"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
A few days have passed but Mazikeen isn’t quite used to the natural cycle of day and night again. Dusk brings a soft flutter of anxiety to her heart as she wonders whether this night will stretch on for years or if the sun will return again as it has for the last few mornings. She hopes this feeling will go away soon - she certainly does not need anything else contributing to her anxiety lately.
Today, the afternoon is growing late and everything is washed in golden light as Mazikeen finds her way to a boulder. She’s wearing one of her newest favourite shapes - a smilodon. She keeps her white colouring with black paws and the elongated canine that is chipped in half. In this form, she’s about the same size as a lion - just undeniably more muscular.
It pleases her to know that the shape might deter strangers but anyone who knows her will recognize the colouring.
The rock she finds rises just above the tips of the long grass and Mazikeen lowers herself into a sphynx position upon its warm surface, smiling a little as she flexes her front paws before relaxing. It’s a small pleasure, enjoying the sun rays again, and one she happily indulges in when she can. It’s easier to keep the storm of her thoughts away while basking, easier to let her mind empty and give her some peace (even if it’s never for long).
Instinct doesn’t allow her to close her eyes, though. She both doesn’t want to give anyone the chance to sneak up on her and (though it’s a little silly) wants to take in the world in colour as much as possible before the sun sets again. So those burning orange eyes remain open, unfocused on the glint of sunlight on the leaves of the nearby forest.
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
Firion prefers the night these days—if only because everything in his bones now sings for it. A cruel trick, he thinks, to make him crave the thing that nearly killed him. But the sun gives him a headache that does not fully abate and he finds his skin crawls when it reaches its peak, setting his teeth on edge. Even his new powers do little to dull the sense of dread, the wrongness that settles in his bones, and he wonders if the world enjoys giving him gifts to rip it away. Replacing his curse with magic that draws him back to the time of his nightmares. Forcing him to live in the hours that once housed the very worse of him.
Today, he fights it, staying awake during the day and finding relief when the sun began its descent.
The twilight that is promised in the later afternoon is welcome, and as he walks amongst the crowds who have gathered to cherish the returned sun, he sighs deeply. It’s only when he sees the familiar coloring that he pauses at all, peering through the shadows to study the extinct animal sunning itself. His magic reaches out without thought, responding to his curiosity more than anything, touching the barest edges of her mind as though to confirm that it is indeed Mazikeen before him—that he wasn’t seeing things.
When he feels that confirmation, he isn’t sure whether it draws him forward or sends him back.
So, instead, he remains stone still, his golden face falling into harsh lines—guilt bleeding into rage, dissolving into a desperate need to flee. The muddled confusion of it burns like coals in his gut but, despite his better judgment, he begins to walk toward her. Without thinking, he turns incorporeal, his edges becoming translucent and as immaterial as heat waves rising up on a summer day. His shadow follows doggedly behind him as he floats forward, eyes as sharp as ever, even in this form. Once he is several yards away, he stops, magic roiling in his gut and coming off him in thunderous waves.
“You’ll understand why I wanted to make sure you could not touch me this time.”
A half-joke that loses its humor on the sharpened edge of his voice.
Then, just a dip of his head, before he acknowledges her fully,
“Mazikeen.”
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
Mazikeen had looked for Firion after their last encounter, though she would never willingly admit it. For the most part, it had only been to the guilt that had plagued her after her anger had subsided. Her memory of her attack was hazy and while she thought she had seen him begin to heal after pushing her away she could not say for sure. She just wanted a glimpse of gold to let her know he wasn’t dead. That she hadn’t killed him. The glimpse hadn’t come, and then the sun broke and a million other things distracted her from her search.
So there’s a brief moment now, when she first sees Firion, where her only reaction is relief. It shines there long enough for a smile, true and soft, to appear in her eyes before the rest of her emotions collapse in on her and it fades away.
She’s a little surprised when he comes closer. Mazikeen’s instinct is to rise to her feet, to ready herself, but she checks herself instead - forcing her body to lower back down to the rock after she’s only risen an inch or so. She isn’t sure why - perhaps just as a false peace offering. A way to pretend she’s not a threat this time or maybe she just needs the hard surface of the rock to ground her.
It feels like every muscle in her body has turned into stone she’s so tense - though she does her best to keep up the appearance of being relaxed as she nods back to his greeting. “Hi Firion.” As though they’re old friends.
There’s an apology ghosting around in her mind but she isn’t sure how to say it. Isn’t sure she’s going to want to say it in a moment if their history has taught her anything. Instead, she says something else that’s true, a ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of her feline mouth. “I’m glad you’re alive.” Her eyes narrow a little bit then, taking in his incorporeal form fully. Although she had heard his initial words she had been too distracted by the fact that he was willingly approaching her to really let them sink in, but they do now. “You’re doing this? Are you alive?” Or is he a ghost, here to haunt her? She'd certainly deserve it and it would fit the theme with how things have been going lately.
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
He notes the way she stiffens and then settles, his perception so much sharpened since he had been given these gifts. it is as though the veil had been ripped off and he was seeing things clearly for the first time—as though this was the truest reality of them all. As though he could finally understand the world as it was and not just his limited view of it. There was something comforting about that.
Something disconcerting too.
Firion gives no sign that he picks up on these things and instead just angles his head at her, the light passing through him and causing him to internally wince. “Am I alive?” he echoes, his voice nearly amused, lifting up on the edges as he ponders it. His lips purse. “You know how to ask the impossible questions, don’t you, Mazikeen?” But there is enough humor on his face to soften the sharp tone.
He wonders, sometimes, if he was actually alive. If this was all some fever dream. If he had finally succumbed to the curse. If he had lived his life and was not destined to haunt these same hills. Destined to walk over the same paths he had run as a young man and stumbled over in his half-dead form. A shiver races up his spine and he squashes down the fear he feels with a cruelty he reserves for himself.
“You did your best to ensure that I was not alive last time you saw me,” he muses, his body forming and reshaping into the last form he had worn before her. Torn into shreds. Flaps of skin hanging loosely from him. Bloodied smile, one scratch dangerously close to his golden eyes. He remains as that for a breath of time before he becomes himself again, this time appearing behind her in a plume of golden dust.
“But I am indeed alive.”
A chuckle, humorless.
“Apologies for that. I know you must be so disappointed.”
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
It hurts to see Firion shift into the state he had been in at their last meeting and Mazikeen winces but does not allow herself to look away for the short moment it is there. She takes it all in, the guilt is both a weight on her and a rot that chews at her from the inside. She’d done that. Even if she had not been completely in control of her actions while she was doing it, she had wanted to hurt him to cover up the pain he had caused her.
In the end, though, she had left no scars on him and she felt stupid for letting his touch inspire such a strong reaction.
She stands immediately when Firion disappears, and she only has a short moment to frown at the now-empty space and then she spins around when his voice continues behind her. Mazikeen is more curious than she is rattled but a few glowing cracks flicker into existence down her spine in the now-familiar irritation that Firion’s presence brings. She steps off of the boulder and shifts into herself with her new, curving horns adorning her head as her orange eyes roll. The smile that had been there before he had shown her the damage she’d done no longer teasing up the corner of her mouth.
“I just said I was glad, Firion.” She still spits out his name like it's a curse, even as she admits that she actually was glad to see he had survived both her and the eclipse. “Of the two of us, I’m not the one with the habit for lying.” Which is a lie itself - but Firion wasn’t in much danger of further falsehoods, she usually reserved those for herself.
That apology flickers through her mind again but she brushes it aside. It might matter to her but she cannot think it would matter much to him, and it’d only give him something else to tease her about. Besides, her curiosity easily bests the instinct to apologize and she tilts her head - trying, and failing, to keep the interest out of her sharp voice. “You’re full of new tricks today, I see.”
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
It had always been a little too easy to get under Mazikeen’s skin. A little too easy to prod her into action—push her into reacting. He isn’t sure what it is about her that pushes him away from the easy persona that he usually likes to wear. What encourages him to act so cruel and biting, but he cannot deny that there is a part of her that gets under his skin too. Something about her seeing him perhaps a little too clearly. Seeing what lies beneath the facade of him and seeing it for the fake, cheap thing that it always was.
Still, he holds onto it today.
Her anger settles him, soothes in him in a way—as though he could distract her with annoyance so that she did not look too closely at him again. His lips spread into a lazy smile, something a little too similar to the father who raised him, and his golden ears perk toward her amongst the brambles of his wild mane.
“I don’t think I believe you,” he drawls with that same cool smile, holding himself far enough away that she could not reach him with tooth and claw—at least not quickly. “But I appreciate the lie all the same.” He winks just as she calls him out for his own penchant for falsehoods and he laughs, ignoring the shiver of being discovered that races up his spine. If only she knew, he thinks, of all the lies that he has told.
But she doesn’t, he reminds himself.
She couldn’t.
So he just shrugs. “I have always been full of tricks, if you knew where to look.” Not entire true, but not entirely wrong either. Could he call the curse a trick? Gods, he wish that he could. It would have been so much easier to swallow if it had only been a trick of the light. “What trick would you like to see today?”
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
Hadn’t Mazikeen been in a good mood a few short moments ago? She’s pretty sure she was - when she was sunbathing and keeping her worries as far away from her mind as possible, which had been easy to do. Now, her worries are still far away but it’s not warm sunshine filling up her mind, it’s growing irritation. Firion informing her that he doesn’t believe that she was glad he was alive inspires a few more of the glowing markings to appear on her white coat, feeding off of the growing anger, and then that damn wink inspires a few more. This is new to her, these glowing markings displaying her anger, and as she narrows her eyes at the golden stallion she doesn’t notice them.
She’s lost whatever ability she once had at keeping her emotions out of her expression, having them also display on her coat just seems cruel.
She thinks about how once she’d managed to get a true laugh out of him, and how nice that sound had been. The laughter he greets her with now doesn’t sound that way. Mazikeen almost wishes she hadn’t shifted back into a horse so she could dig her claws into the soft earth just to have something to hold onto with them. She doesn't want to attack him again - she knows how badly she'll feel afterwards and she's already losing the battle with letting her irritation show, she doesn't want it to get worse.
How is it years later and she’s still so easily needled by him while he stands there with that stupid lazy smile, as unaffected by her as always.
When he asks what trick she’d like to see, she doesn’t think it’s a genuine offer. Mazikeen is powerfully curious about what else he can do, and yet instead of a real request she quickly snaps out the first thing that comes to her mind “Shoving that smirk up your own ass would be a great place to start.” And once the words are out, a little bit of that smile returns to her burning gaze.
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
His golden eyes flick to the markings that begin to glow on her. On the new horns that curve wickedly around her skull. His lips quirk upward in the corner, noting them and not saying anything—at least not yet. It would seem that he’s not the only only with new tricks up his sleeve and he tucks that away for later. The kind of information that he could see coming in useful, even though he has no idea how.
Instead he watches her with a bland expression, yawning as though the entire thing bored him.
Why did he insist on stoking the fire? Hadn’t he come over here with every intention of making nice? He doesn’t remember—not anymore. All it had taken was one spitfire look from her and he was ready to push her into a fight all over again. Ready to let her work out whatever anger was clearly simmering in her.
Ready to find an outlet for his anger too.
He keeps that banked down though—at least for now. He just watches her with a bemused expression, lifting his eyebrows slightly at her request. “Well there are a lot of interpretations to that request and not all of them pleasant to do in front of a lady.” He purses his lips. “But seeing as there are none of those around, I suppose I can grant your requests.” He laughs again, shrugging his shoulders in a nearly sheepish gesture before he snaps his own neck, body falling limp to the ground.
His magic buzzes like static on his skin, the death calling to it with a seductive kind of whisper.
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
He yawns and she can feel it needle her a little more, and she cannot help but wonder why he’s even here. Why had he come over to her? Mazikeen knows he doesn't care for her company, that'd been made clear - and she can't imagine she's given the impression that she cares for his.
Firion's comment about there being no lady present elicits another eye roll - though she agrees with him there. She watches him warily, unsure about what he’s going to do and still feeling that powerful curiosity. In all of her imagination she could not have predicted what actually happens. Mazikeen’s orange eyes widen and she feels the snap of his neck squeeze her heart. Rational thought is one step behind her emotions as always and she shouts his name in her shock, instinct driving her forward as she lowers her head. Only once her thoughts catch up to her and she realizes she’s well and truly concerned about him does she purposefully lift her head and take a single step backwards. She had been inches away from brushing her muzzle against his golden skin.
Somewhere in her mind she knows this is a trick, knows that he’s just messing with her - because he doesn’t do anything else except that, doesn’t he? This seems… extreme but they both know she deserves any discomfort heading her way.
She just wishes she didn’t actually care. Maybe he won't have noticed, maybe her voice shouting his name isn't ringing in his ears like it is in hers.
Her voice is a little shaky but it still carries a bite to it when she finally finds the ability to speak, unable to look away from the unnatural angle of his neck. “You fucking son of a bitch. That's not funny.” If she knew who his mother was she'd find another insult to throw at him but for now, this is what she works with.
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
Her panic is like a physical punch and although there is nothing physical about him in this moment, he still feels its impact. It is a jarring thing, to feel as though she would actually have been worried about him. Actually would have been concerned about him losing his life and whatever within him that is decent nearly feels guilt—feels it swell around him and through him, flooding the places that no longer exist.
He floats outside himself, watching them—the way she nearly reaches for him and aches.
He ignores that too.
When she has begun to curse him again, he sinks back into himself. Lets the magic knit himself back together. Soul to body. Bone to bone. His neck straightens and then pops and his golden eyes open as he blinks slowly. Even with his magic, death is not pleasant and the taste is metallic on his tongue. A bitter and unpleasant reminder of the ash he had once swallowed each and every night, the death he ran from.
“It was a little funny,” he says, his voice hoarse and gravelly, the death not yet having left him completely. When he feels more sure of himself, he rises to his knees and then pulls himself gracelessly to his feet, shaking the dust from his spotted coat. “Do you have any other requests, Maze?” he says with a twitch of his lips, coughing slightly and wishing that they were closer to a body of water of some kind.
The water he summoned was just never quite as sating as the natural sources.
“I would prefer a gentler request but you know I live to serve.”
At this, a laugh again, but he cannot deny that it is darker than before.
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
