It was with an awkward disconnect that he objectively watched himself, his shadow within the dream, listened to the sweet whispering of his deep voice, how it rumbled in his chest.. listened to the husky murmurs coming out of her black throat, and with each passing moment he felt more and more like an intruder, someone who shouldn't be there. Even if he had been there, it did not feel right to watch, not when his heart had grown so cold and cracked since then, and when he doubted the existence of her own. He couldn't even remember the emotion in her hawk's eyes as he spiraled away into darkness, and it ate him from within — to not know. Had she watched with a horror mirrored by the black hole in his gut, or had it been with glee? Had she desired his removal, and smiled as the wind wiped out the last traces of his life, or had she cried out to deaf ears? Absently watching something from his past like this felt like thinking back on his youth. He had had his doubts about the whole thing.. but in the end, a reckless notion that maybe this time had spurred him on. He'd been prepared to crown her as Queen but she had ran away.

The ghastly flick of her tail elicited a thoughtful "Hm?" from his chest, and the turn of one pale eye onto her: she seemed subdued, taken over with the emotions which filled the air around them. Sadness, and suppressed longing. His own mind had slowed, though, caught in the moment of his own callous chill when faced with the passion of his past; had he truly come to this, or was it just his way of defense? To block it out, lest it tear him apart from within? For a moment he closed his eyes, seeking for memories, of their playful touch in real life, the static buzz each time her skin rubbed against his.. and the deadness of his skin now, no expectation, no excitement. Not like each time someone clad in white had drifted closer, how they had touched — never as intimately as he had touched Psyche, but even in the dream it had.. affected him.

He opened his eyes again, sadly watching the black mare by his side. Could he help it? Could he change it? Could he force himself to- he cut the thought off. What did it matter, when she was nothing but a dream, and he nothing but a lost soul in the whirl of time?

"Please come back to me..." she whispered, seemingly entirely alone and lost in her thoughts; he even angled his head to look at himself, to make sure he was still there. If there was just a way.. he'd gladly return to his enemies, to feel their horns lay open his skin and the fire consume his flesh again, just to feel alive.. to see a familiar face, with familiar intent. To come back. He swallowed the lump building in his throat again, blinked the tears away. "I don't know how," he told her again, quiet; he turned away from the memory, unable to keep watching. To remember.. it hurt too much, to know that it was out of reach. To know that it had been real, but wasn't anymore. "I can't stay here," he whispered, uncertain of what he meant; the Grove? With her? With the memory? In the world he'd wake up to? His white body swung around in the darkness, and looked for a way out, but how does one leave the part of a dream which is not your own?

Mauja Frosthjärta