[private] swearing this'll be the last but it probably won't

[Mazikeen]

She doesn’t enjoy the fighting, in being closer to him in any way, but Mazikeen thinks she’d prefer a clash of teeth and claws to having to hear him speak. His voice grates on her mind even before the reality of what he’s saying sinks in and she feels her stomach twist painfully. Mazikeen doesn’t want to let him see her cry but there is very little she can do to stop the tears that rise up. She had suspected but the confirmation has teeth that bite into her heeart, reminding her of the fog of sadness that had descended on Hyaline afterwards, that still clung to the mountains. She thinks of Selaphiel’s devastation and of the way she had felt Firion’s sobs reverberate through her body as she had held him. And of course she thinks of how Ryatah had healed her twice, bringing her back from that strange death she suffered when she could not die from her wounds but could not heal them either.  She knows he is saying it to get under her skin and she hates that it works. The wyvern shape falls away and she’s a horse-sized, bristling wolf instead. The glowing markings on her skin return, burning brighter than they could in real life. They dance with a white-hot flame even paler than her fur and her eyes change to match it. It illuminates the blood on her foreleg and smeared across her coat but her attention is focused on him. “That was a mistake.” Mazikeen is grateful her voice doesn’t shake, that it is only steel and certainty even though there are still tears. She isn’t sure the Curse is capable of regret but if he is, she wants to make this something he knows is a mistake before she finally kills him. When she moves it is not to lunge forward like parts of her shout to do. She moves to the side, a prowling walk that, if left uninterrupted, would allow her to circle him as he had her. Mazikeen is brimming with rage and pain and wants nothing more than to tear Gale apart but she keeps a hold on her self-control a little longer, not wanting to give him anything he might actually want. m a z i k e e n .

 

@Gale