walls; the fortress in a state of disrepair, the dust stirred by a handful of souls, and he had leaned heavily against the icy spires crowning the boundary of his heart. He had no longer been strong. He had yearned to come out, but he hadn't known how to.

And now, the entire thing had been blasted apart, and he lay buried in the rubble.

Erthë's presence was nothing to him.

The muscles in his back and hind legs coiled. Perhaps all she would be was a witness of self-destruction, of ghosts leaping soundlessly into the fog—who would believe her, anyway? Tembovu was the only one who had glimpsed the gulf of his despair, the only one who would believe that he had truly jumped off the Edge...

Tembovu would be the only one to know that he would come back. A day, a month, a year, a decade; he would come back. He couldn't not come back.

He knew that she watched him, and he wondered, briefly, what she saw. What anyone saw—what inspired such loyalty, such curiosity, pity and hate... Perhaps all he was was a focus for the lives of others; a narrow point channeling their own emotions and purposes, enhancing them.

And breaking him.

He had always been curious of what it would feel like to leap off the edge, to free-fall, the closest he could come to flying—

"Mauja?"

And he had always been ice around a core of chaos; rationality tempering his impulsivity. Of course he would not leap off the World's Edge, least of all with a witness, who might suffer disastrous mental consequences from witnessing it. He doubted she'd care much at all that he had, for all intents and purposes, seen fit to end himself, but it was that whole matter of him inevitably showing up again. Could he do that to her?

Ah, fuck it, who even cared anymore? His black-rimmed ears flicked belatedly, as if the fog had slowed the passage of his name from her lips into his brain, and after a moment his massive head swung upon his thick neck. Blue eyes, gray as the fog in the lack of light, settled on her lithe frame. He resisted the urge to crassly ask her what she wanted. "Hm?" he simply said instead, a puff of white smoke joining the fog in the over-saturated air. After a moment, one ear turned back.

Perhaps he was so caught up in his own misery that he failed to consider that of others. After all, why was she here, staring at the ocean neither of them could see? Wings she might have, but as far as Mauja knew, she still had a choice to keep them folded.

".. you're not going to jump, are you?" he asked after a moment. What did he know, anyway? She was a crippled orphan ravaged by a divine war. That sounded like enough to mess anyone up.

[ @Erthë! ]

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 . . .