She feels it when the gap between them closes, that tense and consuming awareness mixed with every single thought in her head turning to white noise. It’s not the same as when she loses grip on her anger but it feels as though she’s dancing along the edge of that moment. The same feeling had come over her the last time she was here, and she wishes she didn’t remember every time they drew close so vividly. Her entire focus is on Gale and she does not miss the dazed look. Not, she thinks, a result of her presence but of his attention - his vision - being somewhere else entirely.
Her nostrils flare and her ears flatten in annoyance, and this feeling brings her out of her own fog.
And yet her breath catches just a little at that first contact, the gentle but firm push.
How she can feel his voice in her shoulder.
She wishes he had just attacked her outright instead of this.
She holds her breath after that catch, annoyed with herself, and when he takes another step she pushes back. Mazikeen wishes for claws that she could use to dig into the sand but it is a fleeting thought now - she doesn’t need them. There’s strength in this body and she locks her joints and refuses to yield ground. Refuses to be bullied into the ocean. She’s not really too sure why she’s pressing back on this so much. Leaving had always been part of the plan (it was just more complicated at the moment than she originally intended). But she would come back after she left, and perhaps that was it? The desire to not have to have this conversation every single time.
His suggestion of how to leave is met with a nonchalant shrug though she finds she needs to focus on remembering how to breathe before she can reply in a quiet voice. “It’ll be swimming with monsters for me, but that’s no bother.” Mazikeen wishes her voice sounded more sure, but the vault where she’s been shoving everything she does not want to deal with is starting to crack. The idea of being overcome by a monster while swimming towards a shore she cannot see, the idea of a death where she cannot even defend herself or fight to the end, is absolutely terrifying. So she moves on. “Those wings of mine gave up on me as soon as…” But Mazikeen shakes her head and cuts this thought off, reminding herself how futile it is to explain how the sight of Islandres had affected her so intensely that she had crashed into the ocean because of it. “Well. They aren’t very reliable yet.” As if in protest of this fact, they return - cool shadows curling at her sides matching the inky darkness of her markings.
But she doesn’t look at them - her gaze is fixed on Gale and she's thinking about anything and everything except for how close they are standing to one another. She feels certain she can see the moment when he is actually seeing her again like a fog has cleared. Maze greets him with a scowl. “Why should I do you a favour by leaving when you so rarely do me the simple courtesy of actually looking at me.” Because she remembers how it had been in Hyaline, too, and how it had felt like a confirmation that she wasn't even worth the effort of a glance without her shifting. Her voice is still quiet when she continues and it is filled with the emotions beginning to unravel out of her control - the pain and anger most of all. “What exactly are you avoiding when you take your vision elsewhere, Gale?”
@[Gale]