If she could, Mazikeen would tell Selaphiel that she does not ask more of him not because he is a child - but because she is incapable of asking for more from anyone. She’d make the same request even if he were older, surely. For someone who is so willing to put herself in harms way to protect anyone around her, she’d never expect or ask for the same in return.
Mazikeen offers her help freely and at the same time is so sure she’s destined to fight whatever battles she must on her own.
So she isn’t thrilled about the idea that Selaphiel feels like he needs to be useful to her to stick around - that hadn’t been the point of this rule change. She just wanted the residents of Hyaline to live their lives, maybe chip in with patrols so she could nap every now and then whenever she pushed herself to her absolute limits just to avoid her dreams - both the good and the bad, because they are both torture.
But what he offers is interesting, she isn’t going to lie. Cryptic as hell, sure, but interesting.
And all she can think is how desperately she wants to avoid feeling the pain that is still echoing around in her heart in the aftermath of Breach’s death.
She’s nodding before she even starts replying. “That’s… that’d be very helpful, Selaphiel. Really. I’d like that a lot.” Mazikeen doesn’t bother to try to pretend away how earnest she sounds. “I’ve had enough of death, I think. With a heads up, maybe we could do something like how I was saved... right?” She easily defers to him in this idea so he can correct her if she was misunderstanding.
She says she's had enough of death, as if she hasn’t promised someone to kill them in the future. As if death isn’t going to haunt her through a long, long life.
@[Selaphiel]