"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
It’s easy to pretend this is the real him. He’s always surprised by how quickly he can slip the mask on and how quickly it becomes the real him. The terror fades into the background—the hurt and the confusion and the uncertainty. He pushes it into the very back of his mind and lets this become the only him that exists. The young, golden stallion with the feral smile and the wild steak a mile wild in his heart.
Her answer is guarded and there’s part of him that’s not surprised. It is the kind of guarded, evasive answer that he would have, has, given. “Nothing wrong with just being around,” he says flippantly, being careful to not make eye contact as they walk together lest she think him too worried about her well-being or too invested in what her answer would have been. He wanted to continue staying distant.
There is a piece of him that does want to know—that is curious about the answer.
Wants to know why a girl like her wouldn’t have a true home of her own.
(I don’t care, he reminds himself. I don’t care.)
They come to a stop and he admires the place she has found—the lush greenery and the dappled sunlight. It will do, he thinks, and he moves a few steps away to find his own place to graze. His sharp teeth rip at the grass and he realizes just how hungry he had been—how relieving it is to eat again and to feel alive.
There is silence as he fills his belly, as the sun washes over his back. He doesn’t stop again until she looks to him and poses another question. “I just think there’s something more,” he rolls a shoulder, satisfied that the answer skirted the truth enough without diving into the truth of it. “Don’t you think?”
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
It feels like they’re just trading questions and answers without saying anything at all. Silence would be more telling, Maze thinks, even though she hates the quiet. She’s too busy being annoyed to really enjoy the brief moment of peace as they eat, and a soft snort escapes her when he replies to her. The question may be rhetorical, but she replies to it anyway.
“I don’t know.” Maze considers leaving it there, continuing the theme of non-answers. Again she feels the itch to leave. Frustrated at his ambivalence and unwilling to sacrifice her own. She’s not sure why she responded with anything less than an affirmation that she knows what he means, that it had already led her down so many new paths in her young life. There’s always been a hunger in her, she thinks, for more than what she has - even if it’s tied up with guilt that she should have been satisfied all along.
She doesn’t look at him when she asks her next question, orange eyes instead intent on the grass by her cloven hooves. It’s too close to her own turmoil and tastes like weakness to offer up this tiny piece of uncloaked uncertainty. It feels like she’s losing the game.
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
They dance around the root of the matter, and he can’t decide whether he is relieved that she does not press him too hard for answers or frustrated that she doesn’t provide her own. He knows that it’s hypocritical to want to know more of her while he is so invested in hiding himself though, and he is so afraid of her finding out the truth that he decides he is okay with giving up his right to know more.
It leaves them in a weird space in between.
A dance they both seem to acknowledge and yet not look at too closely.
He keeps his eyes trained on something other than the girl next to him, this girl trapped in the body of a doe, tail flicking languidly behind him as though he feels anything but pent up irritation. At her question, his shoulder twitches—a small sign of the turmoil that he feels, the angst that builds beneath the mask.
“I don’t know,” he finally says, rolling his shoulders in pretend ambivalence. “Because it’s too damn sad to think that there’s not.” Closer to the truth but still not quite striking the core at it. How was he supposed to tell her that he had to hope there was a world for him out there where he wasn’t who he is? That the issue wasn’t that he was trying to get away from his parents but instead getting away from himself?
He finally looks over, studying her face, something like honesty showing on his features.
“Haven’t you ever wanted to run until you found something more—something better?”
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
Mazikeen continues looking at the grass when he response to the question (how many I don't knows can they trade) - a twitch of her cheek into a humourless grin when he states that it would just be too sad to think there is not more. Of course she agrees - she's always chased more, more, more hasn't she? She's young still, but there's been a lot of living in those years - though maybe not enough. Maybe she needs more of that too.
The white doe looks up at him when he speaks again with another question and is startled to find him looking back at her. For a flash of a moment, her large doe ears flick backwards and she can feel that stubborn annoyance rush up to scoff. But she does not look away, does not slam closed the walls around herself as she tries to puzzle out just how she’s hearing a feeling she’s had all her life put into words by this odd boy.
Now that they are making eye contact, she finds it harder to look away - her bright orange eyes intent on his golden face. She frowns, but it’s not at him - it’s at the thoughts trying to sort themselves out in her mind. When they become difficult to sort out on her own, she tries speaking them instead.
“I guess so…” She starts with evasiveness but the dishonesty of it has a different taste now, a nastier one. The game, whatever it was, has changed for her. “I don’t think I’ve ever not wanted to do that. It’s such a constant drive, I don’t...” She swallows, still feeling that annoyance so close to the surface. Ready to fight if Firion laughs at her or if he shrugs off this honesty as ridiculousness. But she continues all the same, voicing something she has never put to words before. “I don’t think I’d be able to stay in one place for very long if I tried.”
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
There’s a growing honesty in the look her gives her, something taking root underneath the need for him to forget everything that happened the night before. Her orange eyes are piercing and they slice through him, cutting straight to the core. It leaves him feeling defenseless and agitated and ready to just lay all of his cards on the table. Maybe she would understand, he thinks for a second, before remembering that even he does not fully understand what he’s dealing with—what he’s facing. How could he possibly expect her to?
He doesn’t say anything, letting her words fill the silence between them.
Letting them fall apart on the edges as he struggles to make his way around it.
Finally though he takes a small step forward, an olive branch as best as he can manage, still holding her gaze. “It’s constant for me too,” his voice is quieter as he tries to work his way through the tangles of his thoughts, of his fears, of the things that he still holds away in the darkest corners of himself. “I don’t know if I will ever be able to stop running.” This feels so close to the heart of the truth that he can practically feel the singe marks on his palms, can practically taste the ash on the tip of his tongue.
He shakes his head and swallows, tries to work up a smile and fails.
Instead he musters a simple shrug that feels hollow.
“I guess maybe I should learn to live with it though, right?”
What he doesn’t say is that he’s not sure that he has a choice anymore.
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
Mazikeen feels herself tense for absolutely no reason at all when he closes the gap between them by a single step, but it’s just for a moment. The balance of this meeting keeps shifting beneath her feet. At least it’s not boring, but it makes finding her footing a little rough. She frowns a little more at his words - wondering yet again just what the hell he could possibly be running from - but so soon after the olive branch he offered her, the doe-girl decides to not question him on it.
She can’t find the words to express to him how she hopes he’ll be able to stop running one day.
So she tries something else. “I guess. Maybe we both have to.” She admits with a shrug that mirrors his, not sure what to do with these feelings or this odd little comradery they’ve found. Mazikeen can’t know that while there might be an end to her hazy, undefined feeling of needing to move, needing more, Firion has something very real driving him to keep running.
Her next words come before she even thinks to keep them to herself, spoken casually and simply as she looks briefly away to the foliage surrounding the small meadow they stand-in. “But, at least, if we’re ever running in the same direction…” She trails off - unsure how to put into words what she’s offering. A friendship? To be a companion? Part of her wants to snatch it back, to remove the possibility of rejection, as soon as the words slip out.
Instead of backing away from her sentiment, though, she focuses her gaze back on him and takes a step closer, even though she feels like she's on rocky ground and has no clue where the path out is. “It just… sometimes might be nice to run with someone, for a change. Even if we’re both running away - or to - different things.” She balances the soft hesitation in her voice with a flash of a grin in her orange eyes - which will hopefully come off as encouraging, but she hides behind it too.
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
Her words are kind—kinder than he had come to expect from her—and for a second, he has enough of his wits about him to regret what’s coming. The way that his own anger will rise from his belly, the darkness that he does his best to squash flooding over him. It flashes across his eyes, this regret, but it gets swept away almost as quickly as it had arrived, leaving nothing but the shadows that darken his golden gaze.
“I doubt we’d ever be running in the same direction.” The friendliness that had just been there but a moment before, the second of peace extended, bleeds out from him and he’s left with the cold, hollow feeling he had when he had woken up this morning. That knowledge that he would never be able to have a normal life again. That any chance of having peace had long since been ripped from his hands.
He looks away from her for a moment, swallowing hard.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get to run with someone.” A confession that sounds as bitter as it tastes. He finally looks back, his face hardened just slightly, as though terrified of the vulnerability of even that much truth. “I have to go,” he finally says, all of his charisma and charm having long since drained from him.
In this moment, his fate feels inevitable, unchangeable.
In this moment, he feels as dead as he had the night before.
“I just…” his voice fades off and without another word, he turns and leaves.
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
When he doesn’t smile, doesn’t respond right away with a joke or an agreement, Maze wishes she could suck back in her words or tear them from Firion’s memory so he could not keep that piece of her vulnerability. She had meant it but as she watches something (regret?) come into his eyes followed by a hollow darkness she begins to choke on her own words and she can already feel the anger begin to ruse by the time he speaks.
She doesn’t look away - even when he does - as though she could set him on fire just with her gaze. The rest of his words don’t even register, it’s all white noise in her mind - and then he just leaves.
She wishes she hadn’t wanted to be his friend.
Wishes she had been the one to leave first, back when he was being annoying and stubborn.
Wishes she didn’t feel bothered by his words and the way he had just literally fled from her at the mere mention of friendship. Not even! Just the possibility of company! Her offer had been so small and still it had not even been considered.
Well, that’s the last time she tries to do that.
“Fuck you, Firion!” She shouts after him - maybe too late, but it feels good to embrace the anger. There are tears, maybe, but they sizzle and dry away as her fury takes over. In her rage, she shifts - finally! Not into herself but an osprey and she immediately takes flight. Wanting to forest the forest and the mysterious, bastard of a boy as soon as possible.
