Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you
He’d seen the memory, and had skirted around it, recognizing the mare that Celina had shoved into the Pangean river. Nashua’s mother, whose name he does not know and about whom he is infinitely curious. He’d avoided the memory not because he does not want to see it (he will, later, if @[Eyas] allows him a later) but because there are other things that he must force his often-wandering mind to focus on.
Gale waits for her answer, unaware that his breathing has grown still. She turns it back on him immediately, which causes Gale to scowl. While he has practiced keeping better control of his facial expression, Gale has never been good at it and never considered trying in front of Eyas. She’d always known Gale’s one lie from the two truths in their childhood games, been able to pinpoint when he’s trying to conceal something. So he doesn’t bother, and even scuffs worriedly at the sand with a hoof. Even though he’d meticulously planned what to say in this moment, it is suddenly very hard to force those well-rehearsed words from his mouth.
The silence stretches on until she breaks it with more questions.
That last one has an easy answer, so he tells her: “They disappeared after the Alliance, along with my horns.” The brindle shakes his head, which has only recently finally begun to not feel impossibly light. The absence of familiar traits – wings he was born with – had occupied him for some time, after all, one of the many reasons for the distance he worries has come between them.
“And I…” He takes a reassuring breath, but it’s a short one, and he continues. “And I’ve started shifting. Shapeshifting into everything, just like he did.” There is much more to say, he knows, but at this he pauses. His blue eyes remain on the ground, but with a moment of concentration his white wings reappear at his sides, looking almost exactly like they always had. Almost, because from the wrist of his right wing now stretches a crimson V, uneven and asymmetrical just like the blood that had dripped from the wound Mazikeen had torn open.
Gale feels better with them back, he decides, and rather than add his horns he instead waits for Eyas to respond.
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