Relief courses through her again and she nods at Wishbone’s suggestion of getting her cleaned up. Mazikeen hadn’t even noticed she needed it, so focused had been her drive to get here and take care of this part. She follows Wishbone, feeling as weak as the freshly-born foals as they make their slow way through the jungle.
The smile she offers her purple friend after Wishbone says she’s worried is a sad one. Mazikeen knows what likely waits for her when she goes back to Hyaline - but she doesn’t think there’s any other choice. If she never went back, just as Gale would probably want, eventually the Curse would come looking for her and the children she offered to it. If she never went back, she couldn’t do all that she could to make sure no one else got hurt.
This is the first time Mazikeen’s spoken her plan out loud, and even she has to admit it feels a little thin on the details - but she shares it anyway. Both so Wishbone knows what to expect and in case the other mare has any ideas that Mazikeen's too-stretched brain cannot think of. “To confront it, to tell it that it can’t have them.” This part, at least, she feels is the right choice to start with as she watches the twins. “I have to go back so it won’t come here, so it won’t go looking for us. And even though I’ll likely get hurt, I won’t die.” She says this with certainty and she means it to be comforting, just as she had when she told Gale the same, even though it’s really just a theory. She hadn’t died after the attack in the forest even though she should have, and had even managed to eventually drag her shattered body to Silver Cove. And then she had been healed, just as Ryatah had healed her the second time she should have died.
She wasn’t sure she’d be so lucky the third time, but she doesn’t share this with Wishbone. Mazikeen does not have the words to explain that she truly believes whatever happens to her is okay so long as the twins and everyone else are safe.
“And then I’m going to try everything Gale’s mother did and whatever other ideas I can think of to try to get rid of the Curse, and if that fails then I need to try to find a way to take his healing so I can… so I can make good on the promise I made.” That’s no longer an option she’s willing to entertain for more than the briefest of moments, she’ll try everything else first.
They arrive at the stream and Mazikeen sighs softly, moving towards it as she speaks in a voice choked with the weight of her affection for Gale. “I know it probably doesn’t make much sense it’s just… I’m not ready to give up on him. I need to try.”
@[Wishbone]