"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
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
He waits for a reply, and tries very hard to remember to breathe lest he grow light headed again. Then she’s replying, and he’s very attentive, with wide blue eyes and flicking navy ears. Everything seems to hinge on this, and even though it takes him a moment to process the words, her smile at least tells him that the answer is good long before he thinks it through.
Right to the end, she says. It’s not what he expects, and it startles a laugh from the brindle stallion.
“Till my end,” he replies, emphasizing what he feels most important. His heart is flipping in joyful somersaults, but he has spent too much time fretting over this to not be as certain as possible. He needs to be sure that Mazikeen knows what loving him entails. He loves her today, and he’ll love her tomorrow, but he won’t lie to promise longer than that.
When he closes the space between them to press a kiss not unlike his last one to her cheek, he does promise: “For as long as I can.” He does’t pull away after, because he finds that the quick race of his heart has become something like a drum. Where he had pressed his skin to hers is still warm, so he kisses her again along the chin, just to see how that might feel.
This is quickly becoming a very interesting kind of experiment.
Mazikeen nods to let him know she understands everything that’s been laid out. Until his end, she’ll be with him. Every wonderful and horrible step and with luck she’ll be able to stop the very worst from happening.
And then he’s closing the space between them, pressing a kiss to her cheek and her eyes close in contentment. She’s nervous as hell though and does her best to shut out her thoughts and the uncertainties that linger. Mazikeen doesn’t know if she’ll be any good at being loved - so maybe it’s for the best Gale will stop loving her one day anyway. If her affections are clumsy and her words are harsh and stupid there will be a day when she’s the only one who remembers them. She’ll carry the good and the bad memories for them both until her ending.
Mazikeen thinks she understands why her mother let herself be destroyed by love, why she carried that weight with her through countless years, and she wonders if she’s destined to follow the same path.
But she’s not thinking about the future when he kisses her along her chin, her entire focus is on that contact and the thrill it sends across her skin. This time, she doesn’t hold her breath and it hitches ever so slightly. Mazikeen can't even bring herself to be annoyed at herself for this reaction.
She leans into his touch, momentarily forgetting about her horns until they provide a blockade for pressing her cheek to his. With a frustrated laugh, they disappear and she has only her smile and her scars left to adorn her. Her movements are gentle, far gentler than anything Maze has ever done, when she finally reaches out to brush her muzzle across his navy skin with a kiss and then reaching to trace the line of one of the glowing brindles on his neck.
“I’ll take all the seconds I can get.” The words are breathed out, quiet against his skin. Right now she’s not embarrassed by them, though that may change later. It seems to be a good measure of time for them, for this. Not years or seasons, not even days. Just precious seconds.
There are questions that need to be asked still but Mazikeen can’t bring herself to speak them just yet. Standing with Gale next to the shimmering lake she just continues pretending this moment is enough because right now, it feels like it is.
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
Gale has been careful with his touch, wanting to be sure. He feels her breath catch as he kisses her cheek, and shares the laugh and brief frustration caused by her dark horns. He had not minded them, but their absence makes it easier for him to follow the soft line of her cheek up to the base of her ear with still more kisses.
When she reaches out out to touch him in return, Gale leans against her, and he feels the warmth of her breath against his ears even in the summer air. The words fan the desire that her nearness always seem to elicit, while deepening the awareness that this moment will never be one of many.
So he kisses her again, and that secondary awareness fades a bit, and another kiss to the crimson V across her nose has it gone almost entirely.
This is not at all like fighting, and yet the way that world shrinks down so small that it contains only the two of them is not so different from a battle. His heart is racing, and his breath is rapid, and each time they touch he feels it like lightning across his skin.
“Would now be a good time for a tour of Hyaline?” He asks, and his tone is remarkably casual given that he is also wide-eyed and flushed and nearly breathless. “I would like to keep showing you I have missed you, but perhaps later, and not here by the lake.” By the lake, in the sunshine, with the sweeping meadows and the ability to be seen by most anyone looking downhill in Hyaline.
She could lose herself in these kisses, she thinks. Each one makes the world a little harder to remember - which is a very dangerous thing. It is good that he brings up the idea of a tour, and reminds her where they are standing. A thrill runs through her at even the idea of more to come and the laugh that comes out when he says not by the lake is both embarrassed and a little breathless. She’s feeling bold, but not quite bold enough to pretend she wouldn’t care if everyone in the whole kingdom saw them right now. So instead she presses her own kiss to his cheek and whispers “Maybe I’ll work some more private spots into the tour and you can show me there.”
It’s an effort to step away but she wears a smile as she does, wondering if she’s more dazzled by his touch or from the sun being back. The combination of both is intoxicating.
She’s also feeling a little self-conscious about her home, knowing he’s coming from a verified tropical paradise (though she’s never seen in it the daylight), but she's come to like this rugged place and she points out the sights as they move. She tells him how beautiful it is here in the spring, especially the large wisteria tree she motions to growing further down the shore that will have millions of drooping purple flowers. She angles their path to climb the grass-covered foothills where she knows they’ll find a view of everything below (and, conveniently, some privacy among the mixed-wood forests there if they wish it). Mazikeen tells Gale how much she loves when the snow blankets everything and how that’s one of her favourite times to have fun with her shifting. “It’ll be a little colder than you’re used to, of course, but I’m sure you can handle it.”
The teasing smile shines in her orange eyes as they walk but it fades when reality begins to creep in again, reminding her that this is not the beginning of a wonderful future no matter how much she wishes it was. She takes care to keep her voice neutral when she asks “You’ll have to leave for a bit, won’t you?” He is the Chief back in Islandres, after all, and that means there are bound to be some things to wrap up before he can come to live here. Mazikeen wants to ask him to stay just for a little while, even just the rest of this day, because there’s no certainty about what he’ll be like when he gets back… but she’s sick with the knowledge that even that small request may not be fair. However happy she is in this moment, the memory of Gale shouting at her to stop thinking about herself lingers now and makes her hesitate to voice what she wants. Better to continue to follow his lead.
I used the H word so this post is officially MATURE
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
She looks nearly as dazed as Gale feels, light-headed but also wonderfully happy. He laughs at her whispered suggestion, and though he makes no effort to keep her from moving away he is not shy as they meander through Hyaline.
They climb uphill, and Gale stays near, brushing against her side, her shoulder, her hip. Never unobtrusively, for even as he takes in the land that Mazikeen shows him he never looks away from her for very long. He touches her to be sure she is real, and she always feels so wonderful, so he stumbles quite a bit more than usual as they wind their way up into the foothills.
He likes the forest she shows him, and wanders between trees of a kind he has never seen before as Mazikeen tells him of snow and spring. He pauses to look at a cluster of bluebells, but is distracted by the white mare. He very much likes the forest, and the privacy it gives them.
They’re happy for a while, wandering through the mountains, but there comes a time when she falls quiet, and Gale tilts his head curiously at the careful tone she chooses.
He’d not intended to leave her side for a moment, but he knows immediately what she’s referring to. Islandres. It seems that Gale has driven away most of those residents that had not fled the Monsters, leaving the black-sand island all but empty.
“I always thought someday I’d pass on responsibility for Islandres to a child of mine,” the brindle says, looking toward the mountains, beyond which lie his distant home. It had always been a bit of a silly dream, like resurrecting the old days of blood inheritance. Sillier now, and he shakes his head wryly at the thought as he continues to look at the horizon.
04-11-2021, 12:54 PM (This post was last modified: 04-11-2021, 01:01 PM by Mazikeen.)
Mazikeen
It’s a wonder Mazikeen had even been able to focus on their surroundings enough to talk about them with Gale being so close. It makes just focusing on walking difficult and every time his skin brushes up against hers, every time she notices that he’s looking at her, her pulse continues to climb and she feels the joy like sparks racing through her. There has to be a limit to what her heart can handle, she thinks, until the next touch comes and she’s rejoicing in it all over again.
She pauses with him, her orange eyes focused on him - none of the scenery around them interested her half as much as he did as she watches the light filtering through the leaves make patterns on his iridescent coat. She regrets bringing reality into this happy moment but her annoyance at herself fades into white noise when he speaks about thinking he’d pass Islandres on to a child of his one day.
It's a casual comment, not even a particularly suggestive one, though the white mare becomes a little more aware of their newfound privacy.
Mazikeen had never once even considered the idea of being a mother - not because she had any particular qualms about it, she just hadn't thought about it. It had never been even a vague possibility. She hadn’t been built for casual flings - if her reaction to a small touch from Firion had been any indicator - and before Gale, she didn’t think she was capable of loving someone or being loved in return.
There is a general sense of uncertainty that rises with the idea, even as it plants a seed of longing. She had a family with the pack but what would it be like to have a different sort of family? Would she even be a good mother? Her own had tried her best but had not exactly been the very best of role models.
If her own childhood was any indicator, the job itself would be pretty easy with the child running off all the time - but if Maze let herself think about it, she'd know it wasn't motherhood but the intimacy that led to it that frightened her.
But she doesn't think about it, and to distract herself from her thoughts she finds herself asking “Do you have any?” Attempting to go for a cool and curious tone, though the intensity of her eyes as she watches him may give the truth away if he turned away from the mountains.
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
When Nashua asks if Gale has any children he will have been prepared for it by this moment, when he looks back and meets Mazikeen’s suddenly intent gaze.
He has the odd sensation that there might be a wrong answer to this question, but he dismisses it with the same shake of his head that answers the question.
“No,” he adds, telling her that while his brothers and their broods might tease him for his romantic inexperience, he can at least know for certain he’s not risked passing on the Curse that runs in his blood. The smile that follows is bittersweet, but by now Gale has learned the cure to his distraction.
He takes a step nearer, so that his shoulder presses against hers, and enjoys the way the warmth radiates through him, hotter even than the sun on his bright coat.
Gale had once assumed Mazikeen to be rather experienced in the ways of love, finding it difficult to imagine such a marvelous creature did not have suitors left and right. He is still not sure that she doesn’t, for he has begun to suspect that she does not always see herself as the same wondrous being that Gale sees.
Though he intends to stay regardless of the answer, it occurs to Gale that perhaps he should be sure of things in this new home.
“Will I need to...to do anything to join you here? Go into a spirit cave, or have an initiation, or fight off rivals for your affections?” He’s not especially looking forward to any of those things, but he remembers learning of them, and of the importance in not seeming offended by the practices of others.
It’s probably ridiculous that she feels a sense of relief when he says he has no children but that’s exactly what she feels (though she does her best just to nod, grinning a little at the idea of his brothers teasing him). His history hadn’t begun with her so she wouldn’t be surprised to find out if there had been others drawn in by his charm, but she takes an odd sort of comfort in knowing that on this they are on equal footing. That he is as inexperienced as her soothes away some of her worries.
Maybe she won’t make as big of a fool of herself after all since she will not be navigating this new terrain on her own.
Maybe
And she assumes his worries about passing on the curse remain so thoughts of children evaporate for the time being and she’s left to enjoy this moment.
She presses back when he steps closer, still unaccustomed to the casual nearness but relishing in it all the same. At his questions, there is a joke that flits through her mind but she is unable to speak it - the words that come out instead are quiet and nervous. She's thinking about the last time when he was here, when she tried to tell him she’d never felt this way about anyone and had suffocated on the words. It was still true now, though - the only thing that has changed is that now she knows what had been brewing in her heart then was love. “You’re the only one, Gale, and you wanting to be here - even if it’s not under the greatest of circumstances - is the only thing you need to stay.”
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
Gale is slower to learn socialization than he is most things, but he has begun to feel more confident about interpreting the way Mazikeen responds to him. When he touches her she presses against him, mirroring his desire, and yet the words she says against his cheek are nervous and quiet, and even with the amorous haze that clouds his mind he slows his already languid touch and pulls away to rest his chin across her withers after she speaks.
Unlike Mazikeen, Gale is still thinking very much of babies. He knows they come about sometime after the kissing happens, but there are also springs where couples do not have children.
He thinks he might like to have one, but there is more he needs to know before he decides for certain. They are born in the spring, but he is not sure how much preparation is required. Less than a year, he is sure - but how much less? He begins to frown as he contemplates the math, but there are too many variables he is not certain of. He will need to ask someone, and it certainly can’t be Mazikeen.
He would like to be a father more than he wants a child, he is sure, and Gale is becoming less and less certain that there is time for both as he thinks. No children then, Gale decides, and he looks into Mazikeen’s smiling eyes and forgets the few seconds of deep contemplation that had so consumed him.
“You are the most marvelous thing I have ever Seen,” he tells her. He could stand here and watch her, ringed by her mountains and the clear blue sky, and never grow tired. The mantle might not have been one she wanted, Gale thinks, but being Alpha does suit her.
The compliment makes her uncomfortable but this time it’s easier not to let it show, easier to allow her smile to dance a little more as it feeds on the hope that kind words not a prelude to something that will ruin this day. She likes the idea of him seeing her as marvellous, likes the idea that she's something more than a stubborn stand-in alpha with an anger problem. Every hint that she could have an effect on him the same way he does on her makes her stomach flutter.
It is significantly harder to argue with herself that he’s just messing with her as time continues to stretch and the distance between them doesn’t grow. There’s still a part of her that is warning of danger but the voice shouting that is so small that when Mazikeen looks into Gale’s vivid blue eyes she cannot hear it at all.
At first, she cannot find her voice or any words appropriate enough so she replies in the newest language they’ve learned together, by reaching out to him and planting kisses on his skin that are less tentative than before, moving with surety.
Mazikeen then closes her eyes, just resting her muzzle against him for a moment - breathing him in, focusing on all the points where they connect and the rising desire of wanting more. A smile grows, she wonders if he can feel it, and she speaks the thought that had just appeared with a tender laugh. “I’ve never been happier to lose a fight.” Not exactly a compliment by traditional means, but a significant one from Mazikeen all the same.
