tw: violence and actual baby eating this time
| Mazikeen does not waste time. She flies to Tephra as a dragon, Sickle cradled carefully in her talons, and then back to Hyaline as soon as she is sure the girl is laid softly down. The entire time, Mazikeen does not allow any thoughts to plague her. She focuses on each beat of her wings, on the emptiness of her stomach after she had vomited the contents up, on the changing landscape beneath her.
Surface-level thoughts only. Nothing else is welcome. Because if she tries to think of anything else, she remembers turning her head and seeing her reflection in Sickle’s dead eyes. She remembers how desperate she had been for him to take her right there as if that could possibly dull what she had done.
She flies to Tephra and then immediately back to Hyaline because it is what was asked of her. Gale had killed Sickle the first time, but it had been because Maze had refused him then he had rewound time and made her whole. And when Mazikeen was the one to tear out the girl’s throat, he had been the one to piece her back together. In both of these versions, she is the villain - isn’t she?
She doesn’t know what to make of any of it. How he had made her kill the girl and then healed her after Mazikeen’s grief had exploded around her.
And Mazikeen does not let herself think about how small her time had been with her daughter, or how she selfishly wishes she did not have to abandon her all over again. Even though their time as a family has proved how unwelcome an innocent child is in Hyaline.
Now that she’s done it once, it is easier to flip the switch that gives her peace from these thoughts. Not slipping so far as the hollow emptiness that had taken over, but enough that she feels only mild confusion when she sees the golden form of Gale standing out in the pre-dawn darkness of their home. While she was gone, the last of his navy markings have disappeared - and this is the only thing she lets herself think about as she lands as her scarred, pale self. Adorned by her horns and the dried smears of blood - hers, Sickle’s, and his.
Not knowing what his mood will be like, she approaches cautiously - exhaustion weighing down her steps - and the only thing she can think to say is an uncertain "You healed her."
m a z i k e e n . |
@
Gale
