Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you
He notices the way she tenses against him, just for a moment, but he’s found that most others react that way when he goes in for his first hug. Then they almost always relax, just as Mazikeen does as she rests against him. With his head spinning with thoughts of shifting and magic and fairies, it is easier to focus on things like the warmth where she fits against him. When she shoves him, he stumbles to catch his balance, though his wide grin suggests he’s being purposefully dramatic. The mischievous smirk remains as he shrugs in response to her question, as though he thinks it possible. Perhaps she’s got other priorities; he’s no idea what the Champion of the Hyaline pack might be busy with. He’s distracted by the casual mention that they are friends, and it feels once more as though he cannot stop from smiling.
That smile does fade when she tells him of her quest. He's thinking of his own visits to the mountain – he has made plenty – and how the tasks he’d been assigned had seemed more designed to make him suffer than to teach him anything. He’d never minded in the past, supposing that suffering and exercise were not much different in terms of building strength or knowledge, but it feels unfair for such powerful creatures to have taken such a large piece of Mazikeen’s identity. How would he feel if they took his eyes? The idea is uncomfortable, and his slowly building frown is shaken off with a brief toss of his head.
Gale remains where he’d caught his balance after she’d playfully shoved him, a half stride away, and close enough to see the patterns in her orange eyes. They remind him of monarch wings, both in color and the how he enjoys watching them, and he closes his eye in a blink and reopens them to watch instead the mossy rocks beneath her hooves. He’d felt it again, that same slow acceleration of his heart. Looking away helps only a little, and he feels his breath catch as well when she asks why it’s his favorite shape.
It had just been a compliment, and the first thought that had come to his mind when he saw her standing here between the trees. He hadn’t thought about it at the time, and as he does now, he realizes that it is not something that he should say aloud. Telling Mazikeen that he thinks she is the most beautiful like this would defeat the purpose of keeping his distance. And he’s already gone and ruined that, standing so near that he can hear the sound of her breathing over the quiet hush of wind in the forest.
But to not tell her would surely be to prolong her quest, and nor can he bear the thought of being responsible for that. He shifts his weight uncomfortably, and keeps his eye on the dark earth. “Because I think that you look beautiful.” Gale answers without lifting his gaze from the ground. To be extra safe, he decides to just close his eyes entirely while he waits for a response. Some things it is best not to see.
@[Mazikeen]
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