"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
The curse grows heavier with each passing day.
It nearly drives him from Beqanna entirely. Nearly drives him mad. There are days where he considers letting it. Would it be the worst thing, he wonders, to descend into true madness? Would there be any who miss him? Who notice him missing? He’s not so certain any longer. He’s not so certain that he knows who he is any longer or if he has simply found himself into a looping nightmare. An endless cycle of it.
When dawn breaks, the curse breaks with it.
He stands in the shadows of the forest as the sun finds him. As its watery light begins to wash over him and draw him forth from the muck and the mire. Life floods back through his crushed barrel. The veins that had collapsed expand once more. His lungs fill. His flesh knits together, the grey curled edges of them finding themselves and turning to the sheen of gold once more. He shudders as his heart starts once more.
When he draws his first breath again, it’s with a gasp.
It does not get easier.
Firion closes his eyes and tries to settle himself. Tries to control the shaking that will inevitably come. It is an alarming feeling to come back to ones self and have no idea where his body had been the night before. When he does open his eyes, he realizes that he is near the meadow and something like cold fear laces up his spine. He suspects that his body eats at night—his belly always feels uncomfortably full in the morning—but he does not know what it finds. What it eats. What twists in himself.
He prefers to not know.
When he finally does move from his spot, he is composed once more. To the outside eye, he looks simply like a young stallion in his prime—healthy, robust. It’s only him that knows how his insides rot.
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
Even though Mazikeen is technically an adult now, she’s not yet too old to find joy in shifting into a new animal and exploring the world at another vantage point. In the early morning hours of this day, she’s a white and black badger and she’s been making her way at a waddling pace and enjoying spying on the animals just-waking or just-sleeping along the border of the forest and meadow.
Which is how she discovers the nest. There’s something so utterly absurd about the creatures within it that a light laugh bubbles out of her and she quickly decides she needs a witness.
Badger-Mazikeen goes running through the long meadow grass, looking for someone to share this laughter with. She starts speaking as soon as horse-legs are visible ahead of her “HEY you! You’ve got to come see this it’s…” And then she focuses and recognizes the golden boy, though he’s older now - grown like she has. “Oh.” Her badger-fur bristles just before she shifts into herself in one fluid movement so that they are nearly the same height. Would he recognize her outside of the deer shape she had been trapped in the first, and last, time they spoke?
The youthful joy that had been bubbling within her evaporated in a flash and replaced with a scowl. Her laughter dies so abruptly she’s sure it still echoes in the silent morning air around them.
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
He doesn’t expect the sudden intrusion in his space, but he cannot deny the fact that he is grateful for the distraction. He falls back into his familiar armor, letting the shield click into place and the faux stallion that he pretends to be standing there. The laugh reaches his lips first, brightening his entire golden face as Maze scurries between his legs. He leans his handsome face down to see the badger moving, his eyes bright and the amusement that snags his attention clear on every line of him. It’s only when she shifts, snapping into a form he has never seen before and yet feels entirely familiar that he pauses.
Something in him grows cold as he remembers her as the deer.
Something about her eyes looking familiar.
His entire face falls, the laughter bleeding from his expression as he grows hard and cold.
“It’s me,” he reiterates, his voice steady despite the way that he feels inside.
A pause as he considers her, committing her to memory in a way that he had not done before when she had only shown him the pieces of her that did not last. This though, this was the true her. (What would it be like to show her the real him, he thinks, before quickly pushing the question to the side.)
“And this, I assume, is you.”
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
Now that they’ve established that they’re the same pair, the doe-and-colt from the woods, Mazikeen wonders if she should just turn around and leave. She’s bothered enough to stay, though, unable to feign complete indifference. It’s incredibly annoying that he would be here, ruining the delightful moment that she had been having. She certainly wasn’t about to show him anything fun.
The echoes of his laughter rings in her ears along with that of her own - adding to her discomfort. She wouldn’t have guessed he knew how to laugh, this sullen creature of gold.
Annoying too that she is not immune to being annoyed by him, even though it’s been years.
Her orange eyes are bright with this annoyance when she speaks again, finding a few more words this time. Now that the surprise of seeing him has worn off slightly. She might have tried for a cold indifference but there's too much of an edge to her thoughts now for some of the prickles not to slip out into her voice. “Aren’t you supposed to be running? Why are you still here?” You’d think someone who was so determined not the form connections would, you know, stay away from populated areas. Maybe go take a swim off Beqanna’s coast and find somewhere else.
Or maybe he had only wanted to avoid the absolute bare minimum of a friendship she had offered and accepted it elsewhere.
That’s not a welcome thought and she stomps on it with all the force she can muster. She doesn’t care whether Firion wants to be her friend.
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
She has nearly seen beneath the mask—has nearly seen him come undone—and it is an incredibly vulnerable feeling to be standing here now before her. He has done his very best to keep to himself over the years. To only engage in crowds when it was on his own terms and when he was confident that he could slip away undetected. When he could control the beginning and the end. When he knew that he would be nothing more than a handsome stranger who would not be remembered by the morning.
But she somehow sees right through it.
Leaves him open and vulnerable, and he wants to shake with the fear of it.
But instead he straightens a little and throws her a casual grin, wide and free as though he has never known a day of worry in his life. As though he did not spend his nights chased by death. As though he had never woken with the taste of ash in his mouth; as though he did not taste decay every night.
“A valid question,” he admits, but that’s it. He acknowledges it and then turns it over—not giving her any additional information or details about why he was not currently running and why he was here. Why she could find him in the middle of a common land when he had told her he was heading far away.
He just looks at her with a lazy glance, half-lidded and nearly sleepy.
His mouth opens as though to say something else but he closes it instead and just smiles.
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
Mazikeen isn’t sure why she expected honesty, why she felt a tickle of curiosity and interest about the few glimpses she’s gotten of whatever lies beneath Firion’s gilded surface. She can feel herself bristle already at the sight of his casual grin and it only intensifies when he replies to her with the most vague, non-answer.
And then it looks like he’s going to say something else - but just smiles instead.
Mazikeen shifts without thinking about it, growing in size until she’s a large, white grizzly bear and a growl escapes her. She thinks about taking a swipe at him, seeing if she can knock that smile off his face, but instead she only bristles - that thick fur standing all along her spine and her orange eyes burning as lips curl back to expose sharp teeth.
A moment later she comes to her senses and shifts back, her expression still bordering on murderous. She’s annoyed with him but more annoyed that she’s let herself lose control for those few seconds. That she let his stupid smile get under her skin in such a way that she’s worried her fire aura might blossom around her as further proof of her rage. That even after all this time she feels like an idiot in the presence of his aloof expression when she had always felt things vividly. It’s easier to focus her aggravation on him than it is on herself, and her next words are huffed out as she attempts to get herself back under control.
"You are infuriating. Do you know that? You must. There's no way I can be the first one to say that to you."
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
Firion has few talents, but the least of them is honesty. He has never known how to be honest. Not with himself and certainly not with those people that he meets. He prefers it that way. Prefers to keep a thick shield of lies between himself and every one else—even his mother and father. Maybe especially them. And certainly this girl before him who is more predator than prey and looks at him with such sharp eyes.
It takes everything within him to not rise to the challenge in her eyes.
To play pretend at this overly arrogant prince of a man, rolling his athletic shoulder as though it does not decay every night. As though he has not a care in the world and not ash on his tongue.
When she shifts, he takes a step back, something flashing across his eyes and his chest tightening with an instinctual fear. It speaks to the years of honing himself into something controlled and excellent in the game of pretend that it only lasts a moment. Within a breath, he recognizes her colors and markings and he bets on her control instead of her temper. He plants his feet and his sharp-toothed smile comes again.
When she shifts back, he feels that tightness loosen, if only just a little. “You are easily infuriated,” he counters lightly, wondering if perhaps it is dumb to provoke someone who has the ability to take on multiple shapes. It is perhaps silly, dangerous, but he finds that he can’t stop himself. It goes against everything that he thinks wise—every rule that he has made for himself over the years—but he remains.
A crooked pull of his mouth.
“You’re the first person to talk to me twice.”
And somehow the truth pierces through, even with his languid draw.
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
There is a small sense of satisfaction when he takes a step back from her after she shifts into the bear but it is not nearly as gratifying as she would have hoped. The shame at losing control, at letting him bother her that much, ruins any joy. Mazikeen did not want to be feared, even by him. When she hunted with her packmates she almost never actually ate whatever was caught. She just enjoyed the chase, the sense of working together, the thrill, the challenge.
Would it have been different, she often wonders, if she had not discovered what it felt like to be hunted? To be torn apart for sport and left for dead.
However, this feeling of shame is difficult to hold onto when he comments on how she is easily infuriated. She does not respond to this with words but sticks out her tongue at him and makes a face.
When he continues, her orange eyes practically roll into her head. “Wow, I’m so surprised.” The words drip with sarcasm but then she focuses on him a little more seriously - watching him with that predator’s gaze as she asks with a sharp tongue:
“Does it feel good, having no one?”
Maze thought she wanted that once. Thought it was all she would get in this life - two loving, sad, parents and then once she was old enough she’d be on her own for the rest of her days. She believed this to her core when she was young and wild and did not believe she needed anyone.
Now (though she’s still relatively young and wild) she knows better. Knows the filly who told Firion she would never stop running was wrong and foolish.
Now, she would die for the friends and family she has made since that day in the woods.
And Firion? What did he have to keep him company except that stupid smirk?
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
He is surprised into genuine laughter when she sticks out her tongue. It is deep-throated and he nearly loses himself in the joy of letting himself just be a boy in that simple moment. He wonders what it would have been like if he had met her before the curse had grabbed a hold of him. Would they have been friends if they had met when he had just been the young, rambunctious son of Hyaline? Would they have grown up together once she had found her way? His expression sours a little when he realizes that even this is a fool’s memory. He was no shifter like his father. By the time she was in Hyaline, he would have been kicked out. There is no world in which they would have been friends. No world for his fantasies.
His mood darkens with the thought, the contrast more severe next to the moment of bubbling laughter, and he is suddenly struck with the desperate need to leave again. To no longer be scrutinized under her sharp gaze, uncomfortable with the feeling that she sees far too much—that she sees all of him.
“It feels fantastic, thank you for asking,” he counters, his voice sharper than he intended. “I can’t tell you how much I love wandering from place to place with absolutely no one to remember me.” It’s more vulnerable than he had intended to be, but he supposes that it’s not only he that gets under her skin, but also the other way around. Her needling prickles and his coat twitches as though irritated by a pest.
Struggling to grasp at the mask of apathy again, he thinks hard at how well his father donned such a thing, he forces his body to relax—forces himself to dull the sounds and the scents, always so overloud and overwhelming in moments like these. “It’s better than the alternative,” he sniffs, grasping for some control in the situation again. “I could be weighed down by someone,” there’s nearly a pointed glance at her, but even he is not so cruel as to pin that on her. “It’s easier to just be by myself.”
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
His laughter surprises her - it’s the second time she’s heard it today. She hadn’t thought him capable of it once but twice is so impossible it feels like a physical blow. Not because it’s cruel, but because it isn’t - it’s hearty and filled with joy and contrasting to everything she believes about him. It’s a good laugh.
And then that joy sours and is gone - and once again Mazikeen feels like she can hear the echo of it in the air around them.
When he replies to her question in a sharp voice she knows she’s struck a nerve. It’s a little satisfying even though she does feel (annoyingly) some sympathy for him. While he knew what lurked beneath her surface, knew what could come pouring out of her if she lost her calm, she does not know what she might discover if she continues to push him. It makes her bold - Mazikeen has known fear, but she does not fear the unknown. Does not fear him. All she’s really expecting, anyway, is for him to turn and run like he had last time.
Firion continues and she thinks she can actually see him trying to pull the mask back over and act like he's not affected by anything. This time, she doesn’t buy it. Maybe she’s projecting, maybe she’s giving him more credit than he deserves. But she has a hard time believing that burst of laughter came from someone completely without a soul.
She sighs in exasperation. “You’re such an idiot, Firion.” Her voice has a bite to it but she does not need to pack the words with any true venom. Instead of pointing out that she would remember him - though currently, not with any fondness - she focuses on his other words. “It is not easier, you're just afraid. And you don’t actually believe that it is, you wouldn’t still be here if you did.” She doesn’t mean in this moment with her and belatedly she realizes it might sound like that's what she meant. “Have you just been wandering around the meadow and forest all this time thinking ‘oh yeah I’m so good at being alone. Look at me!’ when half of Beqanna is living their lives just a step away? When you're hanging out in the place everyone goes to socialize?” She gestures further out to the meadow, where she can see other bodies dappling the plain and moving through the grass.
Being around others did not make you less lonely, but still - it seems illogical to pick this place instead of somewhere remote. Somewhere else.
