I'm looking at you through the glass, don't know how much time has passed...

The frigid air froze the tears on his cheeks, crystalline beauty in an ever-changing world, and his lashes beat rapidly to blink it away before all of him would turn to ice. Each slow beat of his heart seemed to reverberate through a hall of fragile glass, the cracks spreading with each shudder it took in his chest, just waiting to crash down in an iridescent display, each splinter a prism. His breath had calmed, growing slow and steadfast, each exhalation quiet, rising towards the ceiling of the cave. She was silent, and he was stable again — though, if she looked closely, she would see the shimmer of tears, before they were blinked away. Some part of him had expected her to push him for an answer, to demand he know what to do, but she hadn't. And in that, she had given him the time to soothe his frayed nerves. Even as he willed his sides to rise and fall, slow and steady, he knew that it was not far away, that hitching rhythm and the warm swelling in the throat as tears were held back. Mauja swallowed. It would not take much for it to bubble up again.

Her voice was not so different from his. A mere breath. She was not hiding. She was not spitting poison and words to mask the truth. No. She told him the truth, and he drank it in, and sighed softly. I don't either, he thought dispiritedly, feeling the leaden weight of his heart. How could you figure something out, when you didn't know what you were aiming for? How could you fit the pieces of a puzzle together, when you had no idea what the picture was to show?

Did he even want to know?

Things had been, things had changed, and things had not come around again; she was different, and he was different, too. It would've been easy to go dumb for her, stop caring, and let her take the power — now she had it, without him shrouding his senses in a thick veil, to not see nor know what went on. For the first time ever, she had him at a disadvantage, but she wasn't pressing it. He was tired, worn, and no one, save for the memory of loyalty in the brains of others; she was everything, Queen and God should she so wish. In silence he stood, unable to find words, explanations, reasons, or anything else for the matter. He just wanted to forget, forgive, and sleep.

But he couldn't. For a moment, Mauja closed his eyes, and sought within his shambled self for pieces of what he had been, only to find that it was as if a hurricane had ripped through his mind. Duty had ever bound him; he had a duty to this herd, to keep going, even when he doubted and questioned himself. His own life was not his own, for the glory of their race. But he was not strong enough...

There it was again, his name falling from her black lips, and one ear twitched lifelessly to the sound, lost eyes seeing through her face and into nothing. "All I know is what we can be." The future. Five minutes from now on, tomorrow, in a week, a month, ten years — he blinked his listless eyes and focused them upon her amber gaze, the churn of life beneath their irises. And what is that? he wanted to ask, but his tongue felt numb in his jaws and he remained quiet, just staring at her. He knew that her words should've touched him somewhere, but it was hard to react when his name didn't feel like his own anymore. Mauja stood with his head high, proud, regal, alert; he did not cry softly and stare in silence like he did now. Blinking his eyes, he had barely been aware of it happening again, no longer feeling the bite as the supernaturally chilled cave froze them against his skin.

"Things always change," he finally murmured, his eyes never leaving hers. I'm so god damn tired, I don't know who I am anymore. Breathing in, breathing out, but no words came to his mind for a long time. "For better or for worse." As if he'd not paused at all. Slowly, he lowered his eyes, and closed them. To force himself together, would be to slip back into that icy masquerade. "I'm sorry," he finally said, hoarse and quiet, opening his tear-blurred eyes again and bringing them up to her face. "I don't know if I can be who you want me to be."