Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you
The lake is to their left, and the whole valley slopes gently toward it, giving him easy footing as he makes his way toward the shore. The ground here feels different than in Ischia; there is no black sand beneath the summer grasses, and Gale suspects that this grass will always be green, and never change mid-mouthful to tangerine or lavender.
The water is cool, though Gale finds. Once the summer sun has been at it for a while, the shallows will probably be comfortable enough to swim. The water tastes clear when he bends down to taste it, sort of like rocks but not even a bit salty, and he hums happily between sips.
He takes a few more sips than he really needs, then pauses to brush away a bit of dried blood along his leg. Probably scraped in the landing, he thinks idly, and doesn’t notice that the small scratch has healed entirely, far faster than his regeneration usually works. He’s avoiding looking back at Mazikeen for as long as possible.
He’ll start talking when he does. He'll have to tell her the truth when he does.
I’ve missed you too, she says, and Gale finally looks up to meet her gaze. He had hoped she would miss him, but it had only ever been in a small part of himself, because mostly he had wanted her to be entirely happy. In the end, it had been difficult to be hopeful for anything in the darkness, and Gale cannot help but feel that Fate has intervened to bring light back to more than just his eyes.
“Now you don’t have to.” He says, the words feeling right as soon as he says them. He’d rather stay in Islandres, but there are some things worth compromising for. Having already mangled most of his emotional confessions to the orange-eyed mare, Gale is not especially eager to continue the trend.
There is something else he needs to say as well, something he needs to say first, so she knows what is coming. He’d spared her from the details before, but now he forces himself to be entirely honest, to elaborate on what he knows about the Curse, complete with the story of his father’s descent into madness, his sister’s bargain with the Dark God, his mother’s deal with dragons, and the wildfire that had killed both Lepis and Wolfbane.
It’s not a comfortable story to tell, especially not when it lays out the spiraling path of lying, thieving, attacking, and eventually killing that awaits him. He’ll be tolerable for a while, and he’ll lie to carry the facade longer still. But eventually, something will break, some lie he told will come unraveled, some pair of eyes will see what they should not, and he’ll be revealed. Then he’ll run, and the sooner he’s caught the sooner he’ll stop tearing apart everything that displeases him.
He tells her that someday he will lie to her, that he won’t be himself anymore, that he’ll be something - or maybe someone? - different. Worse, Cruel, Someone that would hurt even the ones he cared about, would even hurt her.
“I was going to ask the Fairies to take away my healing,” he admits, “But with the Afterlife gone away...It feels so final and I... I don’t think I’m ready to die yet.” There are things he wants to do before he dies, things he’d not really thought about before he’d been forced to confront his impending death.
Gale is thinking of them as he looks at Mazikeen, and he looks away, and reaches for another sip of water and decides to trust his gut instinct to be honest rather than his logic when he admits without looking up:
“I also think I might love you, which does make the thought of dying less appealing, especially if it’s the permanent kind of death.” He nods in emphasis at his own statement, as if this is a normal sort of consideration in this situation, and only then does he finally meet her gaze.
@[Mazikeen]
|
