[private] wake me when I fall - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: OOC (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=24) +--- Forum: Archive (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=81) +---- Forum: Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=98) +----- Forum: Hyaline (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=92) +----- Thread: [private] wake me when I fall (/showthread.php?tid=29005) Pages:
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wake me when I fall - Mazikeen - 03-07-2021 Grief is not an emotion that Mazikeen handles very well - which is a nice way to say she actively avoids it. Normally anger is there, ready to fill in the gaps and give her relief, but she can’t find anything to be angry with. The world and the unfairness of it is too broad of a target. There is nothing for her to fight when she gets mad at the world, mad at everything that has been happening, mad at the situations she’s been finding herself in. MAZIKEEN mazikeen @[Selaphiel] RE: wake me when I fall - Selaphiel - 03-09-2021 THESE DAYS I DON’T PRAY WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES I JUST BITE MY TONGUE A BIT HARDER
He has tried so desperately to make himself scarce. He has lingered near the edge of the forest because he has not found anyplace else to go. Because he has not yet worked up the courage to fully separate himself from his mother, from Este. He has watched them from afar, crawling with the urge to go to them, humming with nervous energy. Waiting, always waiting. Wanting, always wanting. Sometimes he holds his breath hard and fast and he steals into their midst and he kisses his sister’s head fiercely. He whispers to her how much he loves her and misses her and that he will be here waiting for her always. And then he has to flee before the air goes rank with the stench of death again. He has to flee before they find him and remember that he is not welcome here. And he always steals one last glance over his shoulder as they disappear from view. For days, he paces the border between Hyaline and the forest. Days and days while he waits for someone to find him. Waits for someone to remember the angel cast from ice that is not welcome here. He remains in one spot today, though, wings folded against his side. Shivering. Trembling? Teeth gritted against the cold, though there is so much ice that lives in him. Then there is some figure that comes swimming out of the distance, bathed in fire and his heart sinks. His breath hitches and he stiffens, considers running. He has been caught. He never got the chance to say goodbye. Will they try to find him? Will he ever see them again? But the closer she gets, the more familiar she is. Even without the overwhelming stench of death. He relaxes but only slightly and only by degrees. He lets out only half a breath, loosening only half of his muscles when she smiles. (He can still smell death on her, but only because he saw her die.) “Mazikeen,” he repeats and there is something like relief in his voice, soft. He remembers that he’d regretted not learning her name. “My name is Sela,” he tells her and then corrects himself, “Selaphiel. Ryatah is my mother.” Does he say this because he thinks this might make him worthy of staying? Selaphiel @[Mazikeen] RE: wake me when I fall - Mazikeen - 03-11-2021 The edge of her smile twitches a little in amusement when the colt uses the longer form of her name instead of the short nickname. It doesn’t truly matter either way, she supposed. “Maze” just felt a little more friendly, and that suited her purpose for finding him. He seems tense, but she doesn’t think much about that - their first meeting hadn’t exactly been smooth. MAZIKEEN mazikeen @[Selaphiel] RE: wake me when I fall - Selaphiel - 03-13-2021 THESE DAYS I DON’T PRAY WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES I JUST BITE MY TONGUE A BIT HARDER
He tries not to feel patronized, infantilized by the way she speaks to him. He knows that he is a child in her eyes, but he feels as if he has lived a thousand years. He feels as if the stench of death has aged him prematurely. It has had such devastating effects on him, but he does not tell her this. Instead, he draws in an unsteady breath and swallows thickly and nods. He tries not to let his heart flutter with hope. If Mazikeen wants him to deliver news to his mother perhaps it means that she is not here to send him away. It means, at the very least, that he will get to see his mother again. “I will tell her,” he says, so gravely serious, so desperate to convey that he can be trusted with whatever task she yokes him with. He is capable. He is young and he is small and he is sometimes crippled by self-doubt, but he will do whatever she asks of him. “Whatever you need me to do, I will do it.” This is a promise he will keep, no matter what. He sets his jaw and his nostrils flare and that ice-dipped halo hangs low on his brow as he levels her with that solemn stare. His breath is thin as he tries not to draw in too much of her death. (How rude, he thinks, she had died for him, the least he can do is take long, deep breaths of it. She has sacrificed herself for him. She had taken that strange half-step toward him. She had asked him if he was all right. She had done it for him and he cannot even bear to smell it on her. Such a weak, pathetic thing he is. It makes his knees tremble.) Her question kicks the air out of his chest, arrests his heart and he sucks in a sharp breath, eyelids fluttering. “I,” he begins and then abruptly closes his mouth. He stares at her, breathless, a long moment. And then, finally, he shakes his head. He is not a liar, Selaphiel. “No,” he tells her, honest. “I know that Breach has made Hyaline a haven for shifters. I know that I am not welcome here and it is only a matter of time until I will be told to leave.” He swallows hard, painfully, and finally looks away. “I try my best to stay out of the way,” he says this quietly. Ashamed. “Like maybe everyone will just forget that I’m here, but it’s starting to take its toll. It’s hard to live here knowing I’m not welcome.” Selaphiel @[Mazikeen] RE: wake me when I fall - Mazikeen - 03-22-2021 Mazikeen really should stop trying to predict how conversations were going to go because she has never once gotten it right. She feels the light-hearted exchange she had been imagining crumble away into reality as the sombre colt explains what living in Hyaline has been like for him. MAZIKEEN mazikeen @[Selaphiel] RE: wake me when I fall - Selaphiel - 03-28-2021 THESE DAYS I DON’T PRAY WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES I JUST BITE MY TONGUE A BIT HARDER
Guilt pulses in the boy’s chest as the warmth drains from the white mare’s eyes. He has upset her with his honesty and he has no choice but to look away while his shame thickens in his throat. Surely she will send him away now. He shifts his weight, preparing to take his leave. He knows that he has already overstayed his welcome. He has suspected all along that his mother is the only reason he has been allowed to stay as long as he has and he will have to remember to thank her. And perhaps he has learned a lesson about honesty. Perhaps he has learned to play his cards a little closer to the vest. But she apologizes to him and he chances a glance at her, wary. Just as she could not have predicted the trajectory of their conversation, he could not have predicted this. His breath hitches as she speaks and he swallows hard against the sudden influx of hope that blooms and bursts where guilt had flourished only moments earlier. He holds his breath, uncertain, as she continues. And then, for the first time in his young life, his eyes water with stark, unfettered relief. He smiles (though even this is tinged with a certain kind of sadness, a sort of sorrow the boy will carry with him all his life) and looks at her plainly now. His heart hammers out something sideways, reckless and wild. He sucks in a sharp breath, smelling the death on her still and shakes his haloed head. The smile disappears just as suddenly as it had lit up his solemn face and a frown darkens his face as he studies her face, her features thrown into sharp relief by the flames surrounding her. “How can I repay you for saving my life twice?” he asks, frowning fiercely. Such a just and moral child. Selaphiel @[Mazikeen] @[The Monsters] let's mess with his reflective teleportation RE: wake me when I fall - Mazikeen - 03-29-2021 Warmth touches Mazikeen’s heart when Selaphiel smiles in the aftermath of her news. She’d been hoping for a positive reaction, hoping for the chance to bring a little bit of joy to contrast the death of their first meeting, and the heaviness that had persisted for the beginning of this one. MAZIKEEN mazikeen @[Selaphiel] RE: wake me when I fall - Random Event - 04-01-2021 @[Selaphiel] your reflective teleportation has mutated into strong heart RE: wake me when I fall - Selaphiel - 04-10-2021 THESE DAYS I DON’T PRAY WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES I JUST BITE MY TONGUE A BIT HARDER
He is only a child and he cannot fault her for addressing him as such, but it makes him feel small. Insignificant and stupid. It makes the solemn heart twinge and spasm and his cheeks flush with the heat of embarrassment. Are there others? Others like him, tucking themselves away in the darkest places, hoping to remain undetected so that they will not be told to leave. He studies her a long moment and he wants to tell her that she can ask anything of him. He wants to tell her that he’ll gladly lay down his life for her, too, the same way she had for him. She does not need to ask such a simple thing of him. But he is only a child, he can see it in her face that she would never let him do such a thing, so he doesn’t say so. He only nods. Swallows thickly and agrees. “Okay,” he says. He does not protest. He does not insist that, though he is only a child, he is capable of much bigger things. Not yet. “I will keep an ear out.” Is this what she’d wanted him to tell his mother? He almost asks but stops himself short. Perhaps he can make himself useful. If she’s looking after Hyaline while Breach is away. He looks away briefly, staring off into the darkness, as if he can sense the monster lurking in the shadows. The thing that reaches into his chest and manipulates the heart there, the thing that will compound his suffering. He does not feel it now, but he will. He draws in a long breath before he returns his focus to her face, ringed in fire. “I think I could be more useful to you,” he tells her finally, pausing for the space of a breath before continuing. “I knew it was coming. I knew you were going to die that day, I could smell it. Just like I can smell it on my sister, Este.” His throat constricts and his pulse accelerates but he does not allow himself any reprieve. “Maybe I could warn you when I know someone will die.” Selaphiel @[Mazikeen] RE: wake me when I fall - Mazikeen - 04-10-2021 If she could, Mazikeen would tell Selaphiel that she does not ask more of him not because he is a child - but because she is incapable of asking for more from anyone. She’d make the same request even if he were older, surely. For someone who is so willing to put herself in harms way to protect anyone around her, she’d never expect or ask for the same in return. MAZIKEEN mazikeen @[Selaphiel] |