"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
He sees a glimpse of his friend in this: maybe she should have just let me die. It turns his stomach still, but it is not as cruel as it could have been. Not when he had been expecting her to say something like, maybe she never should have given birth to you or maybe she should have succumbed to the darkness herself. But no, she takes the violence on herself again, just as she always has. And perhaps she doesn’t do it on purpose, but she sacrifices herself for them even in the hypothetical.
This is all he needs to reinforce his belief that she is in there somewhere still, fighting whatever wicked thing has sunk its teeth into her. He does not retreat any further, instead setting his jaw and shackling her with a pointed, glacial stare.
Neither of them backs down, though he had not expected that she would. Because she is still this dark thing that he only hardly recognizes (although he does not recognize her at all now, as she stands before him as some great-clawed thing).
He searches the face and tilts his head, just barely, in question. “And what are your motives now?” he asks, still holding his ground. He will fight for her, he decides, even if she is unwilling to fight for herself. He had promised her that he would never leave her. He owes her his life twice over and if that means laying down his own life, then so be it.
He draws in a ragged breath, his heart beating loud in his ears.
Selaphiel continues to hold his ground and she is not even rewarded with a flinch this time. A few more glowing markings etch themselves in her bristling fur though she is running out of skin for them to take up. Where there might have once been respect for his boldness there is only annoyance now.
Walking away from him is not an option for her, not while he is still standing or there is still blood pumping through his veins. So she must make him run from her, she must make him understand that his friend no longer exists so he will stop annoying her with his presence.
She does not have the same affinity for cruelty as Gale does, it does not come so naturally to her to think of the right pressure points, and Mazikeen is even distracted by trying to think of the best pressure point by Selaphiel’s question.
The answer comes easily.
“Whatever Gale wants them to be.” And though she means for this statement to be offhanded, uncaring, a bitterness rises up to choke her with the words. She wasn’t even her own creature anymore. She served someone else, part of her wanted to serve him. But she was a sword left rusting to the side, waiting for a battle she wasn’t sure was ever going to come.
It surprises him enough to tear a surprised laugh out of his chest. Though it is a dark and mirthless sound. And for a long moment after he has gone quiet, he just looks at her. He studies the pattern of cracks that open across the beast’s skin and shakes his head.
He is young still, though not as young as he once was. The pale blue eyes darken when he meets the beast’s eye again. Gone is his trepidation, his hesitation, replaced instead by a fierceness he has never known before.
It is conviction, though he does not know how to label it as such.
He takes a single step toward her but does not allow himself to get close enough to touch. If she should choose to attack him, so be it. He can think of no better way to meet his end than by dying to convince her that she is not what she thinks she is.
“You think that’s power?” he asks, gaze narrowed as he searches her face. “You think doing whatever he tells you to do is strength?”
He remembers so fiercely their walk in the sun, when she had asked him if he could tell her when the time was right to kill the thing before it killed her. He draws in a long breath and does not shift his gaze from hers when he says, “I told you that I wouldn’t be able to tell you when it was time for you to kill him but I was wrong. The time is now, Mazikeen, before he can do any more damage.”
His laugh startles her - it's a sound she can't remember ever hearing from him before - and the ears of this bear-form flatten against her skull in aggravation. “Doing whatever he tells me to do is why you and your family are still here.” Mazikeen didn't care for the strength with which Selaphiel had when he spoke to her now, so she resolves to try to throw him off balance once again. “I paid for your presence with my obedience, Selaphiel. There isn’t anything I didn't let him do to me in exchange for that.”
The markings on her skin are as much inspired by him as they are her past actions. It is insufferable to her now to think of how much she had cared, how much she had lowered herself just to protect others. But if she can wound Selaphiel with this knowledge, letting him imagine all the things Gale must have done to her so he wouldn’t do them to the angels, then her own suffering is worth it.
His warning about it being time to kill Gale comes too late and Mazikeen snorts but does not break his gaze. “I don’t want to kill him anymore.” She tells Selaphiel, though this isn’t strictly true. The desire to kill Gale comes and goes like the tide, depending on the day and what they’ve been doing. Some days it is easier to forget than others, though the moments where she does not wish for the ability to bypass the king’s healing are becoming fewer and farther between as her frustration with him grows.
But it is easier to confess things to Selaphiel that do not matter to her anymore so none of this makes its way through her snapping jaws as she instead bites out. “I don’t want to stop him from doing more damage.” And this is actually the truth. She wanted more, she wanted something to fill up the empty days and empty places inside of her. And she didn’t care whether it was her own flesh or that of someone else’s on the line.
Her words are weapons and they elicit exactly the reaction she hopes they might.
His eyes drift closed without his willing them to do so. He draws in a staggered breath while his head swims. He does not have to imagine the things Gale has done to her, he can feel it in the tightness in his chest and the burning in his eyes. He can feel it in the death he’d tried and failed to prevent because it lives inside him, too.
She is still in there, Maze, he knows that now but the thought does not offer him any comfort now. Because it had been Maze who’d suffered for them. To keep them. To protect them. Even though she stands before him now, trying to convince him that the whole lot of them are worthless.
He forces his eyes open again and steadily meets her gaze when she says that she no longer wants to kill Gale. He shakes his head but does not open his mouth to argue. He imagines the pair of them setting fire to Hyaline, reducing it to ashes. Mazikeen and Gale. But there is no fear in him when he thinks it. He will burn with it.
“Burn it down then,” he says, as if hoping to call her bluff. He lifts his head, looking down at the fearsome creature she has made herself into. “Burn it down yourself, Mazikeen.” As if there is honor in this. “You are not a pawn.”
And, because he knows that she will not relent until she succeeds in driving him away, he turns to walk away.
Something very close to satisfaction curls through her when Selaphiel closes his eyes after her words. The staggered breath is sweet and the shadows inside her stir in response. She wonders if his imagination can hold up to the truth of it - her deaths, but the times when she survived too. Mazikeen had begun bargaining away pieces of herself from the very first time she ever spoke to the Curse.
His next words surprise her, those red-orange eyes widening a little before narrowing in suspicion. She doubts he means that. It’s difficult for her to imagine anyone would suggest anything that could bring them harm. She’s a selfish creature now.
He turns away and she shifts into a dragon as soon as he does. Twice the size she is as a horse, with a powerful stroke of her wings she is up in the air. Her eyes blaze as she stares down at Selaphiel, her words a sneer as she continues to rise. “Thanks for your blessing.” Without so much as a roar in warning, fire pours out of her mouth in a short stream, catching on the grass in a line as she flies away. The lush landscape will not catch and spread very far, she knows. Today is not the day she burns Hyaline down. But the squeals of rodents and a few pheasants that fly upwards with fire caught on their feathers is enough of a taste of what will come that she is satisfied as she flies off into the mountains.
