"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
Not since autumn has Mazikeen’s body been free of the markings that illuminate it. The pattern and quantity of them changes on occasion but the fire-bright glow is a constant in the corner of her eye, cracking over her entire body. It’s been worse since the snowstorm and there’s little doubt why. She has little doubt Gale will not have truly died - and there’s some satisfaction in imaging a splattered body try to stitch itself back together - but he is no longer a concern she will spend time on and her focus is elsewhere. She had unleashed what Firion had planted inside of her mind and it will not close back up again no matter how hard she tries. It lingers and she cannot get away from it or from the memories that it continuously tortures her with or the way it highlights every broken and empty place inside of her. She did not want Gale's shadows anymore but at least she had been ignorant, at least that had been easy.
Not a single scrap of what the golden magician had left behind is negative and her confusion feeds into her anger and the cycle repeats constantly, keeping her on-edge.
It is something she should ignore - but there is little by way of distraction for her now. Her pregnancy slows her down only a little and she falls back into old habits of scouting the borders even though they have entities to keep them safe. She only stops when she is exhausted and even then, in sleep, she finds all those happy memories again and they are all washed with golden light.
Like a scab, Mazikeen also cannot quite leave it alone so on a clear winter morning she goes hunting for the mother of the pair of stallions that needle her like no one else. Hunting even though she’s not looking for blood today. She knows better than to rage into the section of Hyaline she’s trained herself to ignore - even as she is now. It’s been ingrained into her mind to leave them alone and she’s never had a reason to divert from that. At first, it had been out of respect, then a mixture of appreciation and affection, and then she simply did not care.
She is herself today, a white mare crowned with twisting horns bright with cracks that match those on her body.
As soon as she sees Ryatah, a new flush of that hollow anger flushes through her. The memories she had shoved down Gale’s throat are too fresh - she looks at the gold-accented mare in the snow and sees Firion when he'd laughed and Selaphiel when he had first tentatively said her nickname. So her greeting to their mother is not so much spoken as it is snarled while she tries to wrestle these things she does not care about back to the corners of her mind. “Hello Ryatah.” But despite her tone, her red-orange eyes remain empty of their usual fire and she jumps to the point without preamble. “I've been wondering - can you heal the mind as well as the body?”
She does not know all the ways that her sons have tangled themself into the Hyaline queen’s life. She knows only vaguely of the friendship that existed with Sela, and while Ryatah found it unlikely that Mazikeen, in her current state, was interested in continuing that friendship, she had not inserted herself. She kept an eye on Sela only to ensure that he stayed safe, because she did not trust Gale or what he had done to Maze, but beyond that she knew there was little she could do. Sela was fiercely loyal, a trait that she is not even sure where such a thing came from when both Carnage and herself were prone to their own versions of wicked morals and twisting the knives needed for their own personal gain. Sela, though, was steadfast in his loyalty and his belief, and she knew she could have never kept him away from the girl he felt he owed his life, and so she did not try.
But Firion—with Firion she had no idea just how deep that wire ran.
She didn’t realize the history between the two of them that had taken root as children, but if she had known she would have been unsurprised to learn that Firion would destroy himself if it meant saving her. He was so much of her, along with that fierce streak from his father that gave him the edge he needed to be so much better than she could ever be, and it would kill her to know he was trying so hard to save someone that did not (yet) want to be saved.
When Maze seeks her out she greets her with a carefully crafted expressionless mask, doing little to reveal the suspicion that rises in her chest or the way her muscles twist tight under her skin. “Mazikeen,” she returns her greeting, undeterred by the way the younger girl seems hardly able to stomach saying her name, and her lips turn into a poised smile. This is the first time since she last healed her that she has been this close to her—the first time that she has been able to see all the way she has changed, the first time she has been able to feel the echo-chamber that is her emotions.
She wonders not for the first time what kind of hold Gale must have had on her for this to be the end result, and is grateful that it seemed the cursed stallion had set his sights elsewhere, in Tephra.
“I’ve never done it before,” she begins, watching her curiously. “But I could try.” She angles her head, pitch-dark eyes seeking out the flatness of her own, and asks her directly, “Why do you think your mind needs healed?”
The smile that Ryatah gives her grates against Mazikeen’s mind but she is too relieved not to hear her nickname on the angel’s tongue to focus on any aggravation for a moment. It is strange how much just a couple fewer syllables can affect her. Even if it is only by chance which name Ryatah uses and not design, it is already a struggle to avoid remembering that night by the lake. When she had felt both relief and guilt when this mare had shown up to save her yet again, when she had been feeling so much she could have drowned on her thoughts just as easily as her own blood.
The golden light in Mazikeen’s mind reminds her what gratitude is and it feels more potent now than it had a few moments ago before she had found Ryatah. The memories filled with affection that she had used to lessen Gale’s strength have not gone quietly back into the corners of her mind so she continues to wrestle with it all.
She does not want any of it.
“Your son left something in there.” The words are gritted out now, like it is Ryatah’s fault. As she stares back into those black eyes something very close to pain passes across Mazikeen’s expression. Not the physical type she’s come to enjoy and long for, but something deeper. It is an echo of her older self, maybe, and it lends a pleading note to her next words “And I need it gone.”
When she hears her own voice, so close to begging, it snaps her back into fury. With her mind as it is, it is not difficult for her to believe that brief flash of pain is another trick of Firion’s. It is gone in a moment, the shadows winning out this small battle, and a few more glowing markings appear across her already fractured skin.
Resolve takes over when she speaks again. “Can you do that?”
