-56373536/10 in timing.

What had he even been thinking? The answer was easy: he hadn't been thinking. Or, rather, he hadn't been thinking about what he was saying in the context of the situation. It didn't take a genius to figure out that his not-so-subtle criticism of the General's current state would be like throwing lit torches on oil, because, in the way of this "Frozen Light" Mauja (should've called me the Melted Brain) it had been an incredibly ill-timed comment. In a dirty, underhanded way he had more or less thrown it at her retreating back, mingled with the reprimands coming from the throats of the others.

Like trying to catch smoke—like trying to hold water in a sieve. That was what his world, what he, had become. Gone were the pristine, frozen vistas of his mind, gone was his ability to process what was going on in an instant. He couldn't keep his clarity and cool anymore. Nyx's little outburst had bothered him because it was what it was: an outburst, an uncontrolled discharge of emotion. The words themselves hadn't mattered, but like a stone setting off a landslide the display had dislodged something in his mind.

It was like playing the blame game, or you-hurt-me-so-I-hurt-you, though far less sincere than any intentional harm—at least, on his part.

His teeth ground together with a dry, gnashing noise. When had he fallen so low? When had he allowed himself to become blinded by his own irritation, to the point that he joined in to cause hurt to another? And besides, he had himself to blame—hadn't he meant to talk to her about this? When he was still Queen, when she was pregnant with d'Arcy and Libertad, when Lace died...

So who was he to cast judgment, without having even attempted to fix the problem first? When he had willfully chosen not to, to previously spare her feelings?

Thus, when Alune's voice started to scour the air, he laid his soul bare and accepted it for the lash it was; he accepted the shame that it was the voice of another who said what he should've said. He filtered out the mild hypocrisy in favor for the kernel of truth nestled at the core of his words. For, truly, one could claim that Orithia was as justified to chew Nyx out as Nyx had been to chew Tembovu out, and that Alune's words were as much a backlash as Orithia's had been—but Mauja chose to look aside from that, chose to take it as a spin on his compass, an attempt to get it back to North and freeze it there.

"Are you shitting me? So male warriors can go around squirting children anywhere..." Black-rimmed ears flicked, blue eyes honed in on the little spitfire who had been returning the 'backlash' tenfold upon those who had criticized and reprimanded Nyx. And—ugh. She clearly hadn't heard a word he had said, for he didn't know about her, but he certainly didn't have two mares for parents, and parents was the term he had used. "Do not berate me for something I never said," he snapped at her, cold and swift, before Elsa saw it as her duty to chew the girl out.

The Icebound said a lot, and she said what Mauja had implied—that no matter if she gave the life of her foal for the herd's safety, she would be rusty, simply not on par with someone who had honed their skills through sparring.

It was like an unending tide, suddenly a battle for who was in the right, who was the most noble, the hero of today: the next contestant being a mare he didn't recognize, trying in vain to replicate Alune's feat of appealing to order, but falling short of the mark as she quickly chose a side and declared that everyone should like and respect Elsa because she did. Mauja felt a small twinge of despair. He wasn't the 'bigger man' here, either—he couldn't be, not here, not like this, not when everyone was clawing out their own eyes trying to figure out how to act. And Tembovu.. Tembovu did what good Kings do. To him fell the thankless task of appeasing the masses, of ignoring whatever true emotion he felt, and just trying to do the most right thing with the least destructive fallout.

He couldn't wrap his head around it, though. He couldn't quite understand what he was saying to Nyx—so at some point, he just gave up trying, and looked aside at the silver mare standing defiantly in front of her bad-mouthed child. Waiting. Waiting, for a break in the voices, waiting for something to happen, or for the dust to settle, when Alysanne directly countered Tembovu's last statement by saying she didn't want anything in public.

Cue Nyx going into labor and running off. Mauja seized the moment, his voice rising, light and clear. "While I hold what I said as a valid concern, I understand my timing to have been disastrous and my approach less than constructive. Forgive me."

He said it, again, to no one, and everyone, and perhaps, to the retreating General. His gaze swept once more over those gathered, before he flicked his white tail again, turned, and walked to the lake's edge. He was done with this confusing shit, but his role as Emissary bound him to Tembovu's—and Alysanne's—side, so he did not leave entirely. Merely lingered there, on the outskirts, hoping it would save him from being drawn into this stupid display of emotions—brittle, explosive things, like ugly piss in his pristine snow.

Someone should paint his fucking spots yellow until he got a grip on himself again.