The twins had been born early and her daughter follows their lead, as though sensing she is not a kind place to be anymore. Mazikeen feels a twist of revulsion at the combination of soft-gold and blue and there’s a moment where she wants nothing more than to shred this piece of Gale apart. The girl stands and Mazikeen stubbornly does not because this fury helps to drown out the confusing mixture of emotions that aren’t hers.

In the end, though, this newest daughter is cared for (although begrudgingly) and Mazikeen spends an excruciating afternoon with her and Malik before leaving the pair of them together with a promise to return. To her son she gives the task of picking out a name - something that starts with an M like theirs. She doesn’t care what it is, so long as it isn’t the name that Gale had picked.

And then Mazikeen weaves through the mountain passes that will take her to the coast, the very northern edges of her home. She couldn’t rely on anyone else to pry out what was trying to settle in her hollow places, so she would try something else. Away from anyone who might try to interfere. There are other places she could go to if she wanted to die, she knows, but Mazikeen does not intend to suffer scars made by anyone else on her coat - not if they showcase her death, her failures, her weaknesses. Never again will she let someone else kill her.

The thoughts that plague her, spoken by kind voices, should not be poison but they feed her anger and her resolve as the night deepens. There are no stars or moon out when she finally reaches the coast. She’s the only light, her markings casting a warm orange glow on the rocks around her.

Mazikeen’s considered the method several times. She’s not completely certain she’ll return again, but if she does she wants it to not be at the bottom of the ocean or buried under snow.

So she chooses her own claws, her body shifting and bending so she can reach the vital parts of her. Frustrated roars blend with involuntary screams but the pain is still sweet, still welcome, and she knows she has a dark bliss waiting for her at the end. However long it might be.

She tells herself she is strong enough for this but the voice that says this in her mind is not her own. It belongs to the golden light, the awe that he had placed there that did not fit with the scorn and disgust she expected from him. As her mind begins to grow hazy and her eyes have long-since been blinded by pain, she thinks of Firion and she’s not sure which part of her sends out the plea for help. Does she want him to actually help or does she just want him to find her after it is done? To make sure he knows that she would rather tear out her own heart than suffer the gift he’d left in her mind.

She’s given no time to see if he really does come like he said he would, her eyes fluttering closed as her blood spills from her in too-great of a tide and then Mazikeen goes up in flames.

The moment where there is only ash and blood left behind where her body had been is only a few seconds long but it stretches - the silence thick in the absence of her screams.

Then the fire returns, flaring with blinding light for a heartbeat. The mare lying there when it dies away has no scars at all and when her eyes flash open, they are a clear bright orange.

The first thing she sees in the darkness is gold that is surprisingly close and she knows she should put walls up, have some kind of defense in place, but she is dragged immediately under by the weight of the last year and a half. Both the golden light and the shadows remain but they are fainter, finding no room amongst everything that has returned to her. The seed he had planted took root and turned into a forest. The torrent of her emotions consumes her and any chance she might have of holding herself together begins to slip away further and further with each breath that she takes. It is looming over her, over them, waiting to crash and it’s only a matter of time now.

“Firion.” She croaks out, confusion causing a frown in those bright orange eyes as she sees the streaks of tears on his cheeks illuminated by the gentle glow of her horns.

She reaches for them, as though touching them might help her understand what could have caused them, but she hesitates before she can brush his skin. The need to shield herself from him has been so strong, such a constant, that she doesn’t know what to do without it. So she pulls back so she can look in his eyes, aware each moment that any cruelty from him will shatter the thin wall keeping her from crumbling and yet expecting it all the same.

The memories are coming faster, with greater weight, and her eyes widen slightly in her alarm. Because she knows what’s coming - knows that there will be tears and it will be ugly and this is a weak side of her she never would have imagined letting him see.

So for now she can hold herself together until she knows which Firion it is lying with her. The signs are all there, of course, but she’s blind to them and questioning their last interaction and what he had said to her. Thinking it must be easy to make promises to someone so unwilling to believe them. There had been no danger, no chance at reciprocation.

She wants to ask if he had meant them, to give him a chance to take it all back. Maybe he is crying because he hadn’t gotten the chance to kill her before she took care of it herself (though this thought feels unrealistic just as soon as she thinks it). Mazikeen wants to find out immediately if she needs to try to run from him again before she falls apart. Even though just shifting her body so her legs are beneath her drains more of her energy and she isn’t sure she could move if she wanted to. But he could. He can take this opportunity to leave her and then she wouldn't have the face the fact that she hopes he stays and she doesn't have it in her to pretend otherwise right now.

The weight of it all, of everything she’s done, presses closer and closer and the scrap of her resolve keeping her together continues to fray. There is no physical pain but the heartbreak and the guilt after so much emptiness incapacitates her.

And all she can manage is two quiet words. “You came.”

It would have been very real for me, Maze.

These words echo through her mind when Firion closes the gap between them, a tender touch to her cheek. The same action that had spurred her fury before, the same touch that had inspired her to tear him to shreds rather than let him know it had meant something to her, and that it had hurt so deeply to believe he had just been doing it to get under her skin (and how it had worked).

Now she leans into it just slightly as a shaky breath that might be a sob escapes her at the gentleness he uses. She cannot even bring herself to be annoyed - because she knows how close she is to breaking right here and she knows that gentle is all she can handle and even then it is so close to being too much.

And she tries not to think of someone else, of the other muzzle she’s leaned into hundreds of times, because those thoughts cause the fractures to spread faster.

Of course he says, as though they haven’t spent their entire lives pushing each other away.

A small, sad smile shines there amongst her tears and she shakes her head at his wishes and replies quietly with a truth that they both know by now. “I wouldn’t have let you.” Not when she had been hollowed out and not before when there had been dense walls built around her to shield her from his indifference.

Her instinct is to hold herself together and comfort him, to ignore her own tears and try to ease away his. She’s never once learned how to ask for comfort herself but she could give it to others so freely - it was one of the few things she carries from her parents. To bury her own pain deep enough that it couldn’t be touched while encouraging someone else to work through their own. Even when Gale had taken her eyes and heart and left her on the shore of the lake, she had responded to Sabal’s sadness - wanting to ease the suffering of her friend and only failing because she lay there incapacitated by pain.

And even for Firion, who inspires such a confusing mixture of emotions in her, this instinct struggles against the weight of her own sorrow enough that she reaches out to him again and does not hesitate this time, mirroring the gentle touch he had placed on her cheek.

She opens her mouth to say something more to him but that is when her hold on everything snaps and another sob comes out instead, a rush of air against his golden skin. Her orange eyes close against the onslaught and she twists her face away as much as she can as if that will hide the shuddering that courses through her body as Mazikeen fully and completely comes to face with everything she’s done and everything that was done to her. This isn’t just a taste of grief and disgust. It’s the entire tidal wave and she drowns in it as she cries, lying there next to Firion, who is the very last of anyone in the entire world she thought she would’ve let see her tears or see her without the protective force of her fire.

And she knows it should bother her now but there isn’t even enough strength in her for that, nor to voice how badly she wants this to be real and how afraid she is that it isn’t.

Once the tears start, they won’t stop. They take over and she loses track of time, loses track of where she is, but the memories continue their pummeling of her heart. The guilt is too much and she understands why the emptiness had felt like a relief. Everything feels out of control now, every emotion is more vibrant than it had been before because of the contrast to what she had been for the last year and a half. Maybe this means that happiness will be brighter too but for now, she just continues to drown. The anger she can usually count on to rescue her from these depths does not rise up. As though it’s been utterly spent.

Soon, soon she’ll think about what needs to be done. Soon she’ll burn again.

For now, it is just her and Firion here on the coast. And even though the comfort is coming from such an unlikely source, it is exactly what she needs. She slowly uncurls from how she had twisted away, easing into him even though for a while his presence makes it worse. Not (only) because of their history - just because anyone seeing her like this is always frightening.

Like this as if this has happened before. But even the small handful of times Mazikeen's emotions have gotten away from her before pale in comparison to this.

Every moment that passes she becomes more aware of how she doesn’t deserve this from Firion - not the way he drapes his head over her or the soft noises that he makes like he’s trying to soothe her. Not the way his voice is rough like her pain hurts him too. And certainly not how he stays, he gives it to her anyway, and when the sobs finally begin to fade she leans into him and the warmth he provides and even moves a little so it is a little more comfortable for them both to lay on the rocky ground together.

Her voice is strangled when it comes again, raw and absolutely wrecked from her sobs. “I’m sorry.” It’s the first of many apologies that she owes and one that she’s owed him for a long time. “I’m glad you’re here Firion… but I’m so sorry.” There’s another shaky breath and for a moment she considers shifting away to give them both space... only the thought fades away almost as soon as it comes. Because she doesn't want to risk them moving just yet and have it snap them back to how they had been before. There is a fear that is both new and old seeping in to join all the others: she does not want to lose him.

Mazikeen's been taught that such thoughts are selfish and she admonishes herself but still doesn't try for any space.

Even when she opens her eyes again, Mazikeen doesn’t ask about the rubble illuminated by his beautiful golden light. She doesn’t speak any of the questions beginning to seep through her sorrow or give more attention to her insecurities and fears, she just inhales another shaky breath and feels herself relax a little more into every point where they touch.

As her sobs fade and she settles into this renewed life, full of the emotions she’s been without, Mazikeen’s heart aches as she realizes the way this corner of the world has been altered for comfort. The air should be cold but Firion’s body next to her is keeping away the chill, and he shifts his weight so they are pressed side-by-side, and even the ground beneath them softens. She cannot remember the last time she’s seen magic used for something so kind. Each breath is a little less shaky than the last, and she continues to relax by degrees, the tension in her body easing more and more. It returns just for a moment when his lips brush against her skin, that particular comforting action somehow unexpected and it brings with it a chaotic storm of those too-vivid emotions.

There is surprise that he wants to touch her at all, happiness, confusion over why it feels different than she remembers (not yet realizing how she is no longer a patchwork of scar tissue), and then darker things churning with them that almost inspire her to flinch away.

But she leans further into Firion instead because the repulsion and the guilt and whatever else is in the mess are not inspired by him. And even though she fears this is the first, and last, nice moment they share together - the last time he’ll want to touch her - she sinks further into how nice it feels and tries not to think about when it will end.

His response to her apologies brings a small smile to the corner of Mazikeen’s mouth where her head rests on the magically softened ground. He’s wrong, of course - she owes him so many of them. And maybe he does owe her some as well but they are fewer than he seems to think. As she watches Firion’s shadows climb over them, to distract herself from how her heart begins to race again at the sight of them (not the same darkness, not the same purpose, not even the same sensation) she replies back quietly with a small trace of humour. “How about this - I won’t apologize for the past if you don’t either.” She tells him, and even though there was a lightness to the words she needs to close her eyes because her guilt is making the tears swim again. This is a promise she won’t be able to keep. She’s going to want to say those words so often. To him, to his brother and mom, to so many.

Firion’s question does not require any thought to answer. “I really am.” If it were a lie she thinks it would be carried on a stronger voice but it is soft like the sound of the nearby waves. An acceptance of this truth - no matter whether it will cause her pain in the future. Right now, she can repay Firion for being here by at least being honest with him.

And while she wishes he knew that without asking, after all the kindness he has and is showing her, she feels a similar doubt rise up in her own mind. So because all of her defences are decimated and she cannot find a reason not to, Mazikeen follows her truth with a whispered question of her own “Do you still think there's plenty to stay for?” Memories of their last conversation have a different clarity to them without the smoke and flames obscuring her reactions. She doesn’t know if it is selfish to want him to stay, to still think she is real and worth something even as low as she feels right now. Not yet even returned to the fighter he's known.

She just knows she’s lived without hope for so long, had it torn right out of her, but she feels it spark inside of her chest again here with Firion.