His apology was harsh and cold and she didn't believe it for a minute. He wasn't sorry - he wouldn't stop burning the world because she asked him. That was what she heard in his voice when he said he was sorry, she felt that hard edge like a slice in her skin - like a promise of further pain.

Unless she could fix it.

His hard voice, when it came again, should be a warning for her not to push it, for her to stay silent, but Alysanne wasn't one to take warnings. - was she? She had proven it enough times. She’d push because she wanted to ease that hard edge out of his voice, out of his body. She wanted to help him discover something that wasn't agony and insanity. It had to be there, buried deep beneath the fire and the ice right? Maybe he just needed her help to find it.

There was always hope in her for others, even if she had none for herself. She clung onto the idea that helping others might somehow fix her in the process.

The line between agony and insanity is very thin were his words to her, cold as the Frostfall air they carved deeper into her skin and made their mark. She didn’t flinch away, though. Once she wouldn’t have understood, once she might have laughed off such an idea as being impossible, but now she knew. Her gaze drifted from him and to the snow and the trees once more, though she was only not looking at him because he wasn’t looking at her and she didn’t want it to be awkward. “I’ve noticed.” But after a breath, she was quick to add - “In myself, not you.” - tilting a small, humourless smile towards him and bringing her gaze back with it. Alysanne was still learning about Mauja, she did not know enough to say “yeah you really are crazy aren't you?”. What she did think was maybe this was someone who understood the turmoil that had been consuming her. Someone who probably had it worse. What were Alysanne’s problems compared to anyone else’s, after all?

She did not know what was going on with him but she knew what was happening with herself. How she had been fraying and crumbling, a piece of herself getting chipped away with every new conversation, every new day. How becoming queen had actually, strangely, helped because she did not have the luxury of falling apart. She had told Tembovu once that because he was King he could not afford to do such things and she would be damned if she held herself to any lesser standard. She had been taped back together again and though she was not fixed, she was an Aly-shaped shadow. She was close to what she had been and, sometimes, the fractures were held together so well that she could pretend they weren't there at all.

And she hated the mere idea that anyone might be enduring something similar to what she was. Mauja, surely, deserved better than this slow decay.

A soft sigh escaped her but she found no magical words that would somehow make everything better for him. There was nothing.

Without any verbal response ready, Alysanne reached out in her favoured way - through touch, through physical connection. Conveniently forgetting the edge in his tone, the coldness in his expression that may very well latch on and bite her for this motion. Even if it was just a dark muzzle aimed for a spotted shoulder, it was all she had. A wordless attempt at comfort through a gentle caress… if he accepted it.

If you could only understand—through my heart and through my veins

I gave it all,

I'll give again.