A small smile that is both wry and sad appears at Malik’s answer. She hadn’t thought fun would have been a good descriptor of what she had been like - but more fun than what she currently was made sense. It didn’t take much to be better than a mother that was liable to cry at any given moment.
Mazikeen had been wild and fun once, long before she had lost herself, though she doesn’t remember exactly when that changed. When Firion had turned away her offer of friendship? When she had first felt the weight of failure in the alliance? When Breach had died? When she had made her promise to Gale?
Sometimes she is frustrated by the way her recovery is stretching out. As though she will wake up one day and be fierce and unaffected by everything done to her and that she had done. As though she could not be both broken and strong.
His question surprises her, but she is glad for it - glad for the chance to try to explain. She takes a moment, watching him carefully and trying to pick through her memories and see if there is a way to string them together in a way that makes sense.
“I was who your father made me, who he wanted me to be.” That is the simplest answer, but she doesn’t leave it there. “When I hid you and Sickle in Tephra, your dad - the Curse that lives inside of his body - was… not impressed.” That is the mildest way she can put it. “He didn’t like my tendency to defy him, so he changed me into something that suited him more. Gale tore out my emotions, tore out the pieces that made me who I was, until I was only left with anger.” It hadn’t hurt - because she hadn’t cared. She had cut herself off from her emotions to avoid feeling the pain of having hurt Sickle and then Gale had severed the feeling permanently. “I loved you and Sickle so much, I loved the pack that became my family and my friends. And then… I only cared about him until even that stopped. I wanted the world to burn and it still would not have satisfied me because… there was nothing in me to be satisfied. I was hollow.”
Once, Mazikeen had loathed how much she felt - she had thought the intensity of her emotions was a fault. Now she knows what it is like to be without them - and she prefers their overwhelming presence. “Waking up from that, I have memories of actions I never would have chosen to make. It was my same mind but it’s like someone else was in control and in my memories I watch her hurt my friends and my children.” This is a lot, she knows, and maybe it’s too much. She keeps her orange eyes gently on his face, watching him. Wondering how little he thinks of her and these weaknesses that come as confessions on a soft voice - desperate for him to understand, for him to like her as she is and understand that it is better now. It has to be. “So maybe I was more fun, but I was reckless and cruel and I didn’t care. And that’s… that’s not who I am.”
This would probably be a great point to stop, but the words keep coming. “I love you so much, Malik. And if the world had been nicer, if I had been myself when you were little, it wouldn't have taken until you were practically grown for you to have heard me say that for the first time.”
@
Malik