It's hard to get to heaven,
when you're born hell-bound.

The sky was gray, refusing to let the Sun shine on winter's bitter king. With his eyes skyward Mauja walked, stroking snow aside with ease, placing frosted hooves upon the frozen ground hidden beneath the pale carpet — but he had no eyes for it, no eyes for anything but the bright thing hidden behind flimsy covers. He felt like a newborn foal, like an ancient, decrepit being tumbled from a rock, both broken and whole at the same time.. confused, anxious, confident and hesitant. Some part of him had still not accepted, nor understood, what had happened.

Torasin had died.
Sól had healed him.
Sól.. had done something to Ophelia.

A sigh curled out of his nostrils, like smoke from a dragon's mouth, and rose towards the gray skies. It dissipated, merging with the cold air, and Mauja wished that his thoughts would do the same. They were just as vital, just as pointless, but they refused to leave.. stuck to him like ticks, burrs in his mane, and he could make neither heads nor tails of it. Why did it bother him? Why had he left a piece of his soul behind, a silent monument? Teeth ground together, the dry noise alien as it reverberated through his skull; Irma, flying somewhere far above, was vaguely amused by his emotions, but at the same time, disagreed with them. A kill was a kill.

Why do you always spend so much time thinking?
Damned if I know, Irma.

But it was true. He brooded worse than a worried mother, made flimsy plans and schemes, and.. something about Torasin's death.. it had not been planned, and that twist of fate gnawed at him. But at the same time, there had been something.. almost releasing about it, a moment where he had not needed to think, only feel, even if it meant he'd wept over the body of an equine. The past weeks had had his mind running at too high speed, dancing a complicated dance with Sumati, balancing his own existence upon the point of a knife — and so far, he hadn't cut his feet, but he found himself straying further and further away as time wore on, to places where it was not quite so dangerous to rest.. where he could let go of the frantic grip he held on his thoughts, simply watch the wind tug at the snow without running at full speed.

Movement caught his attention, a blur of gray against the white ground. The wind blew cautiously against his face, keeping his forelock out of his eyes, but he was yet too far away to catch her individual scent; another hundred yards or so, and he knew who she was.

Smoke.
World's Edge.

Torasin.
Fuck.

Mauja's flowing movements ceased, his thoughts picking up speed again, devising a million plans in the fraction of a second; he stood still as a statue, weighing fleeing against fighting, and drew blank. Simply stood there, in his element, something pristine and beautiful and lost all at once, blue eyes watching her in quiet contemplation.

Did they know?