"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
Even though everything looks the same now, more or less, the mountains of Hyaline have become familiar to Mazikeen. Without the dim light, without the assistance of her feline as as she moves about as a pale mountain lion, she knows that she would know this place.
Maybe one day the pack will move on, maybe they’ll roam without borders. For now, though, she doesn’t mind that this is the place they’ve settled. She inhales the scent of the lake and it causes something to click in her head. Has their resident eel even noticed that the sun has gone out? The lake water is clear enough to see through from above but how easy is it to see through from below?
She pads down to the shore and into the shallows - wincing just a little at the cool temperature but it’s not enough to bother her (yet). “Sabal!” Mazikeen-the-lion splashes around in the water, making as big of a commotion as she can. “Have I ever got some news for you!” Well, how else is she going to get the fish’s attention? Aquatic forms are still one of the ones she hasn’t explored much and she had meant to explore the lake with Sabal - but then the alliance and the sun’s doing this thing and there’s monsters around. Who’s got the time for casual sightseeing?
Sabal had retreated to the depths when the sun did not return to the sky. There was some comfort there - in the unchanging darkness beneath the surface. Her the flickers of bioluminescence were normal - and their presence was a comfort, not a lingering reminder that something far beyond her comprehension was unfolding above. Not that she’d ever admitted to not understanding what the hell was going on.
Sabal had a special talent for handling crises well. It was a gift, really. But, for the time being, her current strategy was just to ignore anything bad was happening up there. And it seemed to be working until someone had to demand her attention.
The kelpie whirled in the clear waters, narrowing her eyes at the incessant splashing. She immediately had her suspicions about who it was. A small pulse of relief ran through her before it was replaced by the familiar annoyance. If Maze was here to annoy her, at least she was still alive.
The teal mare reaches the surface quickly - propelled by strong fins and wings alike - appearing in the shallows before the mountain lion she knew to be her friend. The water around her glowed, which was strange to see considering it should have been daytime. Sabal frowned at the glowing water for the briefest of moments before making her way towards the cougar-mare.
“You know you could just turn yourself into a marine creature and just, like, come and find me without making such a fuss,” Sabal said with a flick of her long tail, inclining her head towards her sort of friend. Frenemy? Idk.
“So, what’s this news? Did you, um, miss me or something?” She adds with a very un-subtle wink.
Mazikeen adopts an expression of neutral indifference (even going so far as to lick her forearm and groom behind her feline ears) when Sabal breaches the surface in a rather impressive display. Especially combined with the glowing - that was a neat trick. Any sense of being impressed dies when the trout speaks. Those orange eyes roll at the first comment and then roll some more for good measure at the wink.
But there’s a smile tugging on that feline mouth all the same.
“Look, If I had turned into a sea creature and swam up to you and spooked you while you slept you’d be telling me off for that. There’s no winning with you!” Mazikeen doesn’t feel like admitting right at this moment that she has not practiced swimming very much and she’s second-guessing that great plan of asking Sabal to help teach her.
She is also second-guessing the news she carries because it feels like it’s pretty obvious at this point and Sabal probably has enough brain cells to put it all together. The secondary intention of making sure their resident mermaid was healthy had been accomplished at least.
“Did you know someone broke the sun? So you won’t be able to sun-bathe for a while, I think. Also, there’s monsters roaming about. Also, have you always glowed? Or is that new.” And then her smile grows a little more, orange eyes dancing in the gentle glow. “Did you break the sun just for aesthetics?”
“Mmmm. You’re probably right. But still,” she said, dismissively. She certainly didn’t love being summoned but she was still very much relieved that Maze was, like, alive. What strange times they were living in. Sabal couldn’t help but inwardly smile at the fact that Maze had a proclivity for feline forms and most felines seemed to be comically averse to water. She wondered, for a fleeting moment, if she chose these shapes on purpose or if they chose her. Sabal had been born to the sea - having a kelpie father and a nereid mother would do that to a girl. To most it was a combination that would make perfect sense but the two sides of her fought each other more than you’d expect - which is perhaps why she was here in a crystal clear lake and not lurking in a swamp like some of her relatives.
“The sun breaking isn’t really news, Maze. I do have eyeballs,” she says, with another impressive roll of her eyes. It gets dark underwater during the daytime but not that dark. Not until you get really deep. She let out a little huff before the attention shifted to a more appropriate topic.
Her. A topic that completely distracted her from the fact that Maze had literally mentioned monsters.
“The glowing is usually just a nighttime or a diving very deep thing but now its an all the time thing. But thanks for letting me know you think it looks nice!” She said with a wicked smile and another flick of luminescent fins.
“And yes. That’s my superpower. Turning off the sun. Obviously.” She deadpanned with yet another eye roll. “If you’re nice to me maybe I’ll turn it back on.” She said, tauntingly. But it was only then that her mind finally put together the fact that Maze had mentioned monsters so the mirth drained from her pretty face as she leveled her ocean eyes her friend.
“Wait a second. Monsters? You didn’t lead with the fact that there are monsters.” Her voice rose without her consciously realizing it - but could you blame her?
“Please...elaborate,” she said - making it very clear that she expected answers. Immediately.
At Sabal’s mention of her indeed having eyeballs, Maze easily teases her back. “And here I thought they were just for decoration.” There was something incredibly enjoyable about the odd friendship that’s started up between them - Maze is pretty sure they could lounge around trading gentle insults and snipes all day. And it would be fun the whole time. The only time she’d need a break was just to rest her eyeballs from all the rolling.
She sighs when Sabal (accurately) discovers the compliment that Maze had been thinking about the glow.
It certainly enhances how pleasing it is to get a little bit of a rise out of Sabal. To ruffle her scales a bit, even if it’s completely justifiable. At first, Mazikeen didn’t have the sense to be truly worried about the monsters herself - though the one she had met with Wishbone had been freaky and her neck still hurt from where it had bitten her. And the scars on her shoulder from the one she had met (and theoretically killed) on Gale’s island.
Now she worried about what might happen if she met one larger than those she had seen already. Worried about one slipping into Hyaline and causing havoc. Worried that her third meeting with one would not have such a happy ending.
These are not thoughts she shares with the kelpie, however. Better to let Sabal think she wasn’t concerned or afraid at all.
She doesn’t joke about them either, at first anyway. Her feline gaze steady on Sabal as she explains what she knows. “I don’t know where they came from but they must be tied to the eclipse or whatever. The ones I’ve seen don’t really have a shape or maybe they’re just all different so you don’t know what to expect.” That made them sound sufficiently spooky, she was sure.
But, naturally, she doesn’t stay serious for long and a wicked grin slowly grows on her features, orange eyes shining in the light Sabal is producing. “Hopefully none of them can swim.”
Sabal says nothing to Maze’s comment about her eyeballs but does throw her friend a rather impressive looking scowl. The kelpie is still reeling from the fact that there are legit monsters.
Sabal’s fears very much mirrored Mazikeen’s. Her immediate though was that there were three points of entry to the lake and there was no way she’d be able to watch all of them at the same time. None of Hyaline’s other residents had the same affection for the water that she did, so that left the water entrances wide open to anything nefarious. Normally, that wouldn’t really bother Sabal because anything normal that swam was fully within her wheelhouse to handle. But magical disappearing monsters? Ummm. That was above her pay grade.
Despite her looks and, well, overall personality…Sabal was one who liked to be prepared. Again, crises were her particular specialty but this was something unexpected. How did she deal with something she (and apparently everyone else) couldn’t even see?! Coming up with a solution to this was unlikely at best and that left her more than a little unsettled. But she knew that she certainly hadn’t seen anything that Maze had described here to this point, so she could only gnash her teeth together and hope it stayed that way. But of course these two dysfunctional idiots couldn’t just share the fact that they were rightfully concerned by the fact that literal actual monsters were threatening their home, so the foolery and posturing continued.
”Monsters with no shape who conveniently appeared when the sun went on vacation. That’s just fabulous.” she says, with a frustrated little huff. ”Well I certainly haven’t seen anything like that here, so you better not have brought any home with you, Mazikeen or I swear to God I’ll kill you myself!” Oh yeah. Maze got full named. Kelpie girl was serious.
“And mark my words – if any show up here I’ll show them how to swim.” she said with a not-quite ferocious slap of her tail against the calm lake waters. Which she immediately regretted because if there were monsters maybe she shouldn’t be causing a ruckus. Oops.
Mazikeen is, vaguely, aware that Sabal is joking about bringing the monsters to Hyaline but the comment bites at her pride enough that there’s no humour in her cold voice when she snaps back, canines gleaming in the low-light. “As if I would ever do that Sabal.” It really was a shame that Mazikeen couldn’t full-name her friend right back. And yet she draws it out anyway, furious at even the moderate implication that she would put their home at risk.
The hair along her spine stands up in her irritation as her tail flicks in the water. “I would’ve killed them long before we crossed the border like I did the other two I’ve met.”
Her orange eyes burn for a second longer but it fades with a few calming breaths. She continues talking then with noticeably less edge. She’d fight Sabal if she had to - and it is a tempting way to release some tension - but she doesn’t necessarily want to. At the moment, anyway. It could all hinge on how the salamander replies.
“As much as I would absolutely love to watch you give one a swimming lesson.”
The tiniest of smug smiles pulls at her lips when Maze cannot full name her back. Sabal 1, Mazikeen 0. But some part of her thrills at her ability to so easily to get under Maze’s skin. It is truly a talent of hers and she relishes in it. Of course, Maze gets under her skin just as effortlessly but she’s absolutely choosing to ignore that fact for the time being. You know the whole btw there are monsters thing had raised her blood pressure a fair amount but…that’s completely irrelevant. Mhmm.
“Well. I, for one, am relieved to know they can be killed,” she said, effortlessly pivoting from Maze’s obvious anger and redirecting the conversation back to something more within her wheelhouse. And like hell was she going to admit how impressive it was that Maze had dispatched not one but two basically invisible monsters. Yeah she was not going to admit that out loud. She would never hear the end of it.
She was sure she could hold her own in a fight, but fighting was so not Sabal’s style if she could avoid it. Plus, she knew where her advantages would be in a fight, and she knew that Maze would avoid them like the plague. Pretty kitty didn’t seem to enjoy the water. Which was enough for Sabal to narrow her gaze on her friend.
“Speaking of swimming lessons. You should probably learn to swim. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that all your favorite forms have a complete and total aversion to water. Remember, we did establish my eyes aren’t just for decoration.” Another smirk blooms on her lips.
See? The kelpie IS observant.
Sabal 2. Mazikeen 0.
There’d be no land vs sea fight today, it would seem, as Sabal redirects the conversation and doesn’t continue to needle Mazikeen’s anger.
This didn’t exactly feel like the time for swimming lessons but like hell Mazikeen was going to admit she had absolutely no intention of wading into the dark-as-night water where she’d have the very real threat of Sabal drowning her for one of the unavoidable snarky comments. Sure they were… friends? Sort of? But did that mean the overgrown minnow wasn’t capable of murder? Absolutely not.
Mazikeen continues to stand where she is in the shallow water, her eyes narrow and she grows a little wary. She also doesn’t put it past Sabal to try to grab her by the scruff and toss her into the lake to see how she handles learning under pressure.
A pink tongue sticks out instead of her go-to-eye roll at the smirk Sabal wears. She’s an observant bubble brain, Maze would give her that.
Not out loud, of course.
“That’s not true, one of my favourite forms is an osprey and they fish and hang around water all the time.” Did Mazikeen use that form to fish? Absolutely not. But she could if she wanted to! And that seemed like it should count. “And I can swim. I just… choose not to.” But even as she says this, knowing full well it’s not a good excuse at all, some of the smile returns to her bright orange gaze. The closest she had ever gotten to swimming was floating on her back as an otter down the river and fighting as an alligator in the alliance. Neither of which actually counted at all.
“Osprey, huh? That’s new,” Sabal said, with an appraising gaze. But still. Fish hawks absolutely did not count as a marine creature. If only Sabal knew of the significance of this particular shift. Mazikeen would truly never hear the end of it. “They may hang around water but they literally only get their feet wet. That hardly counts!” She adds, with a scoff.
“Mmmm, kay. Well. When you decide that you’re ready to learn to swim,” Sabal continued, very clearly not accepting the very feeble excuse that had been provided to her, “Why don’t you come find me for a lesson. I promise I’ll make it very fun and not at all embarrassing.” She adds, with a flick of her long not-eel-at-all tail.
“In the meantime – I’m going to check for these monsters so that maybe I can sleep tonight.” She says, pushing off the shore somewhat and floating back into the depths of the lake. But before she goes, her gaze turns serious.
“Seriously, though. If you see something – call me. I’ll do whatever I can to defend this place. You have my word on that.” It’s a strange, serious moment for the kelpie, but she’s chosen this place as her home and these people as her family. She’ll defend them with her own blood if she must.
And then she disappears beneath the waters, the glow disappearing as she dives below the surface.
