She seemed just as inclined to watch him, as he was to watch her, two predators contemplating the outcome of their meeting — the loss, and gain, of interaction. Was this what she had come to in his mind, in the weeks they had had together again? A beast, just like himself, a piece on the chessboard to be placed someplace with a clever plan backing it all up? Or was it what he wanted her to be, someone he could manipulate shamelessly, and push away to not face the questions which haunted him?

Did he want, did he create, this space between them?

With level eyes he kept watching her, the play of emotion on her face and in her eyes. Behind him, his tail flicked idly, an irregular rhythm of white against the shadows surrounding them. He felt impassive and cold, as if he had shut himself away somewhere. They called him the Ice King and he knew that it was not for nothing — it was because, to them, he was made of ice. But all the little smiles, the wink of an eye and the drawl of his voice contained so much more, things he reserved, didn't share with the world. What would they had called him, if they had known he had emotions?

"Where did you go?" she asked and she sounded so young and tired, so small, alone and afraid, that he nearly broke, but not in the ways that he should've — not out of the near-love which had bound their dark souls together and formed the foundation of their cracked empire.. but rather, out of the need to protect the weak. And to think of Psyche as weak... it was laughable, and he remained where he was, stoic and faceless in the dark. Psyche did not need him. Psyche had a heart of iron baptized in blood, but his was just soft, tarnished silver.

Or was he just kidding himself again?

No. She'd never needed anyone in life, had always taken, but the bottom line still was that what they did, they did out of the love they had for their own kind. If she was truly dead inside, she would work for the highest bidder and spill blood of any kind, as long as the price was paid once in gold and twice in torment.

"I don't know," he told her bluntly, honestly, for what else was he to say? What could he tell his dream that it didn't already know? And what could he tell himself, that he already didn't know? He was lost, but not in the physical sense, so there was no way to find and walk back to Helovia. He was just.. lost, and that was, perhaps, the one definite truth of his life.

For the other truths, he had begun to doubt.

Mauja Frosthjärta