"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
The mountain kingdom is the only home that Malik knows. The craggy peaks, deep valleys, and moonglow lake are as familiar to him as the markings along his forelegs. He has spent all of the childhood he recalls here in the peaks of Beqanna, and cannot imagine a life beyond the high winds and the comfort of his Pack.
He thinks of them - his friends - this way while he wears the shape of a massive black wolf, prowling through the shallow snow in the forest.
There’d been a Pack in Hyaline once, he knows, back when his mother was the Alpha instead of the Queen, and there had been less fear in Hyaline. Malik had never known that world, but he likes his just fine, and likes to think that if the Pack were to return, it would be all the stronger for it.
He’ll need to be stronger too, he knows. That awareness had driven him to the mountain, and secured him a quest through which he means to do so. Of course, completing that quest was something else entirely, so when he had come home, he’d immediately started looking for his mother.
Malik had caught her trail near the northern river, and has followed it past the high cliffs and into the well-forested mountains. He is catching up, that he is sure of, and she is also making no effort to hide her trail.
When he sees her - through shifted eyes able to pick out white coat on white snow - Malik calls out: “Mom!” and increases his pace. By the time he reaches her, the melanistic leopard has become instead a horse, just as dark and striped as he’d been as a cat. THe thick ruff of feathers along his neck glistens in the dim sunlight reflected from the snow, and his bi-colored eyes are as bright as the horns (now pronged with adolescence) that grow from near his ears.
“I went to the Mountain,” he tell her, and then waits to see her response. He’s sought her out for a reason rather than his father. Gale is vocal in his distrust of the Fae and Fairy kind, but Mazikeen has far less bias.
She had been aware that she was being tailed for a while and a smile warms Mazikeen’s expression when Malik finally calls out. When she turns to face him in the snow, she does her best not to let it falter. Looking at him becomes a little easier every day though it is still not easy. Although he seems to be no worse off for being raised by a darker version of herself and The Curse, she still mourns for what might have been and all the missed chances at getting to know him as he grew. All the bits she had learned and witness had been brushed off at the time but now she treasures those memories.
And the absence of Sickle weighs even more heavily on her when she is with him, all the worst because he does not know there is a twin to miss. The tangled mess of their lives may take years to sort out, if they ever manage it at all.
But you don’t have to do it alone, Mazikeen tells herself. She repeats this in her mind often, several times in a day. Whenever her thoughts turn treacherous and she wonders if it is better for her to run and leave them all behind. It takes little to send these impulses away - a smile, a gentle touch. Reminders that she does not enjoy being on her own, that she is glad that they decided to stay.
The bright expression in Malik’s eyes as he approaches gives her no time to brood. He announces that he’s been to the Mountain and her bright eyes widen in surprise. The interest she speaks with is not false “Oh yeah? How did it go?” He could still shift, which was something. So he was already off to a better start than she had been for her quest.
Malik cannot miss a life he never lived, and when he looks up to meet his mother’s orange gaze it is with nothing less than adoration. Mazikeen is the only mother he has known, and so she is the best mother. She is a powerful shifter, a queen, the most beautiful woman in the world, and he is so very proud of her. As proud as he is of his father, but significantly less likely to inspire inexplicable terror in the adolescent shifter when he looks at her.
All children are sometimes afraid of their parents, Malik has reasoned; the world is not a place for the weak, so they have taught him to be strong.
He doesn’t step closer, but he does smile, and finds that as he meets her eyes he need not look quite so high as before. The feathers around his neck flare out with pride, pleased with himself and his growth, even if it truly means nothing more than the passing of time.
“I have to bring back to the fairies pieces of the things that I wish to become.” A feather, a claw, something that glitters and catches his eye, they had said. His mother seems surprised, but not upset, so he decides to push his luck a little farther.
“So I was thinking...maybe we could go and find a dragon?” It would certainly be an incredibly ambitious first attempt, but despite his unorthodox raising Malik has never stood the slightest chance of being anything less than bold.
Mazikeen doesn’t know if it was anything more than luck that kept Malik and Bolder safe from her wrath, but she is grateful for whatever made it so he looks at her now with something other than fear.
Her smile deepens as she watches the feathers around Malik’s neck flare out. He is taller, getting closer to being grown, but she cannot help the way she reflects back on the first time he’d done that when he’d been so little. It doesn't matter how old he gets, she's still going to see her young son in him a little bit.
A soft laugh escapes her at Malik’s first choice for where he starts with his quest, but the sound is surprised and not mocking. She’s proud of this bold boy and his courage. It would be easy to gather things from animals they saw every day here in Hyaline. But Malik’s setting his sights a little higher.
Her expression turns thoughtful and she tilts her head a little to the side as she considers the parameters of his quest. “Does it have to be a wild one? Or would a dragon shifter work?” She’s not sure where they could find one that wasn’t her. Or, at least, she isn’t sure where they could go that they would be welcome.
These thoughts raise another question. “And do you need to take it by force, or can it be given?”
Mazikeen asks if a shifter might satisfy his quest rather than immediately tell him no, and Malik’s dark ears prick up as his tail flicks in excitement. That he doesn’t know the answer doesn’t seem especially important. He does remember that the fairy had emphasized he must work hard to get it, overcoming obstacles, stealing, or bargaining.
He tells his mother this, and then shares with her the idea that he’s had: “I was thinking maybe we could find a baby one, and I could keep it. And if it’s a shifter, they could maybe stay in Hyaline too?”
This last he says hesitantly, knowing that his first pet has already outstayed her welcome. Yet Anath remains in Hyaline, which gives the boy the hope that perhaps he will be allowed another. There has been a change in his mother’s behavior, and Malik is hopeful this might mean more leniency in other ways.
Her second question is more difficult to answer, and not only because he cannot recall if the fairy had clarified.
Isn’t force the best way to get things? It is certainly the quickest way, and skirmishes are the way most small disagreements in Malik’s world are handled. The strongest always wins, and so is always right.
Would bargaining really work? Would it be as fun as taking things by force?
Malik frowns, and the black striped colt considers what might be worth bargaining for the ability to shift into anything at all.
“Do you think anybody would want to trade something for Myrna?”
Her grin grows a little at Malik’s idea - it doesn’t surprise her at all that this was what he had been thinking. “Sure. If it’s a shifter it gets a choice, though.” She adds on, growing a little more serious. Malik’s friend Anath was a problem Mazikeen kept putting off. The challenge she had given the girl was just a way to keep her occupied, there had never been an intention of keeping her. It seemed cruel to delay the inevitable but for now it was a conversation she would avoid until she no longer could.
Just like the phoenix twins she had tricked and stolen.
Her stomach twists uncomfortably but Malik’s question earns a small laugh and Mazikeen shakes her head. “We’re not trading your sister. Your father on the other hand...” This joke costs her, though, and Mazikeen turns her head to scan the mountains in order to hide the shadows that pass over her face.
Maybe one day she'll be able to casually mention Gale but she should've known it wouldn't be yet. Not while everything is still so raw inside of her, all her returned emotions so bright and overwhelming.
When she turns back to Malik, there’s a sheen to her orange eyes but, she thinks she’s got the rest of her face under control as she offers up an idea. “I’ve ever seen a wild dragon. But we could check some of the caves near the sea? And then the common lands after that.”
The boy’s bicolored eyes flick back and forth across his mother’s face, reading her emotions with practiced ease. It is safest to know their emotions, Malik had learned early, and neither of his parents were very good at hiding them. She is amused by his tentative suggestion, but the emphasis on allowing a shifter a choice is equally genuine.
Malik nods agreeably. They will be given a choice first, that is right. “And then after, if they make the wrong choice, then we get to make them stay.” The black colt nods to himself as he speaks, knowing that this is the way of things.
Mazikeen laughs at the suggestion of trading away Myrna, and Malik wonders if perhaps she is not worth a dragon shifter. He’s never seen her turn into a dragon, after all, and she is still very small. Maybe when she is older? His mother suggests trading away his father instead, and Malik’s orange and blue eyes watch with eagle-like intensity when she glances away.
He has not asked about his father, but Malik knows he has left Hyaline. Suspects, also, that he is not coming back, but has not yet been bold enough to ask.
When Mazikeen turns back to him, she has done a good job of smoothing the emotions from her face. He can still see the way her orange-again eyes are overbright and glittering, and knows that now is not a good time to ask where Gale has gone. There is no indication of this awareness on his own face, which still wears a smile. A smile that brightens when his mother suggests the caves beside the sea.
“Let’s go!” He says, shifting his weight excitedly from side to side. What shape should he take, he wonders? A leopard? A bear? An eagle? Whatever his mother takes, he decides, surely she knows how to battle a dragon!
There remains a small frown on Mazikeen’s face as Malik states that they will make the theoretical shifters stay if they choose otherwise. She doesn’t argue this point, not yet. This is a lesson that she imagines will be hard to get her son to unlearn. Whatever good Wishbone had done for him had been erased when he’d spend his second first-year of life here in Hyaline.
He does not remark on the shift in her mood after she had brought up his father, so Mazikeen thinks she's done a good job of covering up. It is easy to forget how observant she had been when she was Malik's age, noticing her mother's moods and choosing to wander on her own instead of pretending not to notice the way Agetta sank into quiet sadness.
Now Mazikeen is grateful for Malik's excitement and she lets it take root inside of her. Easing that too-bright look in her eyes and turning her smile more genuine than mask-like.
She could turn into a dragon now, and maybe it would be handy to be one to hunt its own kind, but she chooses the shape of an eagle instead. The shape of a golden eagle but her feathers are crisp and white, only her feet and the tips of her wings deepening to black. This is something strong but small enough to quickly dodge should they actually find what they seek. And she knows Malik will be able to pick this shape as well, if he wanted.
So with an encouraging yip she flaps her wings and takes off, heading north towards the sea. There are many nooks and crannies there, and once they arrive she encourages Malik to take the lead and look. She remains close, though - just in case he sticks his head in the den of an actual dragon.
Sure of his own knowledge, Malik does not suspect that the small frown his mother retains is his doing. He’s accustomed to firm corrections when he’s been wrong before, usually verbal. Occasionally less so when his father was in a foul mood. He is not especially concerned by Gale’s absence, and so it is an easy topic to avoid, especially when it distresses his mother, and detains them from a hunt.
So Malik turns himself into an eagle, sanguine and certain that the pair of them will successfully capture a dragon for Hyaline today, even if it requires force.
The young shifter is not as large a bird as his mother, taking the familiar shape of a long-crested eagle rather than match her exactly. His coloring is as dark as hers is pale - iridescent black stripes on black feathers, and when they soar north together he is quite like her shadow in every way.
Malik can feel the excitement growing in his chest. This feels different, somehow, than the other hunts he has taken with Gale and Mazikeen. This time, they are not looking for a meal - rabbits, grouse, rock lambs - or for sport - the wolves, the bears, his other parent. They’re hunting down a dragon, and when they do, perhaps Malik will take some of its magic, and perhaps that is how he will learn to shift better. He knows that his father takes something intangible from his kills, even if Malik was not yet old enough to hunt horses with him, Malik wonders if he has inherited that ability. He hopes he has.
They reach the sea, grey-green and churning, and Malik dives toward the water. The wind rushes through his feathers and the salt stings his bicolored eyes, but he laughs at the surge of adrenaline that comes from pulling up just before he hits the water. The boy is not yet a skilled flyer, but he is rather proud of how quickly he can pull up from a dive in this shape, so he glances sidelong at his mother to be sure she has witnessed his most impressive feat.
The northern cliffs loom over him now, caves and crannies hidden in their dark depths. There is one larger than the others, and that is where he searches first. Something had lived here, he sees, something that had left the old bones of rock sheep and seals littered across the floor of the cave. Very old bones, he thinks; there is no flesh left on them at all. Undiscouraged, he leaps from the cliff edge, and resumes searching.
In the end, it is not a dragon that he finds.
It is a wyvern, its scales so dark a shade of blue-green that they seemed black in the dim light of the cave. Larger than Malik even in horse form, it towers over the young black eagle. It lunges for him, certain he is here to steal its recently caught fish dinner, and Malik lets out a startled cry.
Maybe she shouldn’t like the coast anymore, but she does. This isn’t so much ‘the last place she died’ as it is ‘where she was saved’. Or, part of where because that had really begun in the forest. A familiar, cautious hope flutters in her stomach as her wings move at a more slow, even pace. She is enjoying the flight with her son. Enjoying the idea of a hunt that will not end in blood. Or, not much. Hopefully.
The sea stretches before them and Mazikeen inhales deeply, letting a smile grow while her mind drifts. Her face brightens to see Malik twist into a dive over the waves and she releases a proud eagle-call when he pulls upwards at the last second, her grin growing a little more when she catches him glancing to see if she had noticed.
As they begin to search, she remains close, but not hovering-close. While Malik checks out the large cave she scopes out a few decent-looking cracks nearby, peering in and finding only a few disgruntled bats.
Malik’s startled cry has Mazikeen moving instantly. She twists backwards and is already shifting into a large white dragon as she enters the cave behind Malik. “Feline. Now.” Her voice is a soft growl as smoke curls from her nostrils. She wants him to be something quick and agile that will enable him to leap out of the way without the fragile bones in a wing. Without checking to see if he follows this instruction, she bellows a challenge to the wyvern clearly flustered by this turn of events.
Mazikeen hates to think that not very long ago, she would’ve hung back. She would have waited to see what Malik would do, and she might not have ever intervened. Not now, though. It is only defending its dinner but she is defending something far more precious to her. So she wrestles with the creature until she has it pinned, holding it down with her weight and a clawed arm at its throat.
“Malik? How do you feel about being able to turn into a wyvern?” She asks once she’s sure it won’t be able to slip easily out from her grasp, the words coming between heaving breaths as her orange eyes search the darkness for him.
Malik
