[private] heaven help me for the way I am

[Gale]

Gale it's hard to keep a straight face when i just want to smile -- starlight crashing through the room, we'll lose our feathers His eyes turn up to the flames overhead, their glow warming the beach around them and casting red and orange light on the black sand. The reflection flickers in his brilliantly blue eyes for a long moment, dissapeareing only as his expression breaks into a smile to mirror her own. He’d made her laugh, even if it’d come with a roll of her eyes, and her feels victorious. The emotion that flutters in his chest is a bit like the sensation of landing a good blow in battle, Gale decides, but somehow softer and also better. He can see his mother as she says it, but her navy mane had blown across her mouth at that moment, and Gale’s memories are all entirely without sound. This is friendship, he decides, and it causes a bright spark in Maizkeen’s orange eyes because she feels it too. Her offer is met with a tilt of his head, and only after she’s rushed out an explanation does he allow his shoulders to shake in amusement, his feathers chortling softly against each other as he speaks. “I didn’t think you meant that,” he reassures her, and then continues in an effort to show that he would not be opposed to being friends: “But you could do either, really. I would appreciate the island watching though. Erne is as tired as I am, I think.” Overhead, a shrill screech echoes into the darkness. The osprey is visible only when he crosses over the distant sun, and it is clear he flies ever higher and farther away. He will rest up there, Gale knows, carried by the highest of winds. From where they stand on the south eastern beach, the rest of Beqanna was visible. Or rather, it would be, spreading from tephra to the east to ischia in the south, if the world around them were not dark. “They’ll come from the mainland if they come,” he says, gesturing in the direction he means. “I think, anyway. I’ve not seen any that haven’t yet.” Mazikeen’s desire to fight with the monsters does not surprise him. No one could champion a kingdom without a certain amount of brash self-confidence. Gale has that himself in spades. Friendship races down his spine like a shock of electricity, heating the very edges of his skin as Mazikeen begins to look amused again, and Gale’s blue face smooths in pleased contentment. It has been a very long time since he’d shared the responsibility of watching Islandres with anyone other that Erne, and the realization that he is willing to trust Mzikeen with it is almost as delightful as the freedom that comes from putting down the weight. “Make sure you don’t get beat up too bad,” he says, his eyelids heavy as he fights off his headache even while smiling. He can’t seem to stop smiling, a symptom of friendship he is sure, and teases: “I want to be sure we fight without handicaps.” Then, trying and failing to muffle a yawn, he begins to turn away to rest. @[Mazikeen]