"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
01-02-2021, 10:09 AM (This post was last modified: 01-02-2021, 10:09 AM by Mazikeen.)
Mazikeen is not as angry as she was before, but there’s still a flush of annoyance that threatens to turn into rage whenever she thinks about how she lost.
If she had won the alliance, she wouldn’t have broken the damn sun that’s for sure.
There was a conversation that had been left unfinished and Mazikeen wasn’t going to deny that she had just as many questions for Gale as he had for her at the end of their fight. So she set out to find that blue pain in the eyes. She had been to a handful of other lands so far to no avail, but if she was asked she’d say she’d guessed right the first time.
In the form of an osprey, she travels to one of the tropical islands next. The sea around it a vast world of nothingness in the near-blackness. When she lands on the beach and transforms back into her horse-self, she calls forth a small portion of her fire aura so it arcs behind her - she had been practicing with it and it came in handy in this darkness.
She’s not really trying to be intimidating with the fire… but she’s not not trying to either. Mostly she’s just aware that the orange flicker of the fire will act as a beacon for anyone to spot her in the darkness. And to help herself be spotted, she calls out “Hey! Anyone know if Gale lives here?”
Not only had he failed to earn Islandres the magical protection he’d promised, he fears he has somehow contributed to the world covering darkness that had followed his defeat. Gale had stood alone on the Plains for some time, lost in his own thoughts. He spins through the cycle of loss rather quickly, recalling the way the sensations felt in his heart from early lessons. The, with the determination that had sent him back to the Mountain time and again, he turns back toward home, certain that he will find another way to ensure the safety of the residents.
The brindle stallion had realized that the eclipse was not ending at roughly the same time he discovered his wings and horn were gone, and about forty-five minutes before encountering his first monster.
Then, countless hours later, he finally stumbled out of the water and onto the beach. Bone tired from the journey and swim, his eyes burning and mind aching from the taint the battled monster left behind, Gale intends to crawl up into the dunes and fall asleep. He does so only briefly, waking to the sound of Erne’s alarm, an osprey shriek carried on the salt air.
He steps onto the beach, taking some solace in the fact that at least the sand has not changed colors, black as it ever was. His sides feel bare without the protection of his wings, and his head is lighter with no crown of curling horns. That is all the Alliance had given him, and as he moves closer to Mazikeen, he wonders if she, too, has had something taken from her. Her fire flares brightly, and her sleek white sides do not drip with seawater, suggesting she’d flown and her shifting remains intact. Erne, who recognizes the white mare, lands on Gale’s rump, his thick black talons digging into the white mane just above his skin. The bird’s yellow eyes peer fierce and unblinking at Mazikeen, a contrast to Gale’s curious blues and raised brow.
“Now is probably not the best time to continue what we started,” he says as he draws closer, and despite his exhaustion there is good humor in his tired smile, and he does eye her arc of fire appreciatively for a moment before meeting her eyes again.
Although she had been looking for him, Mazikeen wasn’t actually expecting Gale to be the one to come over. Her surprise blossoms into a handful of new questions that join the others in her mind. Where are his wings? His horns? And where had that companion been hiding this whole time?
She doesn’t remember seeing the black osprey during their fight - or maybe if she had it was lost in her memory with everything that had happened since - and she feels her heart flutter at the sight of it as the bird lands on Gale. She stares right back at those yellow eyes for a moment. Although it is a different colour than the ospreys she knew, she’d recognize that shape anywhere - it was one of her favourites.
The presence of the osprey, combined with Gale’s words that are laced with good humour, eases her expression away from the scowl that had been so close to the surface. Her whole body relaxes a bit, and for the moment she does not mind that they aren’t going to clash into another fight right away. The anger and shame that churn in her heart feel distant and Mazikeen discovers that she’s okay with allowing herself to be distracted. She had come here to prove something to both herself and to him but - well, he did have a point about the timing.
“I guess not.” She replies with a slight roll of her eyes and there’s a smile there, illuminated by the flicker of the fire. She won’t be able to hold it forever, but at least for now, they can both get a break from the darkness. “Did you have anything to do with the sun breaking, then?” Her tone is light and teasing as she says it, even though she does wonder.
And then, because there are just too many questions bouncing around her head to do them one at a time, she follows it up with another - a note of concern working its way in this time. “What happened to your wings and horns?”
Gale it's hard to keep a straight face when i just want to smile -- starlight crashing through the room, we'll lose our feathers
He sees the moment she relaxes (watching as carefully as he is with those brilliantly blue eyes) and wonders again if there is something about the place itself that causes such a reaction in visitors. Was it magic, he’d often wondered, something soaked deeper even than the seawater into the shores of Islandres? He sometimes thinks it might be the weather, balmy days and breezy nights.
Tonight (perhaps today?) is cool for the start of winter, and once more Gale laments the loss of his wings.
The dramatization of her rolled eyes steadies the existence of his tired smile, even when she asks – ever so lightly – if he is the cause of the darkness. At that his brows raise, though that is the only sign of surprise in his face, which otherwise retains its sleep soft good humor. That he suspects that it is somehow his fault does not for a moment pass across his blazed face. He had failed to defeat the shadow creature, the one from Pangea that he had let Midsommar convince him was not entirely bad. Yet how else can he explain the darkness that had come, and the monsters that came with it, with their bright eyes and surely too strong to be mere coincidence resemblance to Jamie? Jamie had broken the sun, Gale is fairly sure, but he cannot prove it, and so he only says: “Not one of my many talents, I’m afraid. I prefer to leave celestial meddling to those more well-equipped.”
Not until the words come out does he realize the analogy to his own missing accoutrements. Their absence is a sharp thing in his chest, and while his words twist at it, the concern in her voice and the way she’d immediately noticed their absence drive it deeper still.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he replies, rolling his shoulders in a shrug only to feel their absence. “You’d left a mark before they went though,” the stallion adds, tilting his navy head to the side where his red-marked wing had been. “That last bite you got in, even the damaged feathers grew out red. My Alliance V.” He smiles at that, and wonders only for a moment what it might be to battle without his wings. The thought is depressing, and he shakes it away, causing a ripple down the length of his spinal mane that causes Erne to shift. The osprey finally turns his gaze away from Mazikeen, and resumes his silent staring at the black water and only slightly less black sky above.
Well, it’s not Gale’s fault the world is broken - which is almost too bad. It would have been nice for a bit to blame that on him, even though she didn’t particularly mind the whole situation. Between her fire and the ability to shapeshift into animals more accustomed to seeing in the dark, this little fluke wasn’t bothering her too much.
But then, she also hadn’t come across any of the monsters crawling about either. For her, so far it was just a weird extended night.
Mazikeen’s distracted from her concern over the loss of Gale’s appendages when he mentions that she had left a mark on his wings. Maybe this shouldn’t be something that causes her to smile but it does. She likes the idea that even though she had lost to him and had to carry that with her - he had been marked by their battle too. At least as long as his wings had lasted. “Your alliance marking is where I bit you?” She repeats with a growing grin. It’s not quite predatory, but there’s something a little feline about it. Something pleased. “Well, now I’m very sad that your wings are gone. I would have liked to have seen that. You left a mark on me too, though not the V - I haven’t found that yet.”
She doesn’t know that it is on the tip of her nose, cradling the dark snip on her face with a rich blood-red stroke.
Mazikeen turns her head and curls back her lips, opening her mouth slightly so the firelight catches on a tooth chipped in half in a jagged line. “It’s more impressive when I’m a predator but I didn’t want it to be healed. Wanted the reminder of the day I lost.” The words start out proud and she means for it to come out as a joke but her voice falters partway through until she cannot even get out the last few words: to you.
Her heart rate picks up in her discomfort and Mazikeen is very quickly and powerfully aware that she does not want to deal with the emotions that are rising within her. Especially since anger is not the one surging ahead and she would not be able to hide behind it. She knows it wasn’t personal, knows she was trying to beat him as much as he had been her. She always was better at feeling than thinking.
Still, this is not the time to go over all that - so she clears her throat and brushes aside that vulnerability before gesturing to the beach in a not very smooth but hopefully effective attempt at changing the subject. “So. Is this where you saw the sunset you tried to blind me with?” Some of the smile returns then, a little less genuine than before - but if she keeps it in place long enough, she’s sure she’ll feel it again.
Gale it's hard to keep a straight face when i just want to smile -- starlight crashing through the room, we'll lose our feathers
When Gale had attempted to steal the sight of the monster, he’d been rebuffed by a burning pressure at the back of his eyes, rebuffed by an alien wall that left him with a throbbing headache. After his rest, that ache is only somewhat less mild. Some healing he has, the brindle stallion thinks; it’s no wonder his family had assumed him dead when he’d failed to regenerate after his Tephran bath.
It is hard to see far away still, Gale finds, but the nearby Maze remains in clear view. Clear enough that he’s already admired the new red V that decorates her black blaze and marveled at how it has settled on such a soft place on an otherwise fearsome creature. Had another opponent struck here there like she’d marked him? He’s wondering this when he realizes that she seems rather pleased by the way she’d marked him, and brave to avoid healing aid for damage that might have eventually become deadly. Gale’s teeth heal as quickly as his bones, he’s found, far faster than minor nicks and shallow scrapes. That might mean something, he has often suspected, but with the growing population of Islandres Gale no longer has long empty hours devoted to doing whatever he wishes and satisfying his curiosity.
With his own frequent social blunders, Gale recognizes the way her voice changes mid-sentence, even if he doesn’t quite cotton on to why. He’s already come to the conclusion that neither of them had been truly trying their hardest during their battle. If they had, he’s almost entirely positive she’d have ripped him to shreds and left him to spend another decade regenerating.
“That one was over the River,” he replies, deciding that it’s not her fault she doesn’t know that they’re facing due east. “I’ll show you the prettier version of it sometime if you remind me.” He’ll darken the sun, remove the danger and leave only the sky and its dozens of mirrored images in the shallow pools below. The assumption that he will see her again comes naturally. This is their second meeting, after all, and he’s no intention of ending this one in a way that precludes a third.
“Did you just come to fight?” Gale asks after a yawn and a shake of his head that banishes the last of the sleep (and a good bit of the weariness) from his mind and face. His blue eyes look back to her curiously and without expectation, as though he will be perfectly satisfied if that is so. And it will, too, though he hopes that a delay will not make her too irritable. Though Gale’s experience with mares is limited, he has found that the more dangerous they are, the more important it is to keep them from being irritated. There’s a reason he brings his sister her favorite fruits, and it is not always motivated by brotherly affection.
“I’ll be good in a few hours, I think, but it’s a much longer walk from the Plains to here than it is by wing.” His blue mouth turns up in amusement at that too-obvious statement. Erne shifts on his back and then takes flight, and Gale ignores the bird’s silent rebuke that at least one of them needs to remain ever-wary in the darkness. “And what about you – still have all the same abilities you had before?”
His offer to show her the prettier version of what he had blinded her with turns her forced smile into a warm grin that softens her features. “I’d like that so I’ll be sure to remind you.” She’s seen sunsets a plenty, of course, but she’s still curious all the same - and wouldn’t mind seeing what it was like to have her vision taken over in a situation other than a fight when she might have a chance to marvel at it properly.
And then, well, he just goes right out and asks if she’s there for a fight. She huffs out a long breath and her black hooves shuffle slightly in the sand - stealing a couple seconds to sort out the thoughts that she had just dissipated only to have them come crashing back in. So she hadn’t quite succeeded in changing the subject. Somehow, though, this approach feels a little easier. And it helps too that he adds that he’d be ready to go in a few hours - an expression of amusement matching his appearing on her features at that comment.
Mazikeen decides to answer as honestly as she can. The only two possibilities she can think of is either he’ll understand or he’ll be rude about it and both of those will help in their own way.
“Well… kinda? That was the plan, after we parted ways last time. I was going to hunt you down and prove to us both that I could win. Prove that Breach hadn’t made a mistake making me Champion.” Okay, maybe that was a little too honest. So she shakes her head as if to clear away those thoughts and presses on. “But then the sun went out and then… well you just seem so nice for someone who kicked my ass. You’re not what I expected.” There's a shrug of her pale shoulder as she says this but she's not embarrassed by the truth of it. Even after his burst of questions at the end of her fight, she’d really expected to find him to be an irritable jerk like someone else she knew. She thought just the sight of Gale would set her temper on fire. And even though she’s full of too many emotions she does not want to deal with, the explosive anger just isn’t there.
Then her lips twist with a lopsided grin, her voice lighter as she continues. “Maybe we could spar though - once you’ve rested? I don’t think anything has changed, I haven’t noticed anything new, anyway. I've still got my shifting, fire, and sparkling personality.”
She’s curious, though, about the delay - and (belatedly) thinks about the yawn that had proceeded his question. “Did I wake you? Is that why you’re so tired?”
Gale it's hard to keep a straight face when i just want to smile -- starlight crashing through the room, we'll lose our feathers
Gale had thought nothing of the offer, but he enjoys the way that the pale lines of Mazikeen’s face shift as she smiles. He mirrors it without thought, complete with an assenting nod of his navy chin. Later, when the dark world is a little clearer and the drums that beat at the back of his skull slacken their pace.
Taking a slow inhale, Gale does his best muffle the distraction of his headache and focuses instead on the shuffling hooves and suddenly absent smile on Maizkeen’s face. Accustomed to committing faux pas, Gale is not surprised to see the signs of another, and at least his disappointment in himself for yet another overtakes the distraction of his pain. It was asking her to fight, he knows. That there were other reasons for a visit had crossed his mind, but this one had seemed the most straightforward, had required the least amount of assumptions on Gale’s part. Breach had said she’d come to see the islands, he remembers, and while he still suspects that had not been entirely true, there is no reason Mazikeen might not have done the same thing.
He listens, navy ears flicked toward her, and at her accusation of pleasantness he even laughs. (It’s short lived, for it moves his head in a way that worsens the throbbing, but genuine).
“Well, you weren’t what I expected either.” He admits. He had battled one of the undead, and then a creature comprised entirely of darkness; next to them Mazikeen was markedly different. More enjoyable, if he is honest, but he’s very sure that attempting to articulate that it felt best to kick her living flesh would ensure that a second battle between them began immediately. Instead, he doesn’t elaborate at all, and instead just finishes with a slow and appreciative nod as Mazikeen begins to speak of her unchanged abilities and desire to spar when he is ready.
Gale should know better than to laugh, but he does anyway when she lists her triad of powers. His headache responds by spreading a little farther down his spine, and Gale exhales a long breath toward the dark sea just as she asks if she is the reason for his weariness.
“I was sleeping, yes, but…” He trails off as something moves in the far away darkness. Or perhaps it’s only something he’d imagined. “I came across a…a thing, on the way home. It was too dark to see, or maybe it was” the dark? The wingless brindle clearly muses out loud, the story emerging just as he remembers it. “It ran at me and so I tried to take its sight and it, well… it did not like that.” A vast overstatement, Gale thinks, and barely remembers to not shake his head in confusion.
“I made it away, obviously, being an immensely talented warrior…” (he glances under his white forelock at her for just a moment, hoping that she will smile again) “But my eyes are still a little sore, so I was resting them a bit.”
Mazikeen opts to take his admittance that she wasn’t what he expected as a compliment, considering that is what she had meant as well when she said the same words about him. And the prickle of unease and that in her fades away when she realizes he won’t be teasing her or mocking her for her honesty. When they aren’t going to fight right here and now - because if he had been rude that would have been one way of her finding her missing anger.
His laugh spreads a warmth through her that’s unexpected and yet enjoyable. Her mind doesn’t linger on it for long though, because it’s just then that she begins to feel a headache begin to form. She’s never held the fire aura for this long before and the strain is starting to make itself known. Still, however much she’s actually enjoying talking to Gale, Mazikeen will hold it for as long as she’s in his presence out of sheer stubbornness. It’s not really a weakness, surely, but it feels enough like it to her to encourage her to push through and keep them lit by the flickering orange glow.
Mazikeen thinks of the not-quite-shadows that she had seen during her travels to find Gale and she listens with interest as he explains his clash with one. She’s a little impressed he tried to take it’s sight, even if it backfired, but she decides to keep that to herself.
She does smile when he makes his comment about being an immensely talented warrior, though. It’s accompanied by a small roll of her eyes, but it’s a good-natured one that does not diminish the bright grin. The only thing that does cause it to fade is looking out into the blurred darkness of the island and thinking they may be being watched by some of these things right now. “I’ve seen them, from a distance but not up close yet.” An idea comes to her and she shifts her gaze back to Gale, a spark in her eyes not caused by the fire light. “If you want, you can rest and I could watch…” There’s only the slightest pause before she thinks about how this might sound and she continues in a rush. “Out for the island not watch you rest, I mean.”
If Mazikeen could hit herself for those fumbling words, she would. So instead she just presses on. Making her way back to that spark. “I wouldn’t mind hunting some shadows.” She says ‘wouldn’t mind’ as if she didn’t feel a surge of excitement just at the idea.
Gale it's hard to keep a straight face when i just want to smile -- starlight crashing through the room, we'll lose our feathers
His eyes turn up to the flames overhead, their glow warming the beach around them and casting red and orange light on the black sand. The reflection flickers in his brilliantly blue eyes for a long moment, dissapeareing only as his expression breaks into a smile to mirror her own. He’d made her laugh, even if it’d come with a roll of her eyes, and her feels victorious. The emotion that flutters in his chest is a bit like the sensation of landing a good blow in battle, Gale decides, but somehow softer and also better. He can see his mother as she says it, but her navy mane had blown across her mouth at that moment, and Gale’s memories are all entirely without sound.
This is friendship, he decides, and it causes a bright spark in Maizkeen’s orange eyes because she feels it too. Her offer is met with a tilt of his head, and only after she’s rushed out an explanation does he allow his shoulders to shake in amusement, his feathers chortling softly against each other as he speaks. “I didn’t think you meant that,” he reassures her, and then continues in an effort to show that he would not be opposed to being friends: “But you could do either, really. I would appreciate the island watching though. Erne is as tired as I am, I think.”
Overhead, a shrill screech echoes into the darkness. The osprey is visible only when he crosses over the distant sun, and it is clear he flies ever higher and farther away. He will rest up there, Gale knows, carried by the highest of winds.
From where they stand on the south eastern beach, the rest of Beqanna was visible. Or rather, it would be, spreading from tephra to the east to ischia in the south, if the world around them were not dark. “They’ll come from the mainland if they come,” he says, gesturing in the direction he means. “I think, anyway. I’ve not seen any that haven’t yet.”
Mazikeen’s desire to fight with the monsters does not surprise him. No one could champion a kingdom without a certain amount of brash self-confidence. Gale has that himself in spades. Friendship races down his spine like a shock of electricity, heating the very edges of his skin as Mazikeen begins to look amused again, and Gale’s blue face smooths in pleased contentment. It has been a very long time since he’d shared the responsibility of watching Islandres with anyone other that Erne, and the realization that he is willing to trust Mzikeen with it is almost as delightful as the freedom that comes from putting down the weight.
“Make sure you don’t get beat up too bad,” he says, his eyelids heavy as he fights off his headache even while smiling. He can’t seem to stop smiling, a symptom of friendship he is sure, and teases: “I want to be sure we fight without handicaps.”
Then, trying and failing to muffle a yawn, he begins to turn away to rest.
