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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    [private]  this is going to bring me clarity | Mazikeen
    #1
    Gale
    this is going to break me clean in two --
    this is going to bring me close to you



    His time away had been unexpectedly lengthy, but Gale sweeps into Hyaline on white feathered wings long before the birds begin to sing. He swoops across the lake, trailing his dark hooves across the mirror-like surface. Belatedly he recalls the fish creature who lives in the depths, and hopes that he has not disturbed the rest of Mazikeen’s friend with his skimming.

    Nothing erupts from the water behind him, so he decides he is safe, and banks toward the grassy meadows just above the water, using the ever-uphill nature of the terrain to aid in his landing. Gale folds his white wings to him, and then into his sides entirely, a habit he’d seemingly developed in his time away from Hyaline.

    He’d been farther than he’d expected, and Islandres was not the only place he returns from late tonight. Gale yawns, but is reluctant to sleep. He has things to do yet, and the first of them is finding Mazikeen.

    So he shifts to something with an excellent nose, and soon a blue-brindled polar bear heads up the mountain in search of the white mare. 


    @[Mazikeen]

    #2
    Mazikeen
    Mazikeen had been… distracted since Gale had left. She alternated between wondering when she should assume he wasn’t coming back and just telling herself to chill out and give it a little bit more time. So she had worked on distracting herself further, venturing around to find a few friends she had not seen, and feeling sick with the hope that whenever Gale did come back, things had not changed.

    She’s wide awake in the late hour, still not finding it comfortable to sleep at night and preferring to do literally anything else. Tonight she’s just wandering, making sure all is peaceful, when her ears twitch and a not-entirely unpleasant sensation runs down her spine. She thinks she’s being tracked. While she did not enjoy eating other animals, she did enjoy hunting - using it to practice both her shifting and her problem solving - and some instinct tells her that right now she’s someone’s prey.

    This does not concern her at all and she instead feels a flicker of amusement.

    She’s in the rocky foothills and shifts into a sabre-toothed cat, making her coat dark so as to not give herself away too soon, before padding quietly through the rocks and grasses. The trail she leads is not long but it is winding and at the end of it she waits perched upon a large rock. When she sees movement she changes her colour from dark to her normal white with black markings. When she recognizes the blue-brindled coat of this polar bear, a smile is already growing in that mouth that houses two large canines - one half as long as the other. Chipped in the only battle she’s lost that did not also claim her life. Just changed it.

    Though this shape is fierce, her smile isn’t and she does not bother to hide the relief in her voice when she greets him. “You’re back.”

    But though she welcomes him with these warm words, uncertainty keeps her rooted from going to greet him with more. Being openly in love is far too new for her to trust it so easily and if he’s going to reject her, she’d rather it be from a distance so she can have even a chance at piecing herself back together.


    @[Gale]
    #3
    Gale
    this is going to break me clean in two --
    this is going to bring me close to you



    Though the shape he wears is an excellent tracker, the quarry he seeks is more elusive than any seal, and he’s sure no (natural) bear has even hunted this high in the mountains. Now and then, he uses his natural advantages; altering his vision so he might better see the way grass has been bent or stones upturned, shifting partially so he might use the echolocation of the bat to see if Mazikeen had gone into this crevice or simply climbed around it.

    By the time he finds her, Gale is  very sure she’s led him this way on purpose, and he’s searching for the proud grin on her face as soon as she comes into view. Proud, but also relieved, a tone that is present in her voice as well, when she greets him with a single pair of words.

    “I am,” he replies, equally verbose, and unsure how to make a polar bear face smile.

    She is sitting just out of reach on the rock, and when she makes no move to come down, Gale tilts his blue head in puzzlement. Mazikeen can’t want him to join her up on the small rock, so he stays where he is. He is not sure if something has changed since he left, or if perhaps he had taken too many liberties before he had, pushing her farther than she’d wanted in terms of physical affection. He will find this out later, he decides, because now he has news.

    “Icicle Isle is having a midsummer festival,” he replies, settling into a form that can sit and stare up at her more easily, a large blue lion with a pale white mane. “Would you go with me?”


    @[Mazikeen]

    #4
    Mazikeen
    She watches as he tilts his head and wonders what he’s trying to figure out. If it’s the same thing she’s trying to figure out they could be stuck at this for days. Instead of bringing any clarity to the situation, Gale brings up the midsummer festival and asks if she’ll go with him - and she answers without needing to think about it. “I'd love to.” Mazikeen does not care for the fact that there is precious little she’d say no to if he asked her but it is the truth nonetheless. Any chance she could get to spend more time with him.

    She’s never been to Icicle Isle and she almost remarks on this, but the distance between them needles her and she needs to discover if anything has changed over the days they spent apart or it will drive her crazy (nevermind that she could have sat anywhere else other than a rock built for one and she may have had her answer sooner).

    There are unkind thoughts she does not want to speak too, wondering if he’s only asking her so he has someone there to watch him. She would still, of course, but she’d much prefer if it was something else.

    “As your date?” She asks, masking her uncertainty with a smile and light curiosity as she slips from the boulder and stands before him, orange eyes bright even in the dark. She’s just a little larger than him in this form, the smilodon had been built with thick muscles, but she’s not thinking about how handy that would be in a fight right now. She’s thinking about how there’s nothing she’d like more than to close the small distance between them, see if she can get this great blue lion to purr, but Mazikeen instead waits for a sign that such actions would be welcome. Wondering if she’ll ever be comfortable enough to act on the bold instincts she has instead of letting them get muddled up with indecision before she can so much as twitch a paw.


    @[Gale]
    #5
    Gale
    this is going to break me clean in two --
    this is going to bring me close to you



    Mazikeen accepts as quickly as he’s asked, and while this shape is not much better for smiling, the lion does hum contentedly in the back of his throat, which he supposes is this shape’s method of expressing satisfaction.

    Perhaps he’s misread her earlier behavior, Gale thinks. Or had her quick reply been borne from a desire to see a festival or the isle? He is deciding which question to ask first - because there are a great many of them building up as he stares at her up there on that work - when she comes down.

    As your date? She asks, and Gale thinks that now he understands. His brothers had not been especially forthcoming in their advice, but he does remember that humor is important in a relationship

    “No,” he replies, and manages to sound very casual, which assures him that this joke will be perfectly executed. “Just as a friend.” Except he forgets that this shape is much better at hiding its amusement than his equine shape, and he both looks and sounds very serious as he verbally confirms some of her unspoken fears.

    @[Mazikeen]

    #6
    Mazikeen
    Mazikeen likes Gale’s sense of humour, likes the way it colours his voice and urges a laugh from her with what feels like no effort at all. So she thinks she knows what it sounds like when he’s making a joke - and right now she replays his tone in her head a couple times just to be sure that there’s absolutely no indication of this being some very unfunny joke.

    She should have stayed up on the damn rock.

    While it replays in her head, she feels the hurt begin to eddy - a familiar feeling that is no less powerful just because she was expecting it - but she pushes past the hurt to the anger that bubbles up. As she does, cracks of light begin to race across her feline body - glowing like flame. It’s appropriate since she feels like she is fracturing but her burning eyes are only fixed on Gale and the glow grows stronger with the venom in her voice. “I can’t believe I was so fucking stupid to think that you actually l… lo…” That word sticks in her throat and she shakes her head, pushing past. “Sure, let’s go as friends. You can tell everyone how easy it was to dupe me, it’ll be fun. ‘That’s Maze, I’ve broken her heart twice now and she's still dumb enough to be here, isn’t that funny?’” The phrase broken her heart slips out without her meaning for it to. She wasn’t sure if that was what she was actually feeling or if it was just the closest thing to describe just how much it hurt to have her fears realized. Again

    When was she going to learn?

    She would still go too and she cannot decide at this moment whether she's more mad at herself or at him.

    Mazikeen can’t feel that ever-present hope in her anymore, not right now. It makes too much sense that this is the truth of it. And she cannot stop thinking about how he must’ve been laughing at her every time his touch drew out a sigh or every time she pressed a little closer. “I hope you’re fucking proud of yourself.” She wishes her voice sounded angrier, to her it just sounds wounded. The idea that it could also sound like that to him, that her pain was on display instead of carefully hidden, pushes her deeper into a rage.

    Mazikeen shifts her weight and then lunges for him. Although there is a snarl, her teeth are not bared and her claws remain sheathed. This is not a lethal attack. This is not the blinding white-noise rage that makes her lose control of her mind and body. This is pain and she just wants to knock him over so he might feel a small sliver of it.


    @[Gale] [ANGRY GLOW]
    #7
    Gale
    this is going to break me clean in two --
    this is going to bring me close to you



    Unaware of what spins behind her orange eyes, Gale is admiring the shape of the saber-toothed creature in front of him. She’s taller than he is, but still feline, like the margay she had worn just before he’d told her he loved her. Her fur is sleek and shining, and he is just wondering how it will feel against his face when she begins to glow.

    It’s beautiful.

    The light that flickers across her white coat is like lava on white sand, and he feels a similar curious desire to touch what he knows will harm him. This must be her Brightness, the same remnant of magic that has brought light to so many of them that were kept in darkness so long.

    “I -” don’t think I’ll ever get tired of looking at you. Only the first word comes out before Gale realizes that Mazikeen is already yelling at him.

    So enthralled by the glowing, he’d been ignoring her words until the second syllable in ‘stupid’. Immediately bewildered, that dark pupils of Gale’s blue eyes go very wide as he listens to her tirade. By the time she’s parroting his words back to him, he’s pieced together both that he’d somehow mangled his very funny joke and that Mazikeen is absolutely furious at him.

    He’s still very far from processing a reply when she leaps.

    “I’m not...” proud he tries to spit out before she pounces, because he certainly isn't. Mostly he is confused and alarmed. He’s royally forked this up, and it seems too late to change it as the white smilodon leaps toward him.

    He’d been wanting a closer look at her glowing skin, but hadn’t anticipated it happening quite like this.

    Though there hasn’t been time to think of an answer, thinking isn’t necessary to react to her attack. He moves to the right without conscious thought, ducking low and twisting his upper body to the left to smack at her haunch with the flat of his right paw. Even when moving instinctively he doesn’t slash at her, but he does bare his white teeth in a rather fearsome snarl when she flips and pins him.

    “That hurt!” He says, though the pain has healed by the time he speaks, and he’s referring more to his pride than any injury. She doesn’t let him up immediately, so he huffs out a short sigh and grumbles: “You know, I think you had a much better sense of humor before you became the Alpha. Or maybe those horns are growing into your brain.”

    @[Mazikeen]

    #8
    Mazikeen
    There’s an immense sense of satisfaction in pinning him, in having him beneath her but her mind is fraying too much to enjoy it. And then there’s the grumbled words - particularly the sense of humour phrase and she’s nearly sent into the rage where she loses everything. She snarls, snapping her gleaming jaws in warning.

    A warning about what, Maze? Are you going to kill him for making a fool of you?

    She dances along the edge of the rage instead - instead of losing control of her mind she loses control of her tongue. Mazikeen is pressing down on him with all her weight as she shouts. “I'm glad that hurt! You know what else did? When I lost my shifting - the thing I was scared of most? It was that my friends would think I was lessened, not worth their time. That they’d see I was nothing without it. And then you…” She inhales, and the words that she speaks next are quieter but no less filled with fire. “I know you thought you were doing what was best because of the curse but you hurt me, Gale. Everyone else - even Breach and the pack - accepted me without my shifting but you pushed me away instead and I learned all my fears were true. And now you've done it again. I knew it was dumb to hope...” Mazikeen shoves off of him then, retreating a few steps to the side - her feline head angled slightly away to keep him in her periphery but to spare herself from looking directly at the aftermath of having just spewed more words than she had ever intended on the subject.

    She thinks she really might kill him if he laughs. Even though he should, she was still making a fool of herself. All of that should have stayed locked up. He didn’t deserve to know how much that had meant to her, how much he meant to her. Maybe her horns would grow into her brain and relieve her of her senses so she could live in ignorant bliss.

    Her next words are a low hiss as the light continues to burn across her skin, her short tail flicking in irritation and her entire body tense as she turns her fiery attention back to him. "So why don't you explain to me exactly what's supposed to be so fucking funny about that.”



    @[Gale]
    #9
    Gale
    this is going to break me clean in two --
    this is going to bring me close to you



    Gale can feel Mazikeen’s snarl through his skin, where the pressure of her claws press against his chest. He can’t draw back from her snapping teeth, and he’s grateful she hadn’t bitten him. 

    This terrible reaction to his comment about her sense of humor is very unexpected.

    He is still not entirely sure why she is shouting at him, but he knows that the breath is being pushed from his lungs as she accentuates her yelling, so he tries his hardest to listen, to understand.

    She yells at him about losing her shifting and about the fears that he had assured her were unfounded. They are rehashing the past? But why is she yelling?

    He knows he had hurt her but still winces at the aggressive verbal reminder, an injury that his healing cannot even begin to touch. But then she says something that isn’t true and Gale, who has been paying close attention to the truth of late, falls still.

    He had been struggling before, shifting this way and that between the weight of her body, trying to find an escape. A creature without his healing might not have tried so long, for the thick blue skin of his brindle lionskin is no match for the rough stone of the mountainside.

    She shoves away from him, and Gale exhales a bewildered: “Maze?” She stalks away, but not far; had she heard him?  The glowing cat settles a short distance away from him but won’t meet his eyes, and Gale is awarded a brief moment of respite, a moment to think.

    He frantically recalls what Maze had said, the way her ears had pulled back against her head and she’d snarled at him about love and...breaking her heart.

    Oh.
    Oh, so that’s what he’d done.

    “It was a joke, Mazikeen.” He says, “A very very bad joke.” His tone is penitent, but he doesn’t shy away from her ferocious orange-eyed attention. He knows what it is like to face down the warrior in battle, and once more he finds a strange comparison between these two things.

    With uncharacteristic boldness, he moves closer. Not snarling like Mazikeen, just closer. His face is still, but with the look of vague curiosity that Gale will never be able to entirely school away. And then he moves closer still, because even if she rips out his throat, Gale would simply grow a new one and continue.

    He wants to be near her, because despite what his poor choice in words has conveyed this early morning, everything he had said to her before he’d left was true. He loves her. She is the most glorious, fascinating, wonderful thing he has ever set his eyes on - and he has Seen so much. But he has hurt her, and he will hurt her again, even as he loves her. This is what she'd agreed to only days before and already it is crumbling around them.

    Gale isn't sure where the courage comes from to speak, but it comes: “My date.” He says, enunciating the words as though she might not hear them across the small space he’s put between them. “I do want you to be. I was just...just trying to be funny. And failed.” He pauses the briefest moment, adds: “Obviously.”


    @[Mazikeen]

    #10
    Mazikeen
    The first “it was a joke” has her hair bristling because she’s still thinking she’s the joke - that everything he had said to her the last time they saw each other was just to see if she’d fall for it. And she had, (mostly) without hesitation. Mazikeen had believed it because she’d been hoping for it for so long and she thought all her attempts to poison herself against him had been in vain. Clearly, they were a little more successful than she’d thought.

    She watches him carefully, already thinking that she should pounce again. She’s still hurting why shouldn’t he be?

    When he draws closer, Mazikeen becomes so tense she thinks she may actually fall apart from the stress. Just burst into a cloud of white fur and fire. Her gaze is locked on his, looking for smugness that isn’t there. Closer still and Mazikeen thinks she hears ringing in her ears she’s so close to combusting.

    If he hadn’t enunciated the words as carefully as he did, they might not have made it through the building storm in her mind. The blazing anger shifts to wariness as she listens, her ears twitching.

    A snort escapes her in response to the obviously and the burning embers on her skin lessen their intensity slightly. There’s still a bite to her voice when she says quietly. “Let’s not joke about that again.” There’s a very powerful urge to look away, to not have to look at him while she speaks, but she forces herself to do it anyway. She feels weak and exposed and she’s afraid these things are shining in her eyes, afraid she’s giving him more ammunition against her. So it’s through stubborn will alone that she meets his blue gaze and somehow finds the words to actually explain. She’s already furious with herself for letting her emotions boil over and come out into the open - she might as well also hate herself for telling the truth. “Because we both know there will be a day when it’s going to be true, when you don’t…” Guess that word is still sticking, though. As if just not saying it will make it easier that it was all a lie. “While you were gone, when I wasn’t walking around smiling like an idiot, all I could think was that we already used up our seconds and that you’d come home and have changed your mind.”

    She doesn’t add that she’s now worried that this will change things. That he’ll think she won’t be able to handle their future after all and pull away. That at least, she hopes she can try to curb through her actions. By not letting her hurt show again.



    @[Gale]




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