[mature] i cannot wait for you to come home | sickle

[Gale]

Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you The sound of his own voice is disconcerting, but only until he realizes why she’s taken it. She’s mimicking him, showing off an ability, and he smiles. Delightful, and perhaps useful, but certainly not worth killing her over. Mazikeen will be glad, he thinks, and then must remind himself that it does not matter what the Alpha thinks. She is obedient, and that is all that matters. He’d promised to leave Hyaline and their families be in exchange for that obedience, and it would have taken some time to convince her that even though he’d eaten her daughter she still wouldn’t be allowed to break her part of the bargain. And he is done with wasting time. So when Sickle speaks with her own voice, and looks up at him with eyes that match both his own and Mazikeen’s bright orange, Gale smiles again. What can he do? He blinks, and when his eyes reopen, the jungle around them has vanished, and instead they are surrounded by the red canyons of Loess. Another blink, and the image of Taiga’s tall trees surrounds them, and a third releases the visions and leaves them both looking at the unaltered Tephran jungle. “That was a trick with your eyes,” he tells her, because children are dumb and often miss things like the lack of smells or sounds when shown incredible Sights. He does not let this knowledge show in his voice or manner though, because he suspects that Mazikeen’s offspring will have inherited her pride. “But if you would like to see them for real though, I could show you.” He pauses, looking for a moment behind her, and then back with a small frown. “I should probably show your brother too, just to be fair.” He has weighed the possibilities, and knows that even returning with one will be a success. So he takes a gamble, and adds: “Or I could show you quickly, before he even knows you’re gone, and then you can tell him all about it when we get back.” @[Sickle]