Crimson blossomed like strange flowers, gentle, glowing light pooling on their white hairs. Mauja flicked an ear back for a moment, wondering if she had ever been so open before - he was no fool to the wandering of her eyes across his body, nor to the way he responded, arching his neck and raising his tail slightly. If this was how his soul reacted to having her eyes upon him - no wonder his dream made her look at him so. Some part of him wanted to sigh, and wake up, but the desperate, stronger part of him wanted to forget that it was a dream: to feel as if it was real, again, to not shy away from the notion that he felt something for this apparition of his past. To embrace it. But it was nothing but a dream, a wishful dream, and once he had realized he was dreaming, he had a hard time forgetting it again.

Her teasing question brought a humorless smile to his face, the word "Cruel," whispered in an odd mix of annoyance and tenderness. Why would his dream plague him so, torment him, ask him to relive the moments when he had truly, physically, stood near her, and not just dreamed of her pale figure? Remembering the times when he had been real, in possession of a body, alive, and able to touch, it hurt, to think of all the things he had lost. But the weakness in him had festered, to the point where he was overrun by his own thoughts - as if clinging to what life he had lived, would take him back. Even if this was just an incorporeal shadow of the mare he had known but briefly, he could not resist humoring her, allowing his dream to play out all the things he had never done, never said. What harm could it be? "I was wounded after a battle," he began, nodding as she moved off into the darkness with an ethereal grace. It nearly hurt his mind to watch as she so lightly stepped through the roses, their scarlet glow guiding their hooves. Without hesitation Mauja strode after her, leaving prints of frost which flared cold blue briefly before flickering out. "Infected in both flesh and soul. You, and a healer, found me."

She was so real... just in front of him, but he slipped up beside her, so real just beside him, but he dared not touch her again. He did not want to remember that she was, in spite of everything, not real. Even the way she had simply turned and started to walk away was so her, it made the air stick in his throat. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be dead. Each night when he awoke from these dreams of the past, he knew that he wanted to go back. "Ironically.. we were in a cave. You supported me." A small grin curved his lips again, before he gave his head a shake in the darkness, his long mane cascading in the flow of light. He allowed himself to be silent, to merely walk by her side, imagining the scent of her mane and the warmth of her skin, but feeling naught. To be so close, and yet so far... As if he lived his life behind a veil, a curtain, able to see the shadows of those he yearned to join, but never able to reach out. Giving a low snort, he paused when their road of roses came to an abrupt change: three paths spiraled out from where they stood, each winding into the darkness, a soft, red glow marking it.

He felt no particular desire to go anywhere at all, but instead, his mind tracked back, falling through the minutes, to when the last star had died - the words she had spoken, as her ghastly frame had elegantly turned and slid away. A humorless smile drifted across his face, bitterness in his voice as he spoke: "But I am always alone, now." Something about it - perhaps his own helplessness - angered him, and as a line of gold slithered once like a snake across his body, shimmering softly despite its flashing movement, Mauja pawed at the ground. Golden sparks struck off where his frosty hoof met the hard rock beneath, lighting something in the distance, somewhere between the center and rightmost rose paths: it was warm in color, soft, shimmering, flickering like fire, but shapeless from this far away. Once more devoid of emotion, the burst of anger having left him dull and sad again, Mauja stared at it, across the black distance.