"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
Gale started under neon lights, then it all got dark i only know how to go too far
Gale lays in the shallow sea and overhead, the cerulean sky is shining. The soft white clouds that skim across the blue surface are blurred and refracted by the water, and his equine eyes take a moment to adjust to the saline. It is a beautiful summer day in the world above the water, with a gentle breeze frothing the peaks of the low waves.
When he’d been pulled beneath the waves last night, the brindle stallion had not expected to return. At least, not like he has, not waking and feeling completely himself. He had been sure that the Curse (writhing and cackling at Gale’s terror in being drowned) would break free and consume him, a pattern that has been repeated now for the better part of a decade.
Instead, Gale is free.
(He does not look too closely at the place within him where it dwells, because there are enough oily shadows at the edges of his vision. He knows those shadows, knows how they grow thicker and darker, knows they will eventually swallow him.)
For now.
The tide recedes as the morning turns to afternoon, and overhead schools of fish drift silently by and gulls wing their way through the sky
The navy stallion does not recognize the shape he has taken but appreciates the way it is suited for the water with dark eyes, gills, and no useless ears. He is waiting for the shadows to overtake him, yet the only darkness that comes is in the slowly clouding sky. Rain will fall this afternoon, promises those clouds, and Gale weighs the benefits of remaining beneath the water for the storm.
In the end its the lightning that draws him out, tugging at a part of himself that he does not recognize. It is not a Cursed part but rather something entirely his own, and it feels as odd as though he’d grown a fifth leg. No, he thinks, it feels more as if the lightning is a limb he’d always had and only just now discovered.
Gale rises wearing the shape of an iridescent navy Baltian, with a snow white spinal fin that runs from atop his earless poll to the tip of his white frilled shark tail and hind fins. The bottom of the white clouds have begun to turn blue grey, and Gale’s brilliant blue eyes seek the lightning that blows in with clouds darker still. The winds that carry them ruffle his mane, which as it dries turns once more to the horse hair he was born with.
By the time the tide is out entirely he is nothing more than a blue and gold stallion, standing on one of the outer shoals of the Ischian archipelago. His long white mane flutters in the wind as it dries, and Gale tastes salt when he licks his parched lips. He is desperately thirsty and waits with his attention focused on the sky, heedless to anything else around him.
There are occasional visitors to Ischia, though Beyza does little more than note their presence when they arrive. The confines of her magic stop her from entering their minds to see if they pose a threat so she must simply wait and observe and see if they do. So far, none have disrupted the peace of the tropical islands. There is a lull here as if the places where the sun shines brightest exist outside of time, and it is so easy for her to forget the things on the mainland.
Which is beneficial, when there is heartbreak waiting there, and detrimental when she remembers there are those she loves.
Sometimes it feels like who she was as a younger mare no longer exists at all - which suits her just fine. Easier to pretend there isn’t a reaper out there her thoughts sometimes drift to when, despite all her best efforts to keep her emotions locked up, she feels the tug of loneliness at her crystal-white heart.
Today there are other things to focus on and it is easier to ignore such thoughts - like the blue stallion standing on a shoal revealed by the lower tide. For a moment Beyza stands on the sandy beach of Ischia, wondering at the odd placement of this particular visitor. It is just strange enough for her to approach, her steps not sinking more than an inch deep in the channel of water that separates island and shoal - a particular trick she has been enjoying learning.
If she knew who this was, what he had done to her mother, she would not wear the practiced smile that she does as she joins him. But she only knows the name of that monster - not the appearance. In another life maybe she would've been close enough with a certain sister to receive that information. To be wary and watchful of iridescent blue creatures.
As it is, she remains ignorant for now and only speaks of the weather.
Gale started under neon lights, then it all got dark i only know how to go too far
The wind has begun to pick up in earnest, bringing with it the scent of ruch summer flowers and the crackle of electricity. The air prickles along Gale’s skin, and a few bolts of lightning dart across his dark legs and across his brindle neck. The sensation while standing in saltwater is uncomfortable, and he is doing his best to stop them when he realizes that someone is approaching.
She is white with bright scars. He loses control of the lightning before he realizes that this is not Mazikeen, and it flickers down from his mane to vanish into the water at his ankles. Gale abandons capturing it, choosing to bear the elemental discomfort in favor of focusing on the stranger who walks toward him across the water.
It is an impressive feat, Gale thinks, and the esteem is visible even behind the layers of lightning in his eyes when he looks up to meet Beyza’s gaze. Will she see the shadows that dart across them, or sense the magic paradoxical to her own that simmers unreleased at his core? He can see them, but he tries not to look, just for a while. He is so rarely uncontrolled by them, and still does not fully understand why he is free. This time though, he thinks he will make the most of it. He will not ask this mare to kill him like he had the last one.
A good place to watch the storm, she says, and Gale nods agreeably as he turns his attention back to the growing clouds.
“My parents were going to name me after a bird, like the rest of my siblings.” He offers this casually, as easily as if continuing a conversation they had already been having. “I’ve wondered if my affinity for storms is why they chose another name instead.” Perhaps they’d consulted with a farseer, he’d been thinking, perhaps they’d seen this future.
Had they seen the Curse too, he wonders? Or had it hidden from those probing eyes the way it hides within him now?
Beyza’s white eyes watch the movement of the small sparks of lightning - wondering if those flashes of light mean the same for him as when they appear for her. Is there something angry, violent, hidden beneath that iridescent surface and he is only allowing it out in that small way? She’s curious, intensely so, but the conversation remains focused on the storm.
So she forgets the lightning sparks and is just entertained by the story he’s sharing. She tries to think if she’s met anyone that shares their name with a bird - if she’s met one of his siblings - and her mind is drifting in that direction when he introduces himself.
She falls still, that practiced smile and the mannerisms she’s perfected keeping up fall away - until she is little more than a statue staring at him where they stand on the shoal.
“Gale.” She repeats - her tone flat. The approaching storm is forgotten, utterly unimportant, and her attention has narrowed entirely on the stallion with her. Small sparks of lightning flicker down her spine too, but she carefully stifles it - wary that his affinity for storms extends into an ability to control their elements.
Beyza is careful, so careful, even though she can feel her carefully packaged emotions coming undone. She needs to be careful and calm. Her magic will not let her tear him apart if she doesn’t make sure. “The same Gale who tormented Tephra?” She asks in that same flat tone, her gaze intense - life returning only in the flaring of her nostrils as she asks her next question. “The same one who tried to kill Ryatah?”
Gale started under neon lights, then it all got dark i only know how to go too far
It has been six years since the dark thing first came to live within Gale. The navy stallion remembers only the first few months with total clarity. The rest is littered with progressively more holes, and he can recall nothing at all of the last few years. He has no memory of gaining the lightning that flickers along his sides or the shadows that dart and fade like smoke as the lightning pierces them.
Beyza is right to wonder about black violence within him, but that is not the source of the lightning. What hides within him remains inexplicably still, and Gale is doing his very best to pretend it is not there at all. He wants this moment of freedom, however short it might be. Just for a while he can pretend that there is no Curse - that he is normal.
He does not even allow himself to wonder why the Curse lets him free, and so it does not occur to him that it is too weak to hold him. It will be strong enough soon, the Curse knows, and it will take him again. It needs only a bit more darkness, a bit more strength.
He looks over at Beyza when she repeats his name, and her smile has been replaced by a stone-like stillness.
Lightning flickers overhead and down her spine, but Gale does not allow his blue eyes to follow its path. The electricity in the air is nearly palpable, the tension of what he knows to be recognition on her face adds to the pressure of the coming storm in a way that makes Gale’s breath catch in his throat.
She knows him.
Is he the Gale who tormented Tephra?
He has a brief memory of the humid jungle, of seeing a silver-eyed ghost from his past, but only for a moment.
Is he the Gale who tried to kill Ryatah?
He does not recognize the name.
“Probably.” He replies. Gale searches her face, trying desperately to find something he recognizes. “Do we know each other?”
Beyza’s expecting a more definitive answer - it doesn’t exactly seem like something that there would be any uncertainty about. There are many ways she would have thought he’d respond - a malicious yes, a repentant confirmation, an offended denial. But not this strange limbo that stretches on as they watch each other, each seeking answers they are just not getting in the face of the other.
She does not verbally reply to his question either, thinking the answer irrelevant. It is not likely that he knows who she is, but she knows of him and that’s enough. The reign of nightmares on Tephra could easily be forgiven - possibly would have even sparked her curiosity.
But the harming of Ryatah? Beyza hadn’t been the one to save her mother, hadn’t been the one to find her and bring her back, but she could be the one to avenge her. It did not matter that Ryatah was safely back in Hyaline. Just the intent to harm that kind mare would have been enough to condemn this stallion. And she knew he had done far worse than just think about what harm he could do.
Maybe that was enough to bypass the safeguards on her magic but Beyza still wants to make sure - she does not want anything to come between her and the things she is intending to do.
A deep, furious rage is curling inside of her but externally she is still unnaturally still and calm. As a way to vent some of the growing pressure inside of her head, even the water and the air immediately around them grows still - no wind, no waves, nothing to interrupt this conversation as Beyza stares at him and asks carefully “What do you mean probably?”
Gale started under neon lights, then it all got dark i only know how to go too far
The world around them grows still and silent. The turquoise water no longer laps at his ankles, neither storm nor surf sound in his ears. There is only the beating of his heart, the rise and fall of his lungs, and the silence that stretches ever louder between them.
He should have known better than to think that he could have a moment of relief. The Curse has gone well past ‘mischief’, he realizes, has already attempted murder and done something terrible to the residents of the volcanic kingdom. It has done enough to gain notoriety. Perhaps this pale eyed mare does not know him personally, but instead knows of what he has done.
What has he done, he wonders? Has the blood he sometimes woke in been more than prey consumed as a predator? He knows the Curse is progressive but has no idea how much time has passed. Enough that he has moved several times - from Islandres to Hyaline to Tephra and back to Islandres again - but those brief minutes of memory upon waking might have easily been short visits to those places. The moments of clarity are few and far between, his regenerative healing picking away at the Curse’s magic and giving Gale fleeting bits of freedom. This has been the longest period of time to himself, and is one of the few he even remembers.
How long has it been since he had been in Tephra, Gale wonders? A week? A year? When had he tried to kill someone called Ryatah? Gale tries to remember who that is and in doing so accidentally manages to find the image of an angel. Had his lightning pulled it from the white mare and let him See through her eyes? Or had he only stolen it from the Curse, which has begun to shift and stretch within him in what feels like irritation and disgust?
He remembers the angels. He feels, just for a moment, the desire to hunt them. But it is not his desire, but rather that of the shadowy thing within him, the one that quickly and with well-practiced ease now squeezes the life out of Gale from within his own body. His blue eyes close, and when they reopen, the lightning is gone.
How long has there been silence since she asked him what he meant? How long had Gale’s eyes stared out at nothing, lost in the spiral of his own thoughts?
Long enough that the storm surrounds them. It flashes and rages, kept at bay by the mare that stands above the water. The Curse is still bound by the magic that had first created it, unable to perform a new magic it had not first stolen from the heart of another user. It wants the skills she has, and intends to take them now that it has Gale again.
The body of its host is well-rested, but it suspects that killing the white mare will require more than physical strength. Carnage’s arcane blow had damaged it in ways that are still incomprehensible, and the cursed creature would rather avoid being forced to use magics that might inexplicably fail.
“I know better than to cross the dark god now,” it says, which is in no way an answer to the question she’d asked Gale. The words are a lie, because it will always hunger for more power, and are said mostly because it enjoys having regained the ability to lie. “You don’t happen to be a particular favorite of his like she was, do you?”
He takes a long time to answer and she continues to stare at him, to wait - finding that she is eager for things to progress past this uncertainty. When he finally does speak, something has shifted but she isn't sure what - and she doesn't answer this question either. She does not tell Gale that her scars are from a quest she had taken on in the afterlife with others at the bidding of that “dark god”. Or that her family is complicated enough without attempting to get involved with anyone that has ties to one of her mothers.
The darkness that had attracted her attention had been from a different source and in the end it had faded away anyway.
Beyza also doesn’t point out that Carnage isn’t the only one in Beqanna he should be wary of crossing - this lesson, she hopes, will be learned soon enough.
His short speech is too roundabout of a confirmation so there is still a little bit of doubt in Beyza’s mind. And that will cause problems when she tries to spear him through his heart.
The stillness around them falls away and the wind and rain lash out into the space around them, the tropical waters dark and churning with the storm overhead. Only Beyza remains statuelike as she decides to save her energy for what might be coming next. Instead of reaching out with her magic, she uses the one ability she has that isn’t tied to her moral code. The white mare projects her emotions out, attempting to force them onto Gale. Attempting to make him feel the terrible distress and grief she had felt when Ryatah had been lost - purging herself of the unpleasant things that had torn at her despite her attempts to seal them away.
“Ryatah has many who love her, who missed her.” Beyza finally says, words still cold and calm in their delivery as she watches - hoping to see signs of her distress mirrored in his bright eyes.
Gale started under neon lights, then it all got dark i only know how to go too far
It tilts Gale’s head with practiced ease, enjoying the sensation of once more possessing a physical body. The muscle and sinew have regrown since Carnage disintegrated Gale’s body, but that is far from his first death, and the Curse that puppets him does so with cruel expertise. All it must do is wait for its host’s healing, wait for the inexplicable magic that will make Gale whole once more.
It can feel the Healing even now, a crackling sensation that mirrors the lightning that darts along the stallion’s iridescent blue skin. The flickering electricity is not dimmed by the splattering rain and splashing waves. The lightning reaches up when Beyza frees the storm, disappearing into the black-bellied clouds that pour rain down from overhead. The rain is icy cold and soaks through Gale’s navy hide, but the electric blue gaze never falters from where it is fixed to Beyza’s.
Only when she begins to project emotions does he finally blink, and his pensive expression wavers to something closer to delight.
Was it the distress and grief that fueled the black magic? Or had the lightning that Gale discovered been strengthened by the contact with the storm? These questions will give Gale many sleepless nights for years to come, but the Curse does not care. It knows only that when it reaches into the pool of its Power it finds it overflowing.
Gale’s mouth turns up in an enamoring smile, but the overall effect is ruined by the way his blue eyes never seem to move. The smiling creature is entirely without empathy, but it recognizes humor.
“You will kill me?” It asks with a soft huff of laughter, reassessing the mare in front of him as though there is no storm battering them, as if there is no haste to their discussion. The Curse considers itself secondary in Power only to the greater magic that had in part created it, and that ranking is one that the creature has already contested. Death is not permanent for the warped dark thing that wields Gale and the wings of lightning that flicker into existence along his brindle sides.
“I would like to see yu try. Perhaps it will be even more enjoyable than killing Ryatah was.”
The insult to her pride does not faze Beyza - it does not bother her that he does not believe she could kill him. There is a small list of those in the world whose opinions matter to her and Gale is not on that list. It’s even a little entertaining to be underestimated but even that reaction is overshadowed by her disappointment in the lack of reaction to her projected emotions as they snap back into her after their failure. She had wanted to cause him distress, not encourage a smile.
She watches as wings of lightning flicker into existence, feeling a brief benign interest in their appearance (she has crafted such wings before and worn them into battle, and she wonders if he had looked into her memories or if this is just a coincidence).
Such thoughts do not last long - interrupted by the confirmation she had been waiting for.
She believes - knows - that the world would be a better, safer, place without Gale inside of it and that is all she needs to act.
Beyza is not one to attack with her body. That option doesn’t even come into consideration. Instead, two things happen in the same moment - right on the heels of that last syllable Gale spoke. Her body becomes incorporeal, the once-solid figure now little more than white mist condensed into a horse shape. She drifts a little in the strong winds of the storm and is stirred by the thundering rain but her attention roots her here.
Simultaneously, her actual strike comes from below. Dozens of large, glass-like spikes burst from the sand of the shoal - each aiming for Gale’s underbelly. There’s some variation in size, but the largest of them are big enough to spear through a horse like a worm on a thorn.
That’s really all that stood before her now - an iridescent worm. There is no thought to saving her strength - she will happily use all she has to purge him from the world. In revenge for what he had done to Ryatah and to protect others from suffering similar fates.
She pours her rage into these crystalline creations, white fire flickering within them - eager to burn him from the inside out as they pierce his sides. Whether these flames feed off organs or curse, it will not make a difference so long as his life is taken in the process. If she could not purge herself of the strength of her emotions through projection, she would try this other way. She’d let them fuel the righteous fury that sparks in her eyes as they burn brighter than lightning.
