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

Rain lashed a grayed-out world into apathy and drove the fog into the ground. Tendrils of it skirted about his feet, fleeing to the safety of the low bushes, but finding it just another trap as the water droplets instead found purchase upon the bare branches. Mauja stood motionless among the trees. His coat seemed gray, plastered wetly to his black skin, and his forelock clung to the contours of his face. Some chunks even licked up his horn, frozen in place by the supernatural chill coating it. All in all, he gave a rather soggy, dispirited air off, and the rain didn't exactly do anything to hide the fact that his flanks had begun to cave in on themselves over the past couple of weeks.

And at the same time, he felt .. something—the stirrings of bitter cynicism, and his lips curled back into a mirthless smile. The weather certainly matched his bleak mood. It mirrored his desolation, and his hopelessness.

He was barely even aware of what he was doing anymore. He hadn't set foot outside of the broken glass wall since the meeting, yet he'd barely met anyone.

That was intentional, of course.

His heart kept throbbing, dully, beneath his breastbone. Stubbornly it trudged on.. and on.. and on.. and would keep doing so, forever. His love story with d'Artagnan had come to an end, and he was fairly sure he'd written the final chapter with Tembovu .. and he would keep writing those last chapters, no epilogues, for everyone else. His children would wither and die. His grandchildren would wither and die. Everyone he loved would wither and die. And he would be left alone, no longer by his own choice, but by circumstance—he would be offered respite, companionship, but in the end, it was temporary. A decade, maybe two, and then their bodies would give out and he would have to start all over.

He hadn't admitted it then, but something in the back of his mind had made up a story, something for the future: a certain someone joining him in immortality. But the chances of it happening...

And, with a bitter sigh, Mauja figured that the majority of Helovia's population was intelligent enough not to pick immortality.

Something stirred at the edges of his vision. One black-rimmed ear flickered, and his head turned to see what it was—he knew his heart should've lurched at the sight of Glacia, sopping wet and all alone in the rain, but it was too tired to do more than stumble. A faint trickle of adrenaline leaked into his system, but it was enough to get his limbs moving after a second or two.

What was she doing here, out in the rain? Banks of fog and low cloud drifted across the drop into the sea, rain pelted them both; his ears flattened to his neck as he came out from the small copse he'd been sheltering in. What is she—

She moved as drunkenly as he felt he did most of the time—sluggish and disoriented and sort of unevenly, as if you were lost in another world where you quite couldn't see where you went. As if the ground kept tilting and changing and realigning. His heart picked up its pace. If she was as fucking lost as he normally were—

And ambling towards the Edge—

He wasn't stupid. White smoke billowed out of his nose as he made to intercept her, to stand in her path between her and the edge, and stare at her with the most stubborn look he could muster. If there was anything he had learned over the years, it was that there came better days.

And when those days came, she'd regret that she was dead.

...

Paternal logic. Don't question it.

[ @Glacia <3 ]

Mauja

the white queen