Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you
The rain had woken Gale, falling cold and heavy, drenching his iridescent navy hide with thick icy splashes. He could not feel his hind legs, and when the stallion lifted his head, found himself partially buried in the sediment of a creek bed. The water was colder even than the rain, and Gale reasoned it was probably why he cannot feel his legs.
The amount of time he’d clearly spent in the water would have permanently damaged most, but as Gale regained consciousness, his magic had begun to repair the damage wrought by months spent submerged. Soon he was standing, and the blue lightning flicker of his magic has ceased dancing across his hide.
Taking a drink clears his mouth of the taste of rot and mold, though he takes a second and a third, feeling the cool rush of the water as it settles in his stomach. When he raises his head and looks around, he recognizes nothing. The trees that surround him are mostly bare of their autumn finery but the hills he can see between the trunks might belong anywhere. He can see nothing from where he stands in the creekbed, but perhaps if he finds a higher vantage point?
Even as the thought occurs to him, an image appears in front of him. It is of Gale, iridescent blue and white winged, seen from above, the hills of the River’s eastern shoreline spreading out around him. Gale looks up, to where a black osprey flies in circles overhead. It’s Erne, his companion, and as Gale recognizes him, reality comes rushing back at him.
He Sees through Erne’s eyes how he’d come to be lying there in the water, how Mazikeen had tossed him out of Hyaline and the water had carried him here. Six months have passed, and Gale has only now woken from…whatever it was that had been.
He knows what Casimira and Beyza had meant. He understands why Malik still looks haunted despite his words saying otherwise. He knows why Mazikeen won’t have him in Hyaline.
He knows each intimate detail damage that the Curse had wrought while it inhabited his body, and the refreshing water of moments earlier feels suddenly like bil within him.
Overhead, the osprey circles while the navy stallion stumbles, then falls with a splash in the shallows.
When he wakes, the pair of them will make their way to Islandres.
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Gale
