The twins had been born early and her daughter follows their lead, as though sensing she is not a kind place to be anymore. Mazikeen feels a twist of revulsion at the combination of soft-gold and blue and there’s a moment where she wants nothing more than to shred this piece of Gale apart. The girl stands and Mazikeen stubbornly does not because this fury helps to drown out the confusing mixture of emotions that aren’t hers.
In the end, though, this newest daughter is cared for (although begrudgingly) and Mazikeen spends an excruciating afternoon with her and Malik before leaving the pair of them together with a promise to return. To her son she gives the task of picking out a name - something that starts with an M like theirs. She doesn’t care what it is, so long as it isn’t the name that Gale had picked.
And then Mazikeen weaves through the mountain passes that will take her to the coast, the very northern edges of her home. She couldn’t rely on anyone else to pry out what was trying to settle in her hollow places, so she would try something else. Away from anyone who might try to interfere. There are other places she could go to if she wanted to die, she knows, but Mazikeen does not intend to suffer scars made by anyone else on her coat - not if they showcase her death, her failures, her weaknesses. Never again will she let someone else kill her.
The thoughts that plague her, spoken by kind voices, should not be poison but they feed her anger and her resolve as the night deepens. There are no stars or moon out when she finally reaches the coast. She’s the only light, her markings casting a warm orange glow on the rocks around her.
Mazikeen’s considered the method several times. She’s not completely certain she’ll return again, but if she does she wants it to not be at the bottom of the ocean or buried under snow.
So she chooses her own claws, her body shifting and bending so she can reach the vital parts of her. Frustrated roars blend with involuntary screams but the pain is still sweet, still welcome, and she knows she has a dark bliss waiting for her at the end. However long it might be.
She tells herself she is strong enough for this but the voice that says this in her mind is not her own. It belongs to the golden light, the awe that he had placed there that did not fit with the scorn and disgust she expected from him. As her mind begins to grow hazy and her eyes have long-since been blinded by pain, she thinks of Firion and she’s not sure which part of her sends out the plea for help. Does she want him to actually help or does she just want him to find her after it is done? To make sure he knows that she would rather tear out her own heart than suffer the gift he’d left in her mind.
She’s given no time to see if he really does come like he said he would, her eyes fluttering closed as her blood spills from her in too-great of a tide and then Mazikeen goes up in flames.
The moment where there is only ash and blood left behind where her body had been is only a few seconds long but it stretches - the silence thick in the absence of her screams.
Then the fire returns, flaring with blinding light for a heartbeat. The mare lying there when it dies away has no scars at all and when her eyes flash open, they are a clear bright orange.
for Firion