"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
Perhaps, she says, and Gale laughs aloud. How quickly he’d pinned his hopes on her reaction, and the relief of not being rebuffed entirely is itself a realization. He wants her to be fond of him, Gale thinks, and he’s already gone and told her as much. That feels less convenient than it should, somehow, and as he takes advantage of the silence to take her in again, he attempts to puzzle out why.
That he is one of a slew of admirers, Gale is quite certain; one does not become a Champion without drawing appreciative eyes. That is for the best, he thinks, following the line of her mane up as it turns from black to white. With what waits for him, dreams of anything beyond friendship are futile, doomed even.
So he smiles, and decides to be grateful for what he does have, and when she asks about a delay, replies:“Well…”And then immediately pauses as if he must decide which of his many objections to voice first. There are many of them, if he is honest. Yet even together they do not overwhelm the desire that her question had stoked. He does want to fight, to test his strength against hers, to pin her down in the sand, to see how close he can get to the soft parts of her throat, and he doesn’t continue that line of thinking but he is very sure it ends in a way that it definitely can’t.
Continue to delay the match it is.
“Last time, we were fighting to win the Alliance,” he finally says, his eyes narrowed pensively as he pointedly looks out to where the waves crash instead of where his mind had so recently wandered. “What’s the prize this time? I don’t want to get dirty just for bragging rights…” Here he glances back, just under his white forelock, and says in what is undoubtedly a playful taunt: “I’ve already got those.”
His mention of already having bragging rights is just to tease her, and she’s sure it’s not malicious, but her smile falters for just a moment before she can catch it. Mazikeen hopes the sting of having lost will fade in time - indeed, the fact that it is just a sting and not an all-consuming rage is actually progress. It shouldn't bother her so much and she is vaguely aware that being so affected by failure is a weakness that will undoubtedly cause her problems.
Here, on this tropical island, after this day, she is able to (mostly) shake off these thoughts and she easily discovers a smile again as she considers Gale's question - and reminds herself that it is okay to have lost to someone who's laughter and presence has ended up bringing her such joy.
A prize for the rematch, though? Her eyes move away from the blue stallion to consider the surroundings, looking for inspiration. But in the near-darkness, her feline eyes cannot discover the answers she seeks and they slide back to Gale’s face before long.
Every idea of a prize that comes to her as she looks him over is embarrassing or ridiculous. Or both.
“Well... if I win, bragging rights is enough for me.” Now it’s her turn to wink, orange eyes dancing as she takes a single step forward. Which, naturally, does nothing to calm her heart. “But as for what prize I could offer you, Gale.” There’s just the slightest pause after she says his name, and again she feels that flicker of fire across her skin. “You’d have to tell me.”
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
He regrets teasing her the moment her smile falters, and the mischief in his bright eyes dims as he pulls his head up and shakes his pale forelock aside. He’s still smiling though, because sometimes Eyas acts falsely offended before coming back with a strong offense.
When Mazikeen says nothing, and instead looks away, Gale’s smile does fall, and a frown replaces it. That’s gone long before she meets his gaze, because he is so easily entranced by the way she searches the darkness around them. Her eyes are feline again, and the same thrill of emotion that had ran up his spine at her lupine head on the Plains brushes along the back of his neck. He hadn’t been able to name it then, but he can now. It’s fear, the instinctive reaction to a predator. It is gone as quickly as he named it, met with rising adrenaline hastened by the way Gale’s heart beats faster when she draws near.
She winks, and his mouth goes dry with something far more pleasurable than fear. The space between them seems to shrink, or perhaps Gale only imagines it as he struggles to keep from leaning nearer. It’s like shaking off a dream, though he’s never had a dream he’s wanted to keep hold of as much as he does this. But it is a dream, because he cannot have it. So he lets out a long, slow breath, and looks away.
“I…” He starts, and trails off. The words won’t come, at least not the ones that he should say, and he stops trying after a brief struggle. He doesn’t attempt to meet her gaze, though his expression is rueful. “I…I need to think about it.” He looks briefly down the shoreline in the darkness (Erne turning the opposite way at precisely the same time). There are no horses nearby, and he finds that the longer he keeps his attention away from the white mare in front of him, the easier it was for his thoughts to focus on anything but telling her the very first thought that had come to his mind when he thought of what she might offer him.
“You’re not at your best, anyway.” he continues, finding that filling the air with words feels just a little better than silence. “Wouldn’t be fair to fight you with a handicap.” he shrugs, and the words are as light as the smile he only half tries to don. He’s coming up with excuses exactly like she’d accused him of doing, and he knows it.
But that’s better than leaning forward and brushing away the seawater that still trickles down her neck. It must be cold in the mid-winter wind, and he opens his mouth to offer to keep her warm with his wings, and then closes it. A poor idea for more than the reason that he currently lacks wings, and that she’s the ability to grow any coat of her pleasing. There’s no saving the awkwardness of that, and he continues: “And anyway, you need rest, and I need to talk to my family about…” He gestures to the place his wings had been earlier, his eyes gone somber over his smile.
The same confusing mixture of relief and disappointment Mazikeen felt earlier, when Gale did not close the gap between them, floods her again when he looks away and says he needs to think about what his prize would be. She still watches him as he looks down the shoreline and her orange gaze softens as it traces his outline in the near-dark.
She laughs a little when he mentions her state and how it wouldn’t be fair to fight now but the sound feels faint to her and she cannot figure out why.
The truth is that although she’s craving space in order to be able to breathe and think clearly again, she’s sad they've come to the end of this day. Even though she’d been hoping there would be more excuses to delay their fight, even if only to have a reason to find each other again, she knows would fight without hesitation no matter what her condition. Maybe he knows that too. If it is pity that inspires him, she does not feel the usual bitterness associated with that feeling.
“Okay. Yes, you’re right, of course. I... I should go home… and rest.” Mazikeen is aware that she does not necessarily want to leave but it makes the most sense. She’s spent a long time away from Hyaline as it is and she does have a duty to protect the kingdom and scout the borders before she could even think about resting.
When his eyes grow sombre and he mentions talking to his family, she nods her understanding. Words tumble out of her practically of their own free will, and they are such a small pathetic thing for her to offer compared to what he may be facing. “I hope you’re not cursed, Gale. But if you are - I’m not afraid of it.” The gentle and stubborn way she says ‘it’, she really means ‘you’. She means there is no Curse that could keep her away from him. But those exact words she is too nervous to say out loud.
Before she can let her nerves completely get the better of her, Mazikeen closes the gap between them and reaches out to touch her muzzle to his once more - and if he’ll let her, she holds it there for a few (annoyingly shaky) breaths. Her orange eyes flutter closed at the contact, and she savours it. She imagines what it would be like to touch more of him, to caress the slope of his neck and see if his muscles would twitch beneath her touch the way hers did just under his gaze. She could trace the lines of his brindling across his powerful body. Inexperience and uncertainty keep her to this simple touch though - one they’ve already shared.
It takes more effort than she’ll admit, even to herself, to open her eyes again and step away. The black osprey wings are back on her sides in a blink and a smile lights up her expression again. She prepares to leave, unfurling her wings, but her gaze does not break from him for a moment longer.
“I’ll see you soon.”
It’s not phrased as a question - she does not want to allow the possibility of a ‘no’.
