"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
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
They arrive in the mountains, and Gale snorts irritably at the heavy snow that has already fallen since his departure. Malik remains unconscious, half-buried in a drift where Gale had dropped him. his body begins to shiver as the magician contemplates what he will soon be working.
It will require some sort of Temporal Manipulation, he knows, taking back the time that has passed since the boy was stolen away from him. But how to carve the Gale out of him? How to remove the weaknesses that his host has imparted on the child and make it his instead?
In the end, he does something similar to what he’d done to Mazikeen. He reaches deep into the boy, and draws out the light. Malik becomes a vacuum then, his empty soul eager to swallow down whatever is nearby to fill the sudden void, and Gale makes sure that it is darkness and hatred and fury.
Giving away the fuel to his magic is a calculated risk. It will weaken him. But it will be worth it, the Curse thinks, and it smiles down at the immobile child. He touches the boy’s cold skin, and a shift radiates from that point of contact. Malik’s prone body becomes that of a dark leopard.
His head is aching, but the end is in sight. Gale reaches for cords that keep their world tethered to the passage of time, glowing silver things not unlike the far northern lights. One tethers Malik to the present and Gale cuts it, knotting him instead to a younger thread, one that he pulls into the present (its past).
When he looks down again, the adolescent leopard has become a young cub. Small, mewling, helpless. He nearly wastes his time, feeling the instinctive urge to swallow the small thing, but then it blinks up at him with hardly opened eyes. One of the eyes is Mazikeen’s.
So he does not try to hurt the thing as he carries it through the snow, and he places it in the den where Mazikeen rests during the storm rather than flinging it at her from the mouth of the cave where he stands.
He smiles, a proud and satisfied expression, and slowly sits to curl his own golden leopard tail around his feet and wait for her reaction.
It took about the time for Gale’s head to travel into her stomach for Mazikeen to think that maybe, maybe she had overreacted. Just a little. Unwilling to linger on the island, she had fled immediately. Needing both to heal, to actually eat something that wasn’t the thigh or the head of her lover and king, and to sort out the storm of thoughts she thought had left her for good.
The healing that had resurrected her once took its time with the wounds she gained from their fight on Islandres. It had been a difficult flight back to Hyaline but she had pushed herself, leaving a trail of her blood across Beqanna.
She is not filled with the elation that she had expected. Even though it is almost certainly not a real death, she expected more satisfaction from it. There is some, of course, but as she flies she discovers that she is grieving. That she does not want to be rid of him, not yet. Maybe one day, far off into the future. Maybe tomorrow if he wakes up and will not forgive her. But today? She had not been ready for how heavy his absence in her life would be. She’d been enjoying their time together and looking forward to more of it.
And yet when she knew he was watching the cave she was resting in, when she breathed in the familiar scent of him and let relief flood through her, she did not rouse herself to greet him. She expected to die when he slipped in beside her and she did entertain the idea of turning over, of showing him how glad she was he was not actually dead until they were so wrapped up in each other they would lose track of where they each begin and end.
But by the time she opens her orange eyes to look for him, he is gone.
So she waits and she finishes healing, until her new scars blend with the old ones and she can no longer tell which is which.
She wakes immediately when she hears noises outside the cave that do not belong to snow and she shifts automatically to match the leopard that appears at the entrance. Those red-orange eyes do not blink and her heart begins to race when he lays down a small cub. And when Mazikeen rises, when she steps forward and sees the blue and orange eyes blink up at her, she understands. She gives Malik a small nuzzle as a greeting and then Mazikeen steps over the cub and goes to Gale.
She doesn’t let herself hesitate, doesn’t even wonder if he’s going to take revenge for what is only the first death that he owes her. If he does, she will deal with it. But first she moves to greet him, bumping her leopard head against his shoulder and then rubbing it against him with sure affection. She is sorry, though the words themselves stick in her throat.
It is only when she pulls back to look at him properly, to see his reaction, that she finds her voice, which has been an elusive thing for her lately. “You did it.” There had never been a doubt, and that truth shines in her voice - that same note of awe she used when she asked him about his limits. She backs back into the cave, inviting him away from the cold winter storm - feeling on-edge but hopeful. She cannot vocalize her apology but she manages something else, something still true - and it only seems fair to admit this piece of how he affects her. “I missed you.”
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
This is the time to strike. He need only reach out one long leg, draw the cub forward, and crush the life from its lungs. In his afternoon of magic, Gale has learned that Malik has none of his kinfolk’s regenerative healing. One death and he will be gone forever, his life snuffed out just as it began. Again.
The cub finds his way to the warm nest Mazikeen has just left, burying himself beneath the leaf litter and pine boughs.
Gale does not move at all.
The opportunity passes him by, the child is out of reach, and Mazikeen is coming closer. She presses her head against him, but he does not react at all. Nor does he respond to the affection in her touch or the brightness in her orange eyes as she beckons him deeper into the sleep warm cave.
He swears to himself that he will not follow meekly. Yet he does, steady and quiet and wordless. Follows her farther, till the bright light from the snowy entrance has faded and only the glow of their bodies light the inner stone of the mountain around them. He doesn’t stop when she does, but continues forward till he has her pinned against the rock.
“You have broken me.” He accuses, but the sound is muffled by the way he buries his face in her neck, and by the hungry kisses against her throat as he continues. “Bewitched me.”
He swears to himself that he will not go too far.
Already his plans had been dashed. He should have been devouring her, having whet his appetite with Malik. Plans require adaptation, but there are other ways to kill her, other ways to make her cry.
He swears he will not go too far, but like most of his promises when it comes to Mazikeen, he doesn't keep his word.
The Curse should punish her, but he pulls her closer instead, hasty and indelicate in his motions. He feels the magic first, the soft shimmer of it, but there is no time for teasing, no time for anything but melting into her and losing himself entirely.
“I think of nothing but you when we are apart,” he growls into her ear as she arches beneath him, and perhaps she will recognize it as the threat he wants it to sound like. But mostly it sounds like the truth that it is, as honest as the low moans of pleasure that follow as he makes it clear - without words this time - that he has missed her as well.
Mazikeen tracks Malik's movements to the warm nest on the far side of the cave in her periphery but Gale is the one who holds her attention. He remained stiff during her greeting, and she tries to remember how long it had taken her to forgive him after he had killed her. The first time it had stretched over the too-short summer, The second had been faster, but he had freed her that time too.
She can give him time, though she doesn’t want to. She wants to make up for the days they lost, wants to feel how alive he is and kiss every part of his body she’s turned blue.
Gale follows her inside and her heart continues to race. It’s not quite fear, Mazikeen has not yet felt that again in any significant way - the closest would be what had stormed through her during her flight from Islandres. She is not worried about him killing her, he either will or he won’t and she is confident in her ability to come back. Even when she is pinned against the wall she feels only desire, a low purr beginning as his mouth moves against her neck. She is delighted to have affected him this way but there’s no triumph to be felt just as there had been none when she had killed him. This is not a battle she has won - the trap she had set to ensnare him and bind him only to her has caught her too.
And now she knows she does not want to live without him.
When he pulls her close, she arches into him greedily - pressing her body against his as much as she physically can so he can feel the shudder that runs through her at his words. Threat or truth, real or not real, her response comes in a smoky, low voice. “You are all I want, now and forever.” And with him inside her, the desperate way they move together as their moans echo across the cave walls, she feels something close to real happiness again as she loses herself completely in this moment.
When she is breathless afterwards, Mazikeen does not allow much space between them. She places a kiss against Gale's neck where perlino meets that beautiful blue and whispers more truths into his skin. “I don’t want to be without you again.” And she doesn’t mean for days here and there, she means in the permanent way it had almost been. It is not quite a promise to never try again, just as she would not expect the same from him, but for now she will try and she hopes it is enough that they have bewitched and broken each other.
07-07-2021, 10:40 PM (This post was last modified: 07-08-2021, 07:16 PM by Gale.)
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
It is weak of him, but he believes her.
“Forever.” he repeats, and the heart that he did not have until he loved her pulses within his chest.
Once they are both satisfied, Gale does not fight her efforts to keep him close, and rolls onto his back so she might rest on him, and the danger of exposing his belly never even crosses his mind. He is growing complacent, but he is so deliriously happy that he doesn’t even care.
“No more death,” he promises, and really only means no more of her deaths. He will die, but he is no longer certain that she will kill him.
She might, but perhaps she might not.
Things change.
The Curse certainly has. Two living hearts beat inches from its mouth, but he’s not even paying attention to them.
His focus is elsewhere, on the way he uses the proximity Mazikeen had demanded to caress her. He sinks deep into the heat of her crimson-orange gaze, glassy-eyed and drunk on the way she feels and tastes and sounds.
“I love you,” he confesses as they come together a second time, and this time lacks the desperate reunion of the first. This time is slow, because the soft needy sounds that Mazikeen makes are muffling the Alarms at the confession - the realization - of this truth.
Mazikeen moves easily to rest on him when he turns over, smiling into his fur when he promises no more deaths and purring a soft agreement. She does not consider taking advantage of this position, only using it to fit her body into his as she lets contentment wash over her.
And then as they move together again, she leans her head into him and whispers back the words he tells her without hesitation. Her eyes are unfocused and hazy but it’s from this slow pleasure that seeps into every inch of her instead of the nearness of sleep like the last time she had said them. Mazikeen still isn’t sure that love is what this is, the way the darkness and flames inside her stir at his presence, but it is close enough that it must count. It does not bother her that she’s exchanged these words with a different Gale before, she is losing track of what she had felt for that kinder version. The blurred memories are not a drain on her anymore - and maybe she had been falling for the darkness inside him the whole time. She isn’t sure and she doesn’t care, the Mazikeen that was capable of worrying over that no longer exists.
She knows that it is both him and not-him that coaxes these needy sounds out of her - the same body, the same mouth, but a different soul altogether that inspires a thrill at the idea of being his and having him.
“No more deaths,” She repeats afterwards as she nips softly at his shoulder, tugging on the skin and not breaking it. “But we can still play rough.” Her red-orange eyes dance at this, the wicked slant of her grin making it plain that she’d enjoy it if they did. While she very obviously delights in every way they come together, the memory of when they hooked their claws into each other shines through her thoughts and she needs to turn her attention away so she can focus. When they aren’t in the mountains, they can see how loudly they can make each other roar and if the great rocky slopes will tremble - and then he can kiss the wounds he gives her until they heal.
Her eyes find Malik, only just visible in the nest where he sleeps. There is a feather of Gale’s there - one the Curse had given her once, when he was play-acting as the other. Mazikeen cannot remember why she kept it even though she discovered it had been given to deceive her. Perhaps she had just been scrambling at any piece of Gale she could keep, back when she worried about such things.
Now she is sure, now she has every piece of him - and now she knows she’ll do anything to keep him, the Curse, with her forever.
Last winter she had softer dreams of raising a family with Gale. Now there are edges to them but these dreams are no less delightful, and it pleases her to have her son back where he belongs - with them - and to get this second chance after wasting the one she had been given with Sickle. “What do you think he’ll be like?”
07-08-2021, 08:49 PM (This post was last modified: 07-09-2021, 12:54 PM by kahzie.)
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
Like the rest of the Curse, the heart it has is a black heart, and with it comes the darker emotions. He has never been jealous before, but he feels it now. He would slaughter anyone who dared touch her. He would even kill Gale a second time if he were able, he thinks. Picturing the way his host would have moaned in agony over the way Mazikeen is moaning in pleasure beneath him is a marvelous aphrodisiac, and he holds her tighter for it.
“I don’t want to see a bit of gold in my reflection by springtime.” He agrees. Her wicked grin is lit by the light that flares between them, and he must focus on her words by kneading circles into her back with the claws of his front legs
“Strong.” He says. “His abilities are more limited, but I am sure I can make him as capable a shifter as we are.” Gale has given this much thought, it is clear. If Bolder stays in Hyaline long enough, perhaps he can pit them against each other to encourage their conflict resolution skills. Then they’ll keep the boy who eventually wins. The best way to resolve conflict is a fight to the death, and neither of two cousins will survive a real death.
They’ll keep the strongest son.
He feels a strange desire that it be the soft black ball of fur that has fallen asleep in the leaves. He can just reach him if he stretches his paw out, and though he is clumsy the sleeping child is exhausted by the magic that has been wrought on him and will sleep like the dead for many hours still.
He means to nudge Malik toward Mazikeen, but following a large yawn, the cubs curls himself between them instead, his body resting across one of Gale’s golden forelegs. They lay like that for some time, and though Gale knows Malik sleeps and suspects Mazikeen does as well, he is unable to drift off.
When he can take it no longer and it seems Malik will never move to a position from which Gale can dislodge him without risking him waking up, he speaks. His words are quiet but firm, and it is clear that he expects Mazikeen to act in response to them.
Gale says Malik will be strong and Mazikeen has no doubt about that - their son could be nothing less. Fierce and wild, he could surely grow to bring Beqanna to its knees. She watches with a small grin as Gale reaches for the boy, clumsily bringing him over to them, and a small laugh escapes her when Malik uses a golden limb as a bed. They lie there for a while and she drifts in and out of sleep, not tired but lulled by the peace of the moment.
After a time, though, she begins to grow restless and no sooner has that thought come to her than Gale speaks, giving her an excuse to move. She grins as she rises to oblige him, gently picking Malik up with her mouth before moving and depositing him back in the nest. She rearranges the branches and leaves around him and over him. Had she not spent the time since Islandres resting in that same spot, perhaps she would have felt tempted to join him.
But after ensuring he is warm and protected, Mazikeen’s attention gravitates back to Gale. Her ears twitch, sensing a shift in the winds outside, and she rubs her body against his as she asks “Come outside with me? The storm has eased and I don’t feel like resting anymore." What they do out there she doesn’t care. They could talk, run, hunt, fuck, fight, play - or some combination. Perhaps she’ll even get to create a little more blue.
There is no concern about leaving Malik alone for a time - she’s sure they’ve left enough scent in this cave no wild animal would dare enter it. And if they did, if the boy was snatched up, then he was not as strong as they hoped and they would try again next year to see if they could create children worthy of being theirs.
Without so many emotions clouding her mind, Mazikeen is able to think with practicality that never existed for her before and she doesn’t even so much as look back to check on their son again before moving towards the entrance of the cave.
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
The boy settles easily into sleep, his mind and body wearied by the magic that his father had wrapped around him. Gale watches Malik for a moment longer and then hears Mazikeen’s voice against his ear. It is warm and soft and he purrs as he steps toward her only to find she’s up and heading toward the cave entrance.
Mazikeen had been right about the storm, but a light snow still falls around them.
The wind is gone too, and the sun hangs halfway to noon in the eastern sky. The thick stand of trees around the mouth of the cave has kept off the deepest of the snow, but Gale is still grateful for the thick coat of fur and feathers he has when he takes on his natural shape.
His magic is growing weaker, and it’s easier to not use it.
It’s been nearly a year since he’d killed her the first time, Gale thinks, and runs his lips along her shoulder.
A year since he’d begun to change.
He is strongest when he is wrathful, when he is furious, or when he can draw the dark emotions from those near him. Lately he has been none of those things, and Mazikeen has glowed beneath him for reasons other than rage.
“Being with you makes me weaker.” He tells her. “We are having too much fun.” There is nothing but good in the way she tastes as he kisses her cheek, and he thinks of holding her by the throat until she cries for mercy with a bright delight that illuminates and burns out the last of his shadowy magic.
Gale is still for a long time after that, but the benefits of infuriating Mazikeen, of hurting her with something other than his teeth and claws, never outweigh the warmth that comes from feeling her leaning against him.
”I need to find someone to make miserable.” It’s said casually, no different than if he’d announced a craving for mutton. “Let’s steal someone else.”
current appearance:glowing leopard -> glowing perlino stallion with lightning and iridescent navy blue scarring. forelimbs are those of a quetzalcoatlus, feathered in white with a red V shape in the feathers on the left
He follows her out into the snow-bright world and she follows him by shifting back into her natural shape. Mazikeen’s orange eyes instinctively trace the landscape of her home, ever-watchful though she does not believe there is much that could best her and Gale in a fight - even if they were surprised. The aftermath of the storm has left everything with a crisp blanket of snow, unmarked except for the short trail they made when they left the cave.
Her eyes may be on the landscape, but her mind is much closer - a smile forming at the sensation of his lips moving across her scarred shoulder. They are more obvious in this form than any other, the ridges of the grey scars that mark her. Almost a year ago she had been ashamed of the ones on her face and her chest but this Mazikeen only fluctuates between indifference and rage when she thinks of them now.
No more deaths, but he still owes her for the things he had taken.
For now these thoughts simmer in the back of her mind - easily pushed further back when he speaks against her cheek and her gaze finally drifts from the snow to him. Her orange eyes dance when she catches the feathered limbs and the red V adorning one. A reminder, along with the iridescent blue beginning to take over, that she is still capable of leaving a mark on him while they have their fun.
And that she could be a weakness too still delights her, along with a new thrill in hearing him state that he needs someone else to make miserable. Once she had wanted his attention to only be on her, to be the only victim.
Not anymore. If he needs to make someone else miserable to give him strength for whatever power is running through his veins now, she will help him make that happen. Mazikeen as she is now may enjoy being his weakness, may still want to kill him in a far-off future, but for now she finds his power to be intoxicating - and even when she had fumed in her stubbornness on Islandres she had enjoyed watching him. Gale had always been impressive, it is one of the things that has not changed since they first clashed in the Alliance.
There is little she’d deny him, and this is an easy thing to nod her agreement to as she stands with him. “Do you have anyone in particular in mind?” She asks, her voice as casual as his own has been as she grazes her muzzle idly against the skin of his perlino and navy neck. “Another relative? Or some fresher blood?”
Gale
