"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
Beyza remembers what it was like to have Ghaul touch her when she was half-there, the not-feeling of the simple touch. She expects the sensation of touching Jamie while they are both vapour to be the same, but it’s different. She feels and not-feels him everywhere - when he moves into her it feels illicit.
It feels good.
If only she hadn’t been so afraid, she might not have stepped back. Might still be feeling the cooling sensation of his body as it ghosted against and within her. She regrets the distance as much as she regrets that wheezing breath and tremor in his legs that appear when they are apart. She also wonders what he would be like without the pain. Stronger? A force of darkness akin to his mother? Beyza wants to be the one to draw that out of him, to show him that there’s a beauty to letting go of inhibitions.
She moves back to him again and though she wants to pass through him entirely, to see how deeply they can possess and coexist with one another, she settles for closing the gap - not touching, but close. So close.
“Fear of the unknown is natural, but I do not think you have to fear yourself. Fear this.” Beyza had never felt limited in the way he is describing, had never not wanted to see what she was capable of. She does not believe it would change anything about him - surely being free of pain would suddenly bring out malice or cruelty.
Her voice holds no pressure, it is calm. “Isn't there curiosity too, with the fear?” When she exhales at the end of her question, her body surges forward - her edges entirely dissolving as rolling over and through him like fog across water before becoming the vapour mare again on his other side where she grins. “Once you see what you can do, you can learn your limits. How to stay within them. And who better to test those limits near than me?” Whatever was unleashed from him when the pain was gone, it could not harm her. She was absolutely and blindly certain of it.
