Wariness warred with treacherous hope within his soul. The cold of midwinter whispered to not believe in such foolish things as hope, that his mind would preserve longer if he believed in nothing but his despairing reality, while the lighter side of him pleaded to believe, that the world still existed, that she was real.. an emissary of light, of his salvation. Could he believe? Could he be so weak, to give in to hope and become its slave? What if it was not real? What if she would laugh and tell him that he was just going insane? If he pretended to never believe, to not trust her ghastly shadow, then maybe he could take it, let it wash off his skin like dirt — but if he had started to believe, to hope..? It would be like laying his head down beneath the executioner's axe.

The longer he could remain vaguely sane, the more time he had to find a way back home.

He couldn't allow himself to hope.

Even as she laughed gently at him, a sound that rippled with such life, he could not believe, nor could he fully block her out and abandon her in this place.. neither could he be upset about her laughter, nor amused. A small line of worry etched itself across his face, mild concern in his blue eyes as he wondered in a rather detached fashion if it was considered rude to laugh at ghosts. Perhaps he was dead after all.. but each time his mind touched that place, which it had touched so often in the past month, a weight like a dead whale dropped on his head. A merciless, resounding, steadfast no, an echo of denial like that of a boulder tumbling down a mine shaft. But each time he asked, tried to frame it as a question, Irma gave him nothing but silence. How could she be so sure? How could she know they were alive, when he couldn't? He closed his eyes momentarily. "I wish I could believe you," he said quietly, as much to Irma as to himself, and to Onni. It was like when Ophelia in his dreams had told him she was dreaming of him, that she was real, would wake up to a world of her own and remember him — and try to bring him home. A part of him wanted to believe it, to desperately cling to that hope, but the doubt was larger, darker: how could it be? And more importantly.. how could he trust himself, these potential creations of his own mind, when it was just as likely they were just signs of his madness as for them to be real?

And if they were real, what the hell were they doing in his head?

"But I can't. It's.. not your fault, really." Mauja's head swept gracefully up as his gaze rested on her again, the wind tugging at her shape and distorting it. "I'm sorry." He had no idea why he felt the need to apologize to her, but he couldn't deny it. It was harder and harder to check the flood of words coming out of his mouth, to keep his cool, to remain.. himself. So what if this was just another disease of his tormented spirit, another manifestation of the madness that was starting to build up within him? He drew in a shuddering breath which smelled of trees and the saline sea, and expelled it in a snort. He was losing his grip on himself, and on the world, and if he one day just spiraled out into space it wouldn't surprise him. Perhaps he would find the way back home if he ran through the stars?

"But, yes.. there are.. others." His tail gave a nervous twitch, and his gaze swept through the forest restlessly. What if speaking of them would make them invade this last sanctuary he had? With a deliberate jerk of his head he motioned for her to follow, as his long legs started to carry him through the forest heading south, away from Dragon's Blood — towards the shore, in his world. "But you.. you have never been here before. No one has been here before. But there's a Helovia that looks like my Helovia and its full of faces I know but none of them are real. They..." He was silent for a few steps as the pressure built up in his heart and mind. He was on the verge of saying they are absolutely terrifying, for in a sense, they were terrifying: he never knew who they were, what they thought, if they loved him or hated him or didn't know him at all... And it drove him mad, bit by bit, to never know. Never able to relax. Always reminded of home. "They look like themselves, most of the time. But they're nothing like the ones I knew." It came out as a whisper, and his restless eyes kept roving the forest for signs of them. "And they keep.. changing, all the time. They never stay the same. But they're never here. This is... somewhere else." And the trees thinned, and the ocean spread out before him, and slowly he was drawn down to the water.