He could feel her rage turning within her. He could see it in every line of her form and hear it in every thought that laced her mind until he pulled his own affinity from her. He knew her mind perhaps better then he knew any other and yet- he had never felt that sort of anger within it. An anger targeted entirely at himself and yet for once the stallion was hardly inclined to believe it misplaced. She was right to be angry with him. Her brother's death was his doing, the blame, at least mostly, his own to shoulder and were he so capable of taking back those final strikes against the other panther then he is almost inclined to believe he would have. Almost. Frost well aware of his own unfortunate ability to become rather lost in that moment and allow adrenaline to cloud his thoughts. The man prone to allowing that animalistic part of himself to take over in those more trying of times. That perhaps the very reason he exercised such control within his human state and yet he hardly allowed such words to pass his lips now. She would not care to hear them any more then he cared to tell them. Frost simply allowing her to growl and snarl and snap those words to his mind with no effort made to stop her. Preventing a woman from unleashing those emotions rarely ever ended well, especially when even he was perhaps willing to admit the justification of them. How strange it was, after all these years, to finally feel something almost akin to....remorse. Was that what it was? Such an uncomfortable feeling.

It was that single mention of so being the 'better man' that saw those violet eyes lift sharply to meet the green of her own, Frosts lips pulling tighter in a distinctly equine gesture of displeasure and yet if offered no further words all the same. Had she truly believed him a better man? Had he ever been a better man then any other? Surely not, at least, not by his own reckoning and yet the very notion that she thought him capable of it was...startling all at once and only further seemed to displease him in that moment almost as if he was inclined to feel as if he had...disappointed her in some sense. This single being he had truly allowed himself to care about. He had been a fool from the start to fall for her, to allow himself that luxury of care. Did it not always end this way with him? Was it not always utter heartbreak everywhere he turned? It was as if he knew how to do nothing else but hurt even when he had not truly desired to do it. Frost offering her to truth behind his actions in that moment and yet there was a bitterness to those words all the same. The stallion, in that moment, seeming to have drawn impossibly far within himself as he felt those touches of her power explode parts of his front lawn. He hardly feared the woman and yet he respected her power enough to remain where he stood, unwilling to antagonize her further. Yet her request to lower his shield was met with a single shake of his head and a firm utterance of that word he had never spoke to her before.

"I am not untouchable and I have never believed I am- you alone saw me at deaths door that day and I have not forgotten that. Unleashing your power on me will bring you no peace."

The words were uttered almost softly all the same. The woman, he knew, unlikely to understand truly what he meant in that moment with those final words and yet if he knew his Nadya at all he knew surely that within the heat of the moment she would do as she pleased regardless of his advice It was one of those traits he had found so alluring about her and still did. That sort of strength in a woman was rarely seen. She that metaphorical black pearl amongst a score of other far less precious resources, the softest tug of a simper pulling at his lip at that all too-fleeting thought. The press of that gravity clear upon him. He knew already of her intention as her teeth bared towards him- it was this very part of her that so reminded him of himself even if their intentions differed. The woman determined to show him that pain she felt while he spent so many years attempting to hide it from the world and yet....did she forget his own power? Did she truly believe he did not know her pain? That he could not feel it straight from her mind into his own? Frost aware of each and every ounce of her agony even if his own look of indifference hardly faltered. Her 'show' so un-needed and yet he spoke not a word of it all the same. He simply let her come, let his knees fold before her for there was no point in seeking to fight that power even though his own would surely have seen him fight far more effectively against it then any other. If she needed this then so be it. The panther stalking closer and closer to him before pausing a foot or so away, her words pressing into his thoughts alone as his gaze lingered still upon her.

"Things changed when you became mine, but I could not change what I had already done. I did not mean for him to die, Naja."

He had held every intention after that night within the park and that date she had insisted upon, of leaving Samantha alone entirely, of simply leaving the girl to come to discover she need not jump at shadows and so disappear from her life entirely. The night of Tetradore's death had seen so much occur by chance or fate or whatever other foolish entity others chose to believe in. He could not bring himself to be sorry Tetradore had died, the man knowing well the stake of that battle- they both had and yet he was sorry only that Nadya had been harmed in it. That....a veritable first for the stallion. Her claws swung suddenly towards him. One arm lifting to block that strike from his face and protect the one remaining eye he held, her claws slicing into that flesh, a soft grunt forced from within him at that pain and yet still he offered nothing more as the panther circled away from him and the pain pulled himself to his feet- those claw marks already beginning to heal. Frost so at last reaching for one of his own powers, allowing those illusions to appear one after the other, after the other.

Each and every memory stirred to life as he recalled it, played out before the panther now. That night in the hot tub, the twins birthday party, those evenings in her apartment, the burlesque, those walks in the park, that date and dance, the terrible beach hotel and that embrace upon the bed- that final image, Isabella so clutching that horse toy he had given her hovering so realistically before the woman. As if her daughter truly sat there on the path holding that toy and giggling as she once had. The image slowly fading as he spoke- at last.

"Believe what you want of me, Naja, but do not believe for a moment that I do not care for you. These memories would not exist if were not true. I care of you more then I think you know."




f r o s t
we built this city on broken glass