It was warm, and the rest of the herd didn't even have the decency to teleport to the location so they could get the meeting on with, over, and done. Perhaps, if it proved to be just another exercise in 'how to hurt Mauja's fragile feelings', he'd just go dunk himself in the lake. Let them .. do whatever they did .. while he enjoyed a cool swim and took advantage of a naturally liquid environment to mask tears he wasn't sure he could hold back if that thing happened again.

He didn't even know what it was, precisely. He wasn't interested in power—he wasn't interested in fancy titles and climbing the ladder towards the top again. He still had no idea what Tembovu's intentions with anything were, but so far, so good? Aside from a few questionable but easily explained things, but they only concerned Mauja. No one else should bother with it. No one else needed to know it.

He guessed that what it was, was nothing but sheer jealously, envy and fear, that these figures from Tembovu's murky past (but they all knew it, didn't they?) would mean more to him than Mauja did.

It was selfish, it was pathetic and pitiful, and it was just one of those things Mauja kept piling snow on top of in the hopes of burying it, and the feelings attached to it, once and for all. He couldn't afford to have emotions. It was undignified. It was counter-productive. It was less than perfect.

So while he stood quite still, and looked quite neutral, though a bit tad sweaty and with the faintest of frowns creasing his pale head, there was dread in the pit of his stomach. Dread, that they would show up, they, who had flocked around him at the last meeting, all of them painted in patterns and shapes similar to the Elephant King. And maybe, the striped mutt who came, laid eyes upon the King and Queen and then fled, was one of them, and maybe the large Pegasus coming after, before chasing after the striped one, was, too. And maybe, they were not, and thus Mauja's well-masked wary wait went on. His gaze skimmed the arrivals—Nyx, pregnant again (when was she not? and he was reminded about a meeting the Edge had held many, many years ago, when Korra and Lotus had argued about that particular thing—), with some lightning-beast-wielding mutt at her side. Dacianna, with whom he had still not made amends for yelling at and then kicking unconscious, sidled in next to Alysanne, eventually joined by an ever-growing crowd as one latched onto another, who latched onto another, and so it went on, with at least Lyanna and Iona joining. When Raeden did, he turned his gaze away, trying to fight down his conflicting emotions.

(There they were again, those emotions. Mercilessly, he stomped them down, trying to clear his mind, freeze over, prepare for what he knew was going to come: pain and disappointment and estrangement, in one way or another.)

Just as a crowd had formed around Alysanne, a crowd formed around him, a blend of bodies half in the sunlight, half in the slanted shade. Sacre was the first, coming with his foxes, and Mauja reached out to bump his soft muzzle against his black neck. On his other side, Glasgow settled, with Anzanie next to her, and his greeting was a glance and the flick of an ear, before a mare he felt was vaguely familiar slid in next to Sacre. She was copper-colored, but that wasn't what caught his attention; it was the sparks dancing along her skin, vibrating with energy he didn't trust. Still, in the lackadaisical manner the owls often employed about things he should know because they knew, they informed him she was a friend.

Next was that furry black cat trailing passionflowers, and his head bent to try and catch a fleeting touch of her soft fur before she bounded forth and became Naerys.

It was as if her transformation broke the spell, because Elsa stepped forth in a way that said hey, look at me, I'm about to speak. His white tail flicked out of habit, but likely he just smacked Sacre's hocks instead of being able to fan his own flanks. Oh, well. His blue eyes settled on their Queen as the questioning unease in his stomach grew. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong, and her voice was too quiet—would it carry to the back?

“I stand here today, renouncing my position as queen.”

It was far less dramatic that his resignation, and despite the mixture of fear, sympathy and surprise, it was not Elsa he looked at, but Tembovu. His black-rimmed, tan ears swept back, clenching against his neck, and his eyes closed as he turned his head away.

What had happened there? To him, Tembovu's stance screamed of guilt, of pain and regret, of fighting back a tide of emotions and had it been Mauja standing there with such a display upon his face and body, his mind would've been screaming that it was all his fault. Was Tembovu's doing the same?

Would the Edge ever have a Queen capable of ruling for more than a mere few months?

And why was everything so quiet in his head? Where was his pulse, that should've roared? Where were his thoughts, which should've been cataloging this information, and calculating the fifty thousand different scenarios which might take place?

He was still fixed on Tembovu, holding his breath; not afraid, merely captivated. He couldn't even tell why. The time until his navy eyes opened again felt like years, but surely it had been but a matter of seconds?

I did this to you, he thought sadly as he saw the composure in Tembovu's face; am I turning you into me? Was it, truly, Mauja's fault that he had had to deaden his own emotions? What would have happened otherwise? Of course it was Mauja's fault, he was the on who had thrust him into leadership, and without that, he wouldn't have led beside Elsa, and gods knew what wouldn't have happened then . . .

“Alysanne, you have been in the Edge for longer than I.”

He wasn't sure what he felt. (He thought he felt nothing, but not the good nothing, the bad nothing, the shocked nothing that is but a prelude to something much, much worse.)

Alysanne? Some stupid, feeble hope in his heart wished he was simply asking her to appoint a new leader, but each word spilling loud and clear from Tembovu's mouth hammered the nails deeper into the coffin's wood, until it was well and truly beyond doubt that he had chosen her. He wasn't even jealous—he was just bewildered—a little lost and, somewhere, perhaps .. rejected? He didn't want to be a leader again (or did he?), and—he knew there was so much he didn't know about Tembovu, and he didn't even want that from him, just—just—just something, and whatever it was, he wasn't getting it.

Not even when Tembovu threw him a band-aid in the shape of a promotion to what he assumed was just beneath King and Queen in rank, but band-aids can't fix broken souls. He wasn't even sure if he had a choice. It had almost been worded as an offer, as if he could refuse, but honestly, how could he? Not like this, not in front of the entire herd, and maybe, if he did this thing, took this job, he could forget about everything and drown himself in the incessant motion of duty and all these brittle, broken things would be forgotten again.

Tembovu shoved Elsa into the structure of the warriors, setting off a land-slide of little demotions, went on to promote Lyanna, but Mauja barely listened anymore. He felt numb, and cold, even in the brutal sunlight. He said something about Glasgow and Dacianna, about the threshold, about Ovidius, but Mauja barely heard it—or at least, he thought he hadn't, until he heard his own voice cut through the meeting in the wake of Tembovu's lengthy speech.

"Ovidius belongs to an outcast group called 'The Unbound'. If anyone has any information on them, please step forth and share it."

And still everything was so eerily silent in his head.