Mazikeen had hoped he might stay for a little while longer.
She’s focusing on trying to tell herself that this is for the best when he speaks, and then she barely has time to register the words before he closes the gap between them and presses a kiss to her cheek. Her mind empties of thoughts.
Mazikeen leans just slightly into the touch, moving her head when it ends to cause the contact to linger just a little longer. The smallest of moments, not even a heartbeat long. It’s all she’ll allow herself to do - because she wants more. Wants to chase after him into the foliage and tell him she’s not ready to leave yet. She’s not ready for that to be their last goodbye before she makes good on her promise.
She might have, if she wasn’t so easily convinced these thoughts were selfish. She had told herself she’d let him set the stage for this farewell and he had - so she needed to honour that.
Mazikeen feels the ghost of that kiss the same way she had felt her muzzle twitch with the memory of his touch the last time she had visited this island. “I’m glad too.” She replies too late, when she’s standing on her own on the beach. Even though she’s not entirely sure if it’s true or not.
Sadness threatens to take over and drown her but she pulls at her anger instead. It’s not hard to do - she’s furious at herself, at the curse, at the eclipse, at her quest, and at Gale. There’s plenty of rage to go around so she lets it spread like a wildfire, eating away the tears and her thoughts. Burning up her hopes of what this visit could have been and turning her feelings to ash.
Anger feels so close to strength and it is easy now to call on the shadow wings. To bid them to take her across the sea and away from the place she most wants to be.
