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.
@[Mazikeen]
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