Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you
It wants to press the issue. She will lay them as eggs, and the Curse will have them. Gale’s mouth opens up, but the words do not come out. Instead, he coughs, and lowers his head. His blue eyes do not see the fiery autumn bouquet at his hooves.
Mazikeen is shaking her head and smiling as Gale emerges, and she’s close enough that he can reach out and touch her easily. The brindle stallion slides his chin along her shoulder and then her back, pressed against her from hip to chest. His head rests on her hindquarters, and he looks out at the golden autumn blanket across the valley below them.
The sight calms him, and he categorizes the details he sees: a pair of white-tail bucks testing their strength, an otter in the lake, a harvest mouse forgetting to look out for a pair of Islandres black wings. The technique slows his heartrate, and he listens as Mazikeen describes baby horses as less fragile. Less fragile than what, he wonders?
Gale hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation they’d been having. He’d been picking his way through the fog, trying to find his way back to his mind. Coming back like this is not something he can recall doing before, and rather than think about what has just happened to him, he latches on to what Mazikeen is saying.
Do any of his brothers have kids?
“All of them do. I have, hmm, at least a dozen nieces and nephews. Pteron’s even a grandfather. They’re tiger-shifters, his grandkids, but I think they got that from their mom.” He chatters, the words flowing as freely as the wind that carries the crisp promise of snow from the peaks behind him.
“Eyas always seemed very busy as a parent. And there were three of them, three parents, I mean.” He briefly explains the situation as he understands it, his sister and her lovers - the dragon and the dreamer. He starts to think about children, but he recognizes the path, the same deep concentration that had distracted him enough for the Curse to slip in.
He should tell her. She clearly hadn’t noticed a thing, and Gale’s stomach curls to know how aptly he’d been mimicked. He should tell her.
But she is warm against him, and she sounds so very content. It’s a wonderful sound, one he closes his eyes to commit to memory, and tells her truthfully: “I love you so very much Mazikeen.” He will tell her, but for now he will savor this moment. There will be not be many more of them.
@[Mazikeen]
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