"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
04-26-2021, 05:54 PM (This post was last modified: 04-26-2021, 05:54 PM by Mazikeen.)
Mazikeen
Although she had been told she did not look any different, Mazikeen certainly felt like there was an extra weight around her as she wandered Hyaline on this cloudy autumn day. She’s pointedly avoiding the lake, though she doubts anyone other than herself will notice. There always seemed to be something getting in the way of her swimming lessons with Sabal - today, and she assumed until spring, it was that she was pretty sure she’d sink to the bottom and be stuck there until she gave birth.
And she's avoiding saying that out loud as her excuse because she's pretty sure (as real as it feels), it's ridiculous.
The prospect of the whole birthing process was not getting any easier to swallow as time went on but - fortunately - Mazikeen was getting pretty good at blocking out thoughts she just didn’t want to deal with at the moment.
Unfortunately, trying not to think about giving birth to twins meant she freed up space in her mind to fret about Gale and his damned Curse. So she had resolved to try to do something about that today - and she was keeping an eye out for a certain ice-covered angel while she wandered because her head was filled with questions for him.
Beqanna had been born anew, a whole new world pulled from all that darkness, but he can still smell the rot, the death the shadows left in their wake. The earth reeks with the memory of its devastation and he moves slow through the light, uncertain. Because he does not fit here either, the angel wrought from ice, though he no longer fears the moment he will be cast from his home. He does not belong in the light any more than he belonged in the darkness.
But those crevasses catch the light and he is such a brilliant glacial blue and perhaps, were he not so deeply troubled, he might be handsome as he picks his way carefully through Hyaline in search of nothing in particular. Remembering, no matter how desperately he tries not to.
And he finds her by accident, Mazikeen. He does not want to disturb whatever peace she has found out here by herself but he knows that, like her, he is a difficult thing to miss. There is little chance that she has not noticed him just as he has noticed her, so he goes to her. Quiet, quiet, quiet. As if he might contribute to her peace rather than destroy it completely.
“It’s a strange thing to get used to,” he says quietly as he arrives at her side, wondering if he should draw any attention to the heaviness of her barrel, “the sun.”
There is already a smile growing when Selaphiel joins her - she’s glad to see him, not only because she has questions for him but because he’s stayed. He could live anywhere - like he had told her the last time they spoke - and it makes her happy that he is still choosing to be here. That smile grows when he speaks, as she’s reminded how serious he is. So unlike what she would expect from someone young, so different than she had been - and she wonders whether either of her children will be like that too.
“I can only imagine.” Mazikeen replies honestly, wondering what it would have been like to see the sun for the first time after being born in darkness. He had, hadn’t he? Seeing him grow a little every time she speaks to him is helping her sort out her previous inability to distinguish foal from yearling. Though when she thinks of the foals growing inside her, she thinks of how big Selaphiel had been when they last spoke and once again she wonders how they’re going to fit.
But those are disturbing thoughts and she’d much rather focus on the present, even if the topic that had inspired her to try to seek the glacial boy out was a grim one. “I was hoping I’d see you today.” There’s genuine warmth in her voice when she says this, and only then does she turn to look at him.
And even though there are so many other questions burning in her mind, one feels a little more important and she asks cautiously - worried about the answer, after he had told her last time he had smelt death on his sister just as he had with her. “How is Este?”
He wonders if he could be so selfless. Could he sacrifice his life for someone and then continue to smile at them so readily? He has done nothing to deserve all of the kindness that Mazikeen has offered him so freely, he knows that, and he tries so valiantly to swallow the guilt that blooms in his throat when she smiles at him now.
How can she be glad to see him?
Does he not remind her of death?
Is it not all she can think of when she sees him?
He aches with how sincerely pleased she seems to be in his company. He has to shift beneath the unbearable weight of it as he nods, studying the landscape in this new light. How different it looks. How different they all look.
But she thoroughly arrests his attention when she tells him that she’d been hoping to see him and he turns his head to look at her plainly, his brow darkened with confusion. As if he cannot possibly understand why she’d want to see him. But he remembers, too, how he’d told her that he’d hoped he could be useful to her and he thinks it must be a child growing inside her. Perhaps she will ask him to warn her should he ever smell death on it.
“Me?” he asks, soft. “Why?”
The question she asks is not the one he expects but he smiles something reserved, cautious with the mention of his sister. “Better,” he answers. Not great, not even good yet, but the sun has helped tremendously. She is a thing of light, he has realized, and the stench of death has begun to subside the longer the light has stayed.
It feels like a small accomplishment to have gotten a smile out of Selaphiel, even just a reserved one, and when Mazikeen tells him how glad she is to hear that Este is doing better the warmth in her voice leaves little doubt that she means it.
And then, back to the matter at hand. She feels a little guilty about Selaphiel’s surprise over her wanting to see him. Maybe she should’ve tried a little harder to not be so distracted with Gale over the last few months and actually spend time with the others who called Hyaline home. She wants to befriend this serious boy, wants to be more than the alpha he associates with death or the obligation to pay her back for something that had been absolutely instinctual for her. But Mazikeen has no idea how to get past that, or if it is possible.
But she can at least explain why she was hoping to see him - though now she wishes it was for something a little less depressing. “I had a question for you about… about your ability to sense death.” Her smile fades away but it’s replaced with focus and not anything negative.
She had been planning on asking Selaphiel this for a few days now, though she had not yet been able to come up with a roundabout way of asking what she wanted. So she simplifies the situation as best as she can, watching the youth carefully for his reaction. “If I needed to kill someone, but was waiting for something to change about them and I didn’t know when I needed to do it, do you think you would be able to sense on them that it was time?” Part of her is aware that if he could, it’s unfair to burden this decision on someone else. Gale had told her that it would be up to her to decide when he became too much but Mazikeen didn’t know how she was supposed to be able to make that call.
And it was only getting more complicated.
Mazikeen frowns then, but it's at herself - wondering if what she's asking makes any sense. “Or would it not be noticeable until I actually made the decision?”
It is not difficult to chase the smile from his face, tenuous as it had been to begin with. He had expected it but his throat tightens all the same, every muscle in his body pulling taut in unison as he prepares to field her question. (Perhaps because he does not trust himself to be up to whatever she will ask of him, though he had promised he would be.)
It feels like a swift kick to the gut -- her admission that she has plans to kill someone -- but he tries not to let his surprise register on his face. He has seen her kill before, but that had been a matter of his life or the dark thing’s, by the sound of it this is something premeditated and his nerves itch with a strange desire to wedge a sliver of space between them.
But he does not move.
Because she had saved his life.
Because he trusts her, regardless of what she is capable of.
Because she is his friend, maybe.
He watches her, quiet, blue eyes wide and discerning. The answer is simple, he knows. But he feigns consideration, as if doing so might somehow absolve her of any guilt she might feel. As if there is a chance that she will not have to shoulder all of the responsibility herself. As if he can make it easier.
The silence stretches between them a long moment before, finally, he draws in a breath and tries to break the news to her as gently as he can. As if she is the child, the fragile one, the one who needs protecting. “I wouldn’t know until you had your mind made up,” he tells her and there is an edge of genuine sorrow in his tone because he cannot help her, not the way she’d hoped that he might be able to. It is a burden she will have to shoulder alone.
“I cannot sense someone’s death until their fate has already been decided, I’m sorry.”
She’s a little disappointed but it feels right that Selaphiel says no, he would not know until she had made the decision, but she does her best not to let this show. Mazikeen nods, and it makes sense. Even if she had hoped for otherwise.
The note of sorrow in his voice and the apology is a kindness she doesn’t really deserve - especially after the question she just asked, and she offers the haloed boy what she hopes is a comforting smile. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t think it was fair for me to ask that of you anyway.” A small sigh escapes her and then Mazikeen tries to explain why she was asking this of him. Because it matters to her what Selaphiel thinks of her. “I’m not just planning murders in my spare time. I just… I offered to… to stop someone if they became a danger to others. But they might be better at concealing their actions than I originally thought so I thought maybe if there was a way to detect it, even if I missed the other signs…”
She shrugs then, looking away from the colt and to the mountainous landscape - feeling the weight of her promise settle firmly on her again. It would be her call, then. She was going to have to be the one to decide when the one she loved died.
Mazikeen supposed that was how it should be, how it was meant to be, though it certainly did not make things any easier.
Feeling the need to switch her thoughts to something else, she tries to change the subject. “I'm glad you're still here, Selaphiel. And not just so I can ask depressing questions.” There's a little bit of humour in her voice when she says this, though it's a little forced considering the weight of what they had just been talking about. So she tries to shift the conversation, tries to recover what could have been a pleasant meeting. “Have you been exploring at all since the sun came out?” There had not been much to see of Hyaline in the darkness, and not when he was trying to stay out of the way so he would not be kicked out. So she wonders if those two things changing have made any difference.
Gently, he shakes his head. Because Selaphiel, this angel carved from ice, does not have it in him to be insistent. Everything he does is measured, subdued. “I told you that I wanted to be useful to you,” he tells her and perhaps there is an edge of insistence in this but it is mostly tender. “You can ask anything you need from me, Mazikeen, and I will do my best to help you.” How sorry he is that he cannot help her now, especially as he listens to her explanation.
He searches her face as she speaks, goes on looking at her even after she’s looked away. He swallows thickly, reaches out to touch her, just barely. “That’s an awful burden to bear alone,” he murmurs, drawing away again. And he tells her this, not because he can relate, not because he understands, but because perhaps it might help simply to know that she is not alone in the knowing. If he cannot help in deciding when to call it the end, perhaps he can help simply by knowing that she is fighting this private battle.
He takes a small, shuffling step backward when she turns her attention back to him. As if he does not know how not to shrink beneath the full weight of her gaze. He is grateful to still be able to call Hyaline home, too, though he does not know how to continue to express his gratitude without seeming childish. So, he meets the edge of humor in her tone with that same cautious, reserved smile and nods. “I’m glad to be here,” he says and hopes that she understands that what he means to say is thank you.
And then it is his turn to shift his focus to the mountains and he rolls his pale shoulders in a kind of shrug. “The sun still hurts my eyes,” he confesses with a short, self-deprecating laugh, “I find it hard to stray too far from the shadows most of the time.”
The gentle touch is appreciated though Mazikeen can only really offer him a sad smile in response. She’s so grateful for this small comfort even as guilt churns in her stomach. Over him wanting to be useful to her - over there mere idea that he felt like he needed to be useful at all, even if that very same thought drives her for so many of her own interactions. She feels guilty for taking comfort over something she had willingly signed up for, feels guilty for complaining about the weight of something she’s unwilling to pass off to anyone else.
She doesn’t have any right to this comfort but she’s grateful for it anyway.
Concern flickers across her expression when he takes a small step backwards and she wonders if she’d made him uncomfortable after all. He does not leave, though, and overs her a small smile that does enough to soothe her worries.
And then when he mentions the sun hurting his eyes, that concern comes right back. For the millionth time, Mazikeen wishes things were different. If they were, she could ask Gale to do whatever it is his vision magic can do to make the sun easier for Selaphiel as the angelic boy adjusts to life with the sun.
But though she has selfish reasons for keeping Gale’s attention all to herself lately, there are selfless ones too - she doesn’t want to introduce him to too many of those that live here in Hyaline. Doesn’t want the Curse to get to know them.
Though the sun is obscured by some clouds overhead, it is still a little bright where they stand - especially out in the open. She has an idea, and she brings it up cautiously “Would you like to explore a bit today with me?” She gestures to the nearby foothills where the shadows are a little deeper and the mountains beyond. Mazikeen feels oddly self-conscious asking this - like she's just a filly again and trying to make a new friend.
05-26-2021, 05:48 PM (This post was last modified: 05-26-2021, 05:51 PM by Selaphiel.)
selaphiel
these days i don’t pray when i close my eyes
What would she think if he told her he knows every inch of this place?
He doesn’t tell her this, of course, because he doesn’t think he could stomach the stormcloud of concern he’d seen cast that shadow over her brow twice already. Surely it would call to mind all the time he had spent confined to the darkest places, just outside of reach, never staying in one place too long. So they would not find him. So they would forget he was there.
But it looks different in the light. They all look so different in the light. And he remembers the first time he’d seen her come swimming out of the darkness surrounded by fire, how she’d introduced herself and invited him to call her Maze. How he hadn’t been able to do it. He’d called her Mazikeen and she’d called him Selaphiel and the stilted formality had always made him uncomfortable. Because he was just Sela, just a boy.
He studies her a moment, Mazikeen, and wonders if he called her Maze now if she would respond in kind. If they could be friends. The invitation catches him off guard and he follows her gesture to the foothills, carves his gaze across the silhouettes the trees cut against the light.
He does not fear pain, not really. So, he shifts his focus back to her and nods. (Still too serious, too solemn, the mouth too heavy. He was not built for the folly of youth, the mouth not made for smiling. The lungs were not made to hold enough air for laughter.) “I’d like that,” he says and then he swallows thickly, exhaling a thin breath before he adds, almost experimentally, “Maze.”
