"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 doesn’t know how to breathe anymore. Doesn’t know how to think around the ragged hole in his chest where he knows his love for his mother lives. When he sleeps, he dreams of her face. Of her soft smile and the gentle, sure way that she would pull him in for a hug. He thinks of her laughter and what a quiet sound it had been—how much it had rung through his very core, the knowledge she did not laugh enough.
He avoids his father. Cannot bear to look upon the grief-stricken face of Atrox. The man who stands hollow on the edge of the lake, staring out into the horizon but seeing nothing. The man who shows no emotion at all except for the rare glimpses of rage. The fury he takes out on the prey roaming the hills.
But he doesn’t avoid Mazikeen.
He comes to her as a swirl of shadow and his mother’s stardust, a tornado that blurs around the corner before taking shape, the remnants of dust and constellations hanging across his shoulders. His face is thinner than it was before, but only subtly—his magic giving him the sustenance he needs to survive even though his appetite has waned. His golden eyes search for her and he feels something clench in his chest, something loosen. It is an alien feeling to know that someone who had once been the crux of so much tension in his life was now the source of comfort, but he holds it close, still so afraid it isn’t real.
“Maze,” her name is roughened on the edges, his voice raw from both disuse and overuse in equal measure. Large bouts of silence followed by anguished cries into oncoming waves. The feeling of being so terribly useless. He searches her face for a moment but no words come and so he just hangs his head.
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)
Grief has settled over Hyaline like a fog, thick enough Mazikeen thinks she can sometimes smell it on the wind. Her heart aches for the loss of Ryatah, worse now after trying so hard to keep the angels safe, but though her pain is genuine, she is far more worried about the family left behind. Selaphiel who was already so prone to sadness, Atrox and his fury. The prey of Hyaline had seen a few seasons of respite after the absence of Gale, and Mazikeen cannot bring herself to pity the terror they face now.
And Firion. She doesn’t miss the way he has not been eating and she feels that weighty helplessness of knowing she can only be a comforting presence. She cannot fix this for him, there is no fix to be had at all. Even revenge wouldn't change anything.
She has her suspicions on who is responsible but Mazikeen has not yet found Gale to find out for sure. Her intentions of never seeing him again are easily overridden by the protectiveness she feels for the family that had so thoroughly rooted themselves into her heart.
When Firion appears before her, wherever her thoughts had been drifting they snap back into focus on him. She takes in the subtle changes of his face - maybe only noticeable because she’s been seeing so much of it lately - and the roughness of his voice. And then she does not hesitate to close the distance between them, moving with a surety she only mostly feels. They are still learning one another and Mazikeen constantly worries she’ll do something wrong that will cause them to crumble apart.
Just as he hadn’t told her things would be okay when he had found her by the sea, and moments since when the nightmare of the last few years catches up to her, those words don’t leave her mouth. Mazikeen moves forward, a soft brush of her muzzle first to encourage his head up over her shoulder where he can rest it. Her horns disappear, leaving no sharp edges as she fits herself against him.
If he tries to move away, if this contact is too much today, she’d step aside without hesitation. But if he’ll let her, she’ll press close and maybe there will be some small comfort to be found there where gold and white meet. She hopes so. Just as she hopes that though words fail her, he will know that she is here for him, whatever he needs, as her mouth makes slow, gentle movements across his gold and black skin.
Firion knows enough to know that he is not the only one saddled with this grief. He knows that there are others—his half brother, the rest of his siblings, his father, oh god, his father—but as is the case with such grief, he struggles to look outside of himself. He only sees that which applies to him. He only sees the way that it eats at him. The way that his mind twists around the rage and the pain, twisting it further and further until the knife settles so surely into his chest that he’s not sure he will ever be able to extract it.
This is his now, he thinks, as he aches with each new breath.
His pain to carry and nurse, lest he ever forget the nearly shy smile of his mother.
Mazikeen cannot cure it, he knows, but she is a comfort all the same. She folds into his side and he makes a low noise in the base of his throat, something like a groan or a sob caught halfway. For a second, he just lets her fit himself there and he hangs his head heavy on her back, his golden eyes closing as a tear escapes to run down his cheek. He feels the soft movements of her mouth against him and it breaks him.
That last piece of strength—any chance he had at pretending that he could survive this—shatters and he drags her to him, crushing her against him. His eyes screw shut and he feels the tear rack through his chest as he buries his face against her, gritting his teeth against the sound of his mourning. How could he pretend his magic was for anything—for any good, any purpose—if he hadn’t been able to protect his mother? If he couldn’t protect those closest to him, what was the point of everything he had suffered?
There is no respite for his aching, but there is a balm in suffering through it with Mazikeen pressed to him. To not being alone in the forest, destroying the trees nearest to him—to hunting as his father did.
When minutes have passed—hours, perhaps, but he wasn’t counting—and the sobs begin to subside, he releases his hold on her, just barely. His breath becomes deeper and steadier, his body weak.
“I couldn’t save her,” he finally manages, his voice mangled on the words.
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)
She is not close with her parents but they are alive as far as she knows. Mazikeen can sympathize with Firion’s grief but she does not know what it is to lose a parent.
There have been other losses but she is still burying those as deeply as she can, a habit that she cannot seem to break. Maybe even one she is scared to.
For a moment, Mazikeen thinks that almost-groan is a protest at her closeness. She is only just forming the thought to move away but then he pulls her close with a sure force and she forgets all thoughts of any space. She holds Firion as fiercely as she can through every shudder and sob, her own tears drawn out by his pain and they leak quietly from her closed eyes. Every sound through his gritted teeth slices at her and makes her want to alter worlds just to fix this for him, to find a way to undo death itself. She’d seen Gale do it with their daughter, it had to be possible.
Gentle, wordless noises rise from the back of her throat as she holds him because that’s all she can do for now. She does not even consider shifting into something that can more thoroughly embrace him. She doesn’t want to be anything but herself with him - so she only has her body and the strength he had helped her rediscover. Such small gifts to offer and yet of course she will give whatever she can.
Mazikeen does not pay attention to the passage of time, it is of small importance as they cling together. He eases his hold on her a little and she only shifts a little. Just enough space that the rise and fall of her breaths only brushes against his skin instead of being fused with it.
Her heart breaks again at his mangled words and Mazikeen briefly wonders how she ever could have thought Firion incapable of emotion or attachment. It had been such a very finely crafted mask, what he had shown her when they were younger.
If there are proper words to say in this moment, she doesn’t know what they are. So she only offers quiet words as she buries her muzzle in his mane and presses a soft kiss against his skin as if she could send her resolute belief in this truth through that touch. “It’s not your fault.”
If anyone could have saved Ryatah, she knows with certainty it would’ve been him.
It is a little strange how her faith in Firion has solidified inside of her heart. Even if she is unsure of some things, other parts of them have become her bedrock. She does not think it is simply because he had been the first face she saw in this life - though she is glad that he was. Instead, it feels like something that could have been there all along if either of them had given it a chance to grow.
This thing between them is not what it was meant to be—not what she deserved. It hadn’t started with shy flirtations or the cautious time of getting to know one another. It hadn’t been friendship that had bloomed into something more. It wasn’t even the racing heat of passion that swept them together.
Instead it was something that had blossomed in the most unlikely of places. Adversity serving as the fertile soil for more. They had seen one another—truly seen one another—and driven each other away. Tangled together and broke apart. Went for the throat before they fled. It was ugly and angry and yet.
And yet.
Here they stood. Comforting one another through their life’s largest tragedies. Holding one another up when it would be so much easier to fall. He isn’t certain when he stopped seeing her as a threat and started seeing her as a companion, as something more, but he clings to it in this hour of need. He focuses on the sound of her breathing and her soft touches—that feel of her steady against him.
“Isn’t it though?” his words are thick but without venom, even toward himself. Instead, he is just tired. Exhausted from his mourning. Desperate for anything but what he is feeling now. He closes his eyes again and focuses on his thrumming pulse, sending some of his magic to spread throughout him and help slow it further—to dull the pain. It is a cheap use of his power, but he doesn’t care.
He would do anything to not feeling the way he is feeling.
Anything to distract himself.
“How have you been?” he manages, pulling back so that he can study her face, feeling that tentative warmth between them—as solid as the Taiga treeline. “I need to think about something else.”
This, a confession, and one of the many truths he now shared only with her.
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)
She shakes her head instantly at his question, even though it is without venom. Even if it is just filled with exhaustion, she doesn’t want him thinking that for a second that what happened was his fault.
If they really wanted to blame someone, if her suspicions about who it had been are right - the fault was more Mazikeen’s than it would ever be Firion’s.
It would be so easy to sink into that guilt, to let it wash over her and drown her, but before it can she holds onto the lifeline that is the soft, golden warmth she can feel in her heart. Nestled next to her faith in Firion is something else that grows with affection for him, for the piece she went so long without seeing that wants to save and protect. This piece that cares so deeply it makes him want to change things he can’t. Another side of whatever had inspired him to soften the side of a mountain or pull a blanket of shadows over her so she would be more comfortable.
It's something they have in common and it is enough to let her hopes run wild that maybe they stand a chance. That the ease with which she can stand here with him, even when both exposed and broken, is not fleeting.
He pulls back and when their tear-bright gazes meet she can feel that warmth spike and spread. But this can’t possibly be the time to speak of it, even though he says he wants to think about something else. So she keeps it tucked tight inside her along with the wish that there will be plenty of other, better, opportunities in the future.
Mazikeen reaches out to touch his golden cheek when she finally answers his question, just because it still thrills her that she can. And because she appreciates that he cares enough to ask, even if it is only in part for a distraction. “I’ve been okay.” It’s such a small, simple word to sum up the complicated twist of emotions inside of her but it is the closest thing to the truth she can manage without dragging them both back down.
Especially if they are trying to change the subject.
“I’m worried about Malik. I don’t… I don’t know if I can undo the lessons he learned... when I was... well. You know.” Mazikeen frowns, turning her head away for a moment. Not intentionally to hide her troubled expression but like she can somehow read the answer to her problem in the lines of the mountains and trees. It had been easier to be a mom when she wasn't herself but trying to unravel the damage she and Gale had caused felt like a full-time job.
Which reminds her of her other full-time job, the one she often neglects and though it is so insanely trivial compared to everything else she finds herself saying the thought that appears anyway. “And I guess I need to figure out something to do with Silver Cove. It’s been sitting empty for too long.” There's a small apologetic smile in her orange gaze when she looks back to Firion, because she knows how silly of a concern that sounds considering everything else. Surely she can find a better way to distract him.
It feels almost normal—standing here like this, discussing family, her home, their lives. It feels like the kind of thing they might have done had the circumstances been more different. Had they not spent so many years at each other’s throats. He wonders what that life would have been like. What it would have been to know her as a friend, to have told her that she could run away with him. What then?
It’s a distraction, enough so that he even gives her a tight smile, the expression not warm but at least not as anguished as it had been. He latches onto it greedily—pushing away his sorrow, his mourning.
“I think you will be surprised by how quickly children recover,” he says, studying her as she looks away. Trying to memorize the strong set of her jaw and the unblemished swath of her skin. Had she always been so beautiful? Had he been so determined to hate her that he had never noticed? He notices now, his golden eyes bright as he takes in all of her, healed and beautiful and ferocious, even in her intense thought.
Maybe especially in it.
When she looks back, he doesn’t break the eye contact. “You can only give him who you truly are now.” He reaches forward to touch her cheek briefly. “It will be enough.” It had been, for him, he knows. She had anchored him and brought him back. Had kept him from flying directly into the sun.
She had been enough.
(Was he? Enough for her now?)
“Silver Cove,” he muses, thoughts still tangled but willing himself to move forward in the conversation that she gallantly attempts to distract him with. “I’m not certain that I’ve ever seen it.” He smiles again, ignoring the twinge in his chest as everything else rises up within him. Beating it back, he turns his gaze toward the horizon, in the direction that he thinks the land to be. “Do you have any ideas for it?”
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)
Had she recovered quickly when she was a foal? She’s pretty sure she hadn’t, the grudge she had held towards Firion lasted for a long time and the echoes of her first death as a yearling had haunted her for years. But maybe that is just a flaw inside of her and it is different for everyone else.
Firion's assurance that giving who she truly is now would be enough, and the tender touch to her cheek as he says it, sends a wave of emotion through her so strong she needs to close her eyes for a moment to keep it under control.
It is such an old fear, one that does not have the same bite as it once did but which still exists inside her. That she wasn't enough - not in the long term. It did not feel like things in her life were built to endure and it means so much to her that Firion continues to stay, that he might possibly think that she was enough.
This touch is brief, but she leans into it slightly and nods - wanting to believe him and the hope his words inspire so much she does not even think of arguing.
Somehow, even though it had been such a random thought to bring up, speaking of Silver Cove starts out being the easier topic to speak about.
“We could visit it sometime. It’s beautiful at night.” She is momentarily distracted by imagining Firion standing amongst the silvered surf, resplendent in the moonlight.
This can’t possibly be the time to let herself get lost down that trail of thoughts so while there is a flash of a private grin, and a faint tickle of heat on her cheeks, she remains fixed in the present and answers the question. “But no, no ideas.” None that were plausible anymore, and as is a habit of hers now she shares her thoughts with Firion instead of keeping them locked inside. “I did a very good job at chasing most of those I would trust with it away to the point where I don’t know where to find them.”
Even though she had been the one to stay it, she recognizes the dark trap of those thoughts and steers herself away by focusing on Firion. “And I’m selfish enough not to even want to consider asking you. Because even though I trust you -” The sincerity behind those last three words is a miracle for so many reasons, and in them there is both a weight that grounds her and a sweetness that makes her feel like floating. But she fumbles to find the words to explain the rest of her thoughts without making herself a burden.
She knows she has a habit of phrasing her thoughts in ‘I want’ sentences and she’s learned that this is a selfish thing to do. Both by being told that and knowing when she had her emotions scattered, what she wanted was the only thing she cared about. And if it had been a default while she had been like that, it just seemed to make sense that she should strive to be better now.
It is really only a tiny pause before she continues, the corner of her mouth tugging cautiously into a smile that matches her soft tone. “I like having you close.” And even a neighbouring land, separated by just the mountains, simply would not be close enough.
If he notes the catch in her breath or the heat in her cheeks at the thought of him, he doesn’t show it. He is not a noble man by any measure, but there are several lines in the sand that he has drawn for himself—the value of privacy being one of them. Regardless of the depth and scope of his newly found magic, he could never imagine himself overstepping them, tempting as it may be. He had no desire to crack open Mazikeen’s mind and take her thoughts for himself. It was far more alluring to guess at what lay beneath.
So he just smiles, ignoring the churning in his gut and the sadness that ate away at him. Preferring to study the lines of her face and allow himself to be distracted by her problems rooted in the here and now. Problems that may actually have solutions. That he may actually be able to help solve.
“I would love to visit it,” he says and is surprised by the earnest note in his voice. He has never been one who was particularly taken with travel, but he finds that he means what he says. He would gladly travel anywhere with her—be anywhere that she needed, be anything that she needed him to be.
Whether it was antagonist or stalwart friend.
He swallows, hard, that uncertainty about where they stand rising up in a wave within him. It wasn’t a topic that they ever truly breached. Raw emotions had been easier to look at in the moonlight and more vulnerable to stomach in the brightness of day. He had never really told her how he felt.
How he feels.
How she makes him feel.
After all of this time and all that lay between them it was just…difficult.
And it was difficult now.
But it was made less difficult by the knowledge that at the very least, they were building a friendship. That he could provide her support in this way, even if she never wanted anything more with him. His lip curves up in the corner, “I like being close, Maze.” Her nickname was a wonder to say.
“More than I should, probably.”
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)
11-09-2021, 04:46 PM (This post was last modified: 11-09-2021, 04:46 PM by Mazikeen.)
Mazikeen
There is a thrill she can feel in her heart at the combination of that upward curve of his lips, the sound of her name in his voice, and the words that proceed it. It’s the beginning of a confirmation that what she was feeling wasn’t one-sided. She’s not quite sure what to do with the addition, though - that he likes being close more than he should. What did that mean?
The easiest thing to do is not think about it - and Mazikeen can recognize the signs in her own mind that she’s about to overthink instead so she remarks on something else first. “I love it when you call me Maze.” She’s always liked it, which was why it had made her so mad. Back before when it had been a tease at a connection she had been sure he did not want.
And now did he?
They had talked about being a we but while that meant one thing to her she actually wasn’t sure what it had meant to him, or if it had just been a word and all he wanted from her was friendship.
Which would be just fine. Maybe it was too much to hope that they could be anything more after everything.
A unique form of determination settles on her. At least she can give him the option, she can try to let him know where she stands. She was not going to let this be a fear she avoids dealing with.
Her eyes remain focused on Firion and it is a bizarre combination of bravery and ease that loosens her tongue.
“And as far as I’m concerned, you can like being close as much as you want.” Her smile is just as soft as her tone and just as cautious as her movements when she reaches out again so her lips can brush against his cheek. There is so much uncertainty choking her mind (this isn't the time, you're reading too much into everything, you're too broken to be wanted) but she pushes forward anyway, ignoring the darker thoughts and her nerves.
Even her breath against his golden skin is gentle as she tries to find the balance between being unobtrusive and upfront. “And be as close as you want, too.”
It’s all a question, not a demand, as she pulls back to look at him with that same cautious look in her eyes. Because even though she has her hopes about what this is, she's not sure what to expect. There is no chance at attempting to build defences to prepare herself for a rejection - Firion had been there when she had been laid bare, had held her and comforted her through some of her lowest points. Any walls that she might attempt to put up would have him on the inside anyway. It is too late for her to pretend otherwise, at least with herself.
