Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you
Carried on the soft spring breeze, the Curse circles over Mazikeen. It peers down at her with Gale’s bright eyes, but the expression in them is far colder than any that its host has ever worn.
She shifts rapidly, first her wings and then her coloring. She dons a dozen shades while she writhes, and she glows from within like a blazing sun. Mazikeen is splendid in her death throes, and the Curse admires her from afar.
Only when she is still, when the ever-slowing rise of her ribs is the only movement the Alpha makes, does it descend.
With teeth and claws, it rips her body open, and devours the best parts of her.
First the eyes, keeping its promise to take the memory of where she’d left the children. Tephra, it thinks, swallowing a glowing orange eye. And a mare the same shade of purple she’d been a moment ago.
Then the heart, torn from her bloody chest, and swallowed in a single gulp. Gale’s equine body wretches, an involuntarily reaction that disgusts the Curse. It swallows the heart anyway, and feels the changes begin.
The power sings to it, sweet and delicious. The Curse closes its eyes, savoring the sensation of the magic that flows from her heart to its own. It fills Gale until he can hold no more, and then it makes him larger so he may hold the rest of it.
Sometime before the sun sets, the Curse understands that it has gained far more than Mazikeen’s shifting. It reaches for its healing, and finds the reserves are so large they might spill over to others. It reaches for its shifting, and no shape is impossible. It attempts to See, and no eye is out of reach.
Anything it attempts, it can achieve.
The Curse begins to laugh.
When it cannot laugh anymore, when the tears of delight that run down Gale’s cheeks have dried, the new magician moves Mazikeen’s body where it might be most easily found, and disappears into the wilds.
@[Mazikeen]
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Gale
