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

She must've sensed it, or she was just skittish it; through the heat haze he could see her jump aside, the hard, cold tip of ice standing beside her. A little red trickled down from its sharpened point, but not enough, and with a maddened shriek he allowed them to fall back into the earth, accompanied by the same grinding, metallic noise. The dry soil swallowed them up and Mauja tried to breathe deeply and not at all at the same time; the air tasted of sulfur and acid, of death and decay, it irritated his throat and his mind but he needed to calm down but how the hell does one calm down when standing in hell?! Snorting shakily he kept dancing on the spot, trying to lull himself into not moving away and yet wanting to run away. His native language bubbled in his throat but what he was about to say was cut off - and forgotten - when a burning branch thundered down between him and the equines. Sparks danced before his eyes and Mauja shied backwards against the untouched bark of the tree. Flames raged above, but they were distant still, only scraps of burning debris floated down to singe his hide. The tree itself was safe. For now.

She turned around to kick at the branch and caught it, scooping it up on blackened fetlocks and tossing it in his general direction. Mauja flinched but instinct saved him; ice powered up from the ground in front of him, shielding him. The burning branch slammed into it and veered off, coming to rest somewhere to his right.

He didn't care.

He was tired of this game.

Not too long ago, the Moon had come to the Edge in all her glory, gifting her two strongest mortal allies; he had never used his gift, he'd nearly forgotten about it. Unlike the ice, which he had been born to, this magic was something he wasn't quite sure how to call upon, and in any other situation he would've had to stop and think, and if he'd had to think about it, he likely wouldn't have figured it out. As it was, he was feral, his mind blocked by the hungry flames, and instinct had purged him of all barriers. Rage swam in his blood side by side with fear, and it rose like a crescendo in him, tingling, until he turned that barely contained fury on Histe; his mind focused on her chest region, on her heart and lungs, and the blood in her veins began to crystallize. It would cause pain, a sensation of freezing from within, a chill that was inside her, like a skinwalker, a nightmare - and the crystals, if growing, would turn their sharp little edges onto the walls of the blood vessels themselves, seeking to shred. To kill. But it would take time. Theoretically, she could still save herself. He didn't want her to. He wanted her to die. And at the same time, he knew that killing her would jeopardize everything he'd tried to do for his herd.

"Break the off the rain," he rasped, then realized she could likely not hear him over the hiss and crackle of flames. Perhaps the sound of her insanity would drown him out. He drew a shuddering breath, keeping the link of cold streaming into her body. "Break off the rain!" he shouted at her, feeling steadier - sounded steadier. But he still wanted to run away. He still wanted to flee. But he couldn't. Not yet. Pride kept him where he was, pride and the chance of making her stop; if she just stopped... then he could walk away and pretend he hadn't lost. Then he could walk away and soothe his stinging wounds and scream the aftermath of fear someplace no one would hear. Even though the root of fear would go away, the screams would still be trapped in him.