Mauja the FrostHeart
ice cold man watches earth die, eternal winter takes its reign

[ I went with über-dry Helovia + Histe's magic setting surroundings on fire = .. much fast-spreading fire. Shout if you disagree. xP ]

She was definitely mad, and the dislike that had been seeping through Mauja solidified into raw disgust and hate. As if it wasn't enough with her simply being an equine, she had to be a mad one too. Beast, his mind whispered and the cold snarl held itself upon his face as she talked - to the air, it seemed. It certainly wasn't directly at him, and with distaste in his eyes he watched her. She was, in a sense, ignoring him, but he could see the smoldering hate in her eyes whenever they alighted upon him, and winter leaped out of his gaze like a panther each time their gazes met. He wanted nothing more than to charge and run his horn through her thick neck, but that'd be a bit too obvious. He needed to drown her in a lake and let her bloated corpse leave no trails to follow, no stories to tell. She was short, she had guts, but it wasn't pure courage. Her eyes unnerved him, she wasn't there, and it made him want to grab her and fling her around like a predator snapping the neck of its prey. She spoke as a black giant drifted up to stand next to her, staring in cold silence at Mauja; Mauja stared right back, the chill of winter in his eyes.

Two against one was unfair, one a black behemoth that seemed robbed of speech. Could he communicate? How large was the risk of staying here? Pride and anger kept him from backing down as caution bid him, and the sky seemed to agree; rain fell, but it was not natural rain... One drop fell and the tuft of grass went up in flames, dried out by the harsh summer. Another fell, another small fire starting; more fell, and where they touched Mauja himself, they burned like small fires. This was no natural rain. Frustrated, orange flames licking at his eyes and reflecting there, he backed in under the thickest tree he could find. Rain was already eating up the sparse, dried foliage, but for a while he would be safe there, safe from the hot and hungry beast. He loathed - feared - fire, but he couldn't let it show, couldn't let it be known. He hardened his gaze and hid the fear behind walls of ice, and in a harsh voice he spat out over the crackle of flames: "Þú ert hundar bæði!" And his voice promised death. He could always claim they had attacked him first.

The fire. The fire was spreading rapidly, each second causing the rain to increase in strength, each drop fueling it, and Helovia had been a tinderbox just waiting to catch fire. Now, it had finally happened in the Threshold, the meager protection of his tree being eaten away much too rapidly for his sanity. Each breath quivered and tasted foul, his hide twitched each time a drop of rain found him. By the sound of it, the limbs of trees would soon give way and fall burning to the ground, and by then, he didn't want to be here. Amidst the chaos and the growing fear, Mauja sought for clarity, and with a wrench the ground beneath them groaned; a near-metallic noise split the air as the ground itself parted, two spikes of ice breaking through the dry crust and speeding upwards. One beneath Histe's tender belly, one beneath Vincent's thick barrel. "Hundkvikindin!" he shouted at them, backing a step involuntarily; his hind end scraped against the bark of the tree, and nearby a branch broke and fell, burning to the ground.

The forest was turning into an inferno.

Flames licked along the ground, spreading, consuming, destroying. She had caused it. He was certain. He knew it and he hated her - but he feared the burning forest more. Die, his mind shouted as the flames flickered hungrily. Die now, for I can't stay much longer. Mauja hated fire and the fire hated him; it hungrily crept closer, pain flashing through him each time it fell upon him, leaving charred, sore spots. He couldn't hold his ground much longer, not when it was burning. The whites of his eyed glowed orange, and backed up against a burning tree, on the edge of breaking, he roared, "DEY!"