Malik doesn’t respond to her question about eating her heart and she closes her eyes for a moment against the wave of agony. It is not a yes, but the fact that it is not a no either tears something open inside of her. She is so thankful that she gets to spend time with her son at all but of course it is too easy to think that things would have been far smoother if they had stayed with Wishbone. If only Mazikeen had been able to hide them more efficiently, they would both be safe.
It is an undeniable fact that Sickle’s life would be better without knowing her birth parents, and now there seems little doubt that the same is true for Malik.
She let them both down so badly and she was ill-prepared for the process of trying to make it right. Would Gale know? Not who he was now, but the one who had shown her around Islandres. The one she had shared a too-brief summer with before the ground fell out beneath their hooves.
As soon as those thoughts rise up she shuts them away, opening her eyes to focus on Malik’s questions. “I don’t think it works like that. It’s all connected. The predators that feed on the deer, the deer that eats the grass. Removing one part of that cycle throws the rest into chaos.” There is a small, rueful smile that twists her draconic mouth. “And chaos isn’t as charming as we’ve been led to believe.”
A heavy sigh escapes her then, feeling the resignation that this will not be something she can make Malik believe with fumbling words in one afternoon. If there are magic words to share with her son to alter everything else he’s been taught, she does not know what they are.
So she stops trying for now and instead warns him before she starts to shift her weight off of the wyvern - her voice hollow but firm. “Watch out.” The creature beneath her freezes for a moment, as though testing to see if it is a trap, but Mazikeen just snaps at the air to encourage it to flee. The wound on its wing should not be a death sentence - or she hopes not, anyway. Otherwise this entire conversation has been rather pointless.
Once it is gone, she shifts into a feline shape that matches Malik’s and turns her attention back to him - eyes sad but paired with a smile. “I haven’t said this nearly as much as you deserve, but I love you, Malik.” even when when you scare me. “I just… I want more for you than a world of death.”
@Malik