It hurts to see Firion shift into the state he had been in at their last meeting and Mazikeen winces but does not allow herself to look away for the short moment it is there. She takes it all in, the guilt is both a weight on her and a rot that chews at her from the inside. She’d done that. Even if she had not been completely in control of her actions while she was doing it, she had wanted to hurt him to cover up the pain he had caused her.
In the end, though, she had left no scars on him and she felt stupid for letting his touch inspire such a strong reaction.
She stands immediately when Firion disappears, and she only has a short moment to frown at the now-empty space and then she spins around when his voice continues behind her. Mazikeen is more curious than she is rattled but a few glowing cracks flicker into existence down her spine in the now-familiar irritation that Firion’s presence brings. She steps off of the boulder and shifts into herself with her new, curving horns adorning her head as her orange eyes roll. The smile that had been there before he had shown her the damage she’d done no longer teasing up the corner of her mouth.
“I just said I was glad, Firion.” She still spits out his name like it's a curse, even as she admits that she actually was glad to see he had survived both her and the eclipse. “Of the two of us, I’m not the one with the habit for lying.” Which is a lie itself - but Firion wasn’t in much danger of further falsehoods, she usually reserved those for herself.
That apology flickers through her mind again but she brushes it aside. It might matter to her but she cannot think it would matter much to him, and it’d only give him something else to tease her about. Besides, her curiosity easily bests the instinct to apologize and she tilts her head - trying, and failing, to keep the interest out of her sharp voice. “You’re full of new tricks today, I see.”
@[firion]