Tolio, for one, had not prepared himself for this encounter. He had been wrapped up in so many different things, vines that clung to his body and forced him to his knees. Faelene, Psyche, his status, Phaedra, Avira...the battle between the parts of him that never seemed to end. Tolio felt like he was coming apart at the seams, a rag doll that had already fragile stitching. It had been pulled, tossed, beaten, tugged between so many different things. His soul was pouring out in return, the stitches bursting and letting his sanity slip away. He had taken to wandering the Steppe, sleeping in the freezing snow. Where any predator could find him, if hypothermia didn't claim his life first. He was being tugged in so many different directions. It felt like he was truly falling apart, like a mirror that had once been carefully glued but was now cracking apart once more. He had come here for peace, for solitude. And what met him? The one person that had started it all.

Phaedra's voice was cold and spitting when she replied, and he went into a state of numbness. Hearing her call out for her bird as if from a different world. Watching with sightless eyes as the creature splashed about, trying to entice him into joining her game. Then it all broke and he let loose one single sob. Harsh, as if it were a creature that had crawled its way out, scratching and wrecking everything precious on the way up. Tears coated his cheeks in record time, and his lean body shook. Destroying the image he had created in the water as it rippled. Even so he clenched his eyes shut, not wanting to see the monster that met his eyes. He was spiraling out of control and nothing could stop him now. "What is it you want from me, P-Phaedra?" And now dry, cracked laughter was combining with the shaking of his sobs. Almost hysterical as he crumbled. How he remained standing he didn't know. Perhaps it was the last scrap of pride he had, clinging to his marrow desperately. But he wanted to fall, to escape into the water. To drown away his sorrows in a quite literal fashion. Let it fill his lungs, drag him down into its clear depths. But now, he couldn't taint the beauty of a lover's cove. "Wh-What do you want me to say? Huh? Th-That ever since that day, I-I've been broken into two people?! That I hate you, but I want to come crawling back?!" Tolio staggered out of the water, bypassing her. Hardly able to stand. Continuing to walk for only a while before he turned to face her.

Silvery eyes were pained, cracked. Face tight with grief and a hint of anger as the dark side of him struggled for control. "I don't know what I did, Phaedra! One minute, you were my pretty baby sister, and the next you were blaming me, hurting me! You can't make me choose between sisters! I love you both, for different reasons!" Anger swelled up inside him, and he realized that the original Tolio was shrinking away. Blinking hard and stumbling backward as if in a daze, tears filling his eyes once more. Deflating and shaking once more, a broken colt and no longer a proud stallion. He'd always been soft, emotional. "I...I don't know...I don't know...It's like there are two of me a-and...and it's scary..." Voice coming out plaintive, childish. He feared the monster in his thoughts, the one that drove him into anger. The one Psyche had concocted through sweet words and understanding ways. Tolio curled inside himself, shriveling away. "I don't know why you hate me...I don't know what I did...I should have protected you, from Leander...But I just...I just didn't know."

Crown shook and bloody mane fell over his shoulder. Laughing bitterly at himself as he hit his cheek against the nearest tree. Needing to feel the pain to clear his thoughts. "You wrecked me, Phaedra. I don't know right from wrong anymore. All I feel anymore is this all encompassing agony. I hardly speak anymore. All I do is spar, to try and feel something again." Tone softening into a wistful sort of monotone. As if he were speaking in a dream. Always a dream. Always drifting. "I should hate you. I should. And...and sometimes I do. But that's the...the other me. It would probably be easier, you know...hating you. But I can't. Because when I think of you, I think of when I first met you on the beach. I remember your laugh, your smile, your eyes. I remember how quickly we bonded. How happy you made me. And...and suddenly I can't. I should blame you, hate you, but I can't..." And Gods, Tolio sounded so desperate and broken right there that he could hardly stand it and he was the one who had spoken it! Scraping his cheek down the bark once again, feeling small drops of blood appear. Tears fell slowly down his cheeks. Was he going insane? "I-I keep hurting myself...because I deserve it. Whatever I did to make you cry...I deserve this."

[[Oh dear lord I do not know where that came from o_o he went from angry to sad to kind of insane]]