12-19-2021, 05:46 PM
The story that she tells him fits into the empty spaces of his understanding, makes sense of the parts of his life that had before seemed disconnected and nonsensical. He is quiet as she speaks, his dark ears turning slowly, his bicolored eyes occasionally narrowing or widening as she shares more and more. Malik could never fathom why Mazikeen had protected them by hiding them only to hurt them later, but this - this story of her own transformation - that finally makes sense. She did love them once, and then she didn’t, and now (though he still doesn’t grasp the precise mechanics of how) she loves them again.
For how long, he wonders? Until his father returns? Or had Mazikeen driven him away for good, and that was the impetus for the return to herself? Malik knows that the mountains are protected, and has seen his mother fight to keep them that way. She’d fight like that for Myrna, he decides, and suspects she would for him as well.
Suspects, but is not yet entirely convinced. There are too many memories of his childhood that he can no longer forget, and the ghosts of them dance behind his two-toned eyes as he meets hers.
If he’d been a child still, her explanation would have been all that he needed. But he is older now, and he remembers what his mother had been content to let him forget. He thinks he understands why she’d done so, but that does not make the memories any softer, or the pain he’d felt hurt any less. He remembers Sickle, and the way she had cried like a very young child, and how he and Myrna had lived here - oblivious - while she haunted the edges of Beqanna.
“You need to tell that story to Sickle.” He finally says. “So she knows, too. But I don’t…” he hesitates, unsure if he is right, but carries on anyway, because he is nearly sure and that has to be good enough. “I don’t know if she’ll believe you. I’ve seen you change. I know you’re different. But she only knows the Mazikeen who…” Again his voice trails off, because his sister had not been explicit but his memories are.
He takes a deep breath, considering a great many things, and then asks the one question that keeps coming back to him: “Are we safe from him?”
@Mazikeen
For how long, he wonders? Until his father returns? Or had Mazikeen driven him away for good, and that was the impetus for the return to herself? Malik knows that the mountains are protected, and has seen his mother fight to keep them that way. She’d fight like that for Myrna, he decides, and suspects she would for him as well.
Suspects, but is not yet entirely convinced. There are too many memories of his childhood that he can no longer forget, and the ghosts of them dance behind his two-toned eyes as he meets hers.
If he’d been a child still, her explanation would have been all that he needed. But he is older now, and he remembers what his mother had been content to let him forget. He thinks he understands why she’d done so, but that does not make the memories any softer, or the pain he’d felt hurt any less. He remembers Sickle, and the way she had cried like a very young child, and how he and Myrna had lived here - oblivious - while she haunted the edges of Beqanna.
“You need to tell that story to Sickle.” He finally says. “So she knows, too. But I don’t…” he hesitates, unsure if he is right, but carries on anyway, because he is nearly sure and that has to be good enough. “I don’t know if she’ll believe you. I’ve seen you change. I know you’re different. But she only knows the Mazikeen who…” Again his voice trails off, because his sister had not been explicit but his memories are.
He takes a deep breath, considering a great many things, and then asks the one question that keeps coming back to him: “Are we safe from him?”
@Mazikeen