Mazikeen
Mazikeen had not thought about how her body would carry more than just the scent of her blood and she realizes it only when she notices how still Gale falls. She waits for his disgust as shame burns at the hollow places inside of her. The shuddering sob that she hears and feels against her as they stand close is so much worse. It worse than the discomfort and emptiness inside her and Mazikeen hates herself most of all for causing him pain.
The words that are breathed into her neck don’t immediately register because she’s distracted by how she feels both sour revulsion (it wasn't him, it wasn't him, she tells herself) and sweet comfort in that touch and how those two reactions mix with shame and churn her stomach until she is nauseous once more. He wouldn’t be touching her at all if he really understood what had happened, she tells herself, though she cannot make herself move away again - even though it would be kinder to him if she did.
Gale drifts off and concern breaks through her hollowness and she brushes her muzzle against him after he falls, making sure he is not hurt. His murmured apologies break what hold she had on her tears and they fall in earnest now that she does not have to worry about him seeing the weakness in them. Mazikeen tries to convince herself that she has no right to cry, no right to feel anything when she had signed up for this - when it was not enough to make her leave or break her promise. She really had not expected it to affect her this way. She hadn't thought it would fill her with anything other than rage. The Curse had seemed to know exactly how to hurt her, though, and she knows she needs to be stronger and better prepared in the future so she will not break so easily.
So she'll cry here, where only the unconscious form of the one she loves is a witness, and once they're done she'll try to turn herself to steel.
And then Mazikeen’s thinking about how she needs to wash, how she needs to find water far enough away from the lake that her blood won’t alert Sabal, how she so desperately needs to sleep too. But she stands there a little longer, keeping watch over him, and presses a soft kiss to his forehead as she tells him that it’s okay, and she tells him what she is telling herself on repeat. “It wasn’t you.”
And she quietly gives his sleeping form the comfort that she wants but does not know how to ask for (even if he were conscious). “This isn’t your fault. I love you so much Gale and I am so, so sorry.”
The words that are breathed into her neck don’t immediately register because she’s distracted by how she feels both sour revulsion (it wasn't him, it wasn't him, she tells herself) and sweet comfort in that touch and how those two reactions mix with shame and churn her stomach until she is nauseous once more. He wouldn’t be touching her at all if he really understood what had happened, she tells herself, though she cannot make herself move away again - even though it would be kinder to him if she did.
Gale drifts off and concern breaks through her hollowness and she brushes her muzzle against him after he falls, making sure he is not hurt. His murmured apologies break what hold she had on her tears and they fall in earnest now that she does not have to worry about him seeing the weakness in them. Mazikeen tries to convince herself that she has no right to cry, no right to feel anything when she had signed up for this - when it was not enough to make her leave or break her promise. She really had not expected it to affect her this way. She hadn't thought it would fill her with anything other than rage. The Curse had seemed to know exactly how to hurt her, though, and she knows she needs to be stronger and better prepared in the future so she will not break so easily.
So she'll cry here, where only the unconscious form of the one she loves is a witness, and once they're done she'll try to turn herself to steel.
And then Mazikeen’s thinking about how she needs to wash, how she needs to find water far enough away from the lake that her blood won’t alert Sabal, how she so desperately needs to sleep too. But she stands there a little longer, keeping watch over him, and presses a soft kiss to his forehead as she tells him that it’s okay, and she tells him what she is telling herself on repeat. “It wasn’t you.”
And she quietly gives his sleeping form the comfort that she wants but does not know how to ask for (even if he were conscious). “This isn’t your fault. I love you so much Gale and I am so, so sorry.”
@[Gale]