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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]  you know you're gonna need to fight
    #11
    Mazikeen
    The smile that his response inspires is bright and unrestrained. She’d been using his full name, thinking that had been what he preferred after he had used hers. But she likes this change, and hopes that it means things aren’t going to be as formal between them anymore. It does not bother her that he is not blazing with a similar smile, it’s enough that he’s trying - enough that he’s up for spending time with her. She just hopes it is not out of obligation. “Come on then, Sela.” And she sets off towards those shadowy foothills.

    Her pace isn’t what it would be normally, and it only takes a few strides for Mazikeen to remember that she’s seen elephants smaller than what she feels like right now. So instead of a thrilling, wild speed she needs to take something a little slower and even then she’s pretty sure she can feel the twins sloshing around.

    “I’m going to have twins - like you and Este.” When she says this, she means to say something lighthearted - means to tell him that she hopes her children care for each other the way Selaphiel does for his sister, how they'll look out for each other with such devotion and how she hopes they’re brave and kind like him.

    But she does not find it easy to casually talk about being a mother, there are too many darker thoughts mixed in. Because she’s not going to get the chance to know them, because she’s trying to find a way to save Gale and avoid having to kill him and in the process she needs to give up her chance at getting to know these babies at all.

    So after a few more steps, instead of something light what she adds is “The… the one I was talking about earlier.” Who she needs to kill, though she does not want to repeat this again. She’s already twisting what she had intended to be a pleasant conversation, already feeling it rotting in her grasp and hating herself for it. She keeps her orange gaze forward, feels the rolling sickness and heartache that comes with these thoughts, when she adds quietly in a voice that does not hide her pain “He’s their father.”


    @[Selaphiel]
    #12
    selaphiel
    these days i don’t pray when i close my eyes
    Sela.
    This is a new kind of glow.
    An altogether different sun. It is a light that lives in his chest, a warmth that splinters outward from the very center of him. How shy the smile that creeps across his face as he follows her toward the hills and how valiant his efforts to hide it. 

    They walk together in silence and he feels no anxious urge to fill it up. Perhaps they are friends. Perhaps, in this way, he can be useful to her. As someone who can walk beside her and feel no need to fill the quiet with nonsense, someone simply to be there. 

    After several moments, she speaks and he tilts his head in her direction but does not turn his gaze on her. (He knows that the ice blue of it can be unsettling, how glacial it is, how pointed.) Instead, he watches the earth unfold before them and thinks of his sister, of the children growing in her swollen barrel. The news is not delivered in the way he might have expected. She does not share it with a tone of unbridled enthusiasm, but with something more subdued. It is this that draws his gaze to her. 

    He does not speak, only watches her face as she gathers her thoughts. And then, finally, the confession. And everything comes crashing into place. So suddenly that it kicks all of the air out of his chest. For a moment he thinks that it is the pain in her voice when she says it that casts the shroud, but the dust soon settles and it becomes abundantly, devastatingly clear that this is not the case at all.

    She is not looking at him but he cannot tear his eyes away from her.
    Eyes that fill suddenly with tears as the smell pools in his nostrils.

    Maze,” he whispers, voice trembling.
    And he cannot bring himself to take another step.

    He stops and he hopes that she will, too.
    He stops and he hopes that she will look back at him.

    Maze,” he says, a little bit louder, begging her to look at him.
    And when she does, he does not bother to blink the tears out of his eyes.
    Because he knows and he had so wanted to be useful to her.

    He will kill you,” he whispers, voice shaking.
    Because he does not know any other way to tell her.


    I just bite my tongue a bit harder



    @[Mazikeen]
    #13
    Mazikeen
    She stops as soon as she notices he does, her nickname in his trembling voice pulling concern into her bright eyes as she turns to him. His tears confuse and alarm her and for a single moment she’s wondering what she did wrong before he says it.

    It hits her like a wave, this knowledge that Gale will hurt her in this final way, but already her spinning mind finds something else to focus on that is not this heavy weight.

    Mazikeen is going to die, and all she can think about is how sorry she is that it is causing Sela pain.

    Her instinct to give comfort when she should be receiving it was something she thought only existed with Gale. She had been so determined not to let him see her hurt, for him to not have any excuse to leave, that she had tried to bury every dangerous emotion. Everything but happiness and love and anger because they were safe. But that instinct is here now with Sela, rising up and encouraging her to step closer and embrace him. She is gentle about it - acknowledging that their friendship is still new - and would be careful to step back if he shows any discomfort. Not knowing that she is enveloping him with the scent of her death.

    “It’ll be okay. I’ve survived death before, right?” She tries to sound sure but her voice is small and soft before she pulls away. She doesn’t know what to think of this news but the questions she wants to ask are not ones she thinks Selaphiel can answer.

    Will it be after the babies are born or will the Curse grow impatient and rip them from her?

    Will she manage to kill Gale when he kills her?

    Will she be lucky a third time, adding fuel to the joke she had made with Firion about having nine lives.

    But in place of these questions she looks at her young friend and asks quietly “What about the babies? Can you sense anything about them?” Because this feels more important than what will happen to her.


    @[Selaphiel]
    #14
    selaphiel
    these days i don’t pray when i close my eyes
    For the first time in his life, confusion gives way to frustration.
    (He is confused, you see, because she moves to embrace him. As if he is the one who needs comforting. As if he is the one who has just been told that his lover will betray him in such a horrible, unforgivable way. 

    And he is frustrated because the tears had sprung into his eyes in the first place and he had been powerless to stop them. Because she does not seem to understand the gravity of what he’s just told her. 

    He had not been able to warn her the first time and he’s had to live with that. But he’s telling her now and she is moving to pull him into the warmth of a friendly, comforting embrace. To quell his fears, to stem the flow of his tears. 

    It won’t be okay. She has survived death before but there is no way of knowing if she will survive death again.)

    But he is such a soft thing, Selaphiel, and he does nothing to express his frustration. He swallows it down and allows her to embrace him while he valiantly tries to fight back the tears still pooling in those bright blue eyes. 

    And when she pulls away, he searches her face. Because he cannot tell her if her lover will kill her before the birth of her children or after. He cannot tell her what will become of them, even when he casts his focus to the swell of her barrel and channels all of his energy into trying. They are protected now in her womb. He can smell nothing of them. He does not know. 

    He shakes his head, forlorn, blinking rapidly. “No, I’m sorry,” he murmurs. Always so sorry, Selaphiel. Sorry that he can never give her what she asks of him. Sorry that he cannot be useful to her in the ways that she needs him to be.

    He shifts his eyes back to her, holds her gaze hard and fast. “What can I do?” he asks fiercely. “How can I help you?” And there in the voice, you can hear the way his heart aches. “Say the word and I will not leave your side. I will protect you in any way I can.



    I just bite my tongue a bit harder



    @[Mazikeen]
    #15
    Mazikeen
    She takes some comfort in the fact that there is no immediate sense of death surrounding the twins - that's something, at least. A small balm of relief.

    Sela continues and Mazikeen does not believe she deserves his offer, not even the fierce determination with which he makes it. It makes it harder for her to focus on easing his sadness and she feels hers creep back up to the surface. This is an offer she would make too, she knows - and she can only hope that Sela isn’t as stubborn as she is. Because there’s no way she can accept his protection. There is no reality where she would put him somewhere that he can be hurt.

    And if he were there when Gale came for her, if there was a danger to him, she knows she’d crumple all the easier to save him - her affection for Sela, for all her friends, is a weakness that can be so easily exploited. And it is not likely going to be long until the Curse finds that out.

    His fierceness isn’t something she can shrug off or ignore and she would not dream of making a light joke with him now. She does smile at him, this brave young friend of hers, but there is no joy in the action and tears form in her orange eyes as she looks back at him. Her fire gaze locked on his made of ice. She tries to keep the tears away, to pretend she is brave and strong enough to survive this prediction and whatever else might come from her. To pretend she’s someone worthy of Sela’s friendship.

    But her tears have never listened to her commands before, and they do not now. Her voice is quiet and earnest when she makes her request. Protection, but not for herself. “Will you look after your family for me? Make sure they’re safe? I know you already do that already but…” But now he knew there was another threat. Now he knew there was something more here in Hyaline to worry about.

    With a deep, shuddering inhale she continues, speaking of a future where she no longer exists and feeling the weight this future, potential failure settle on her. “And if I don’t survive this time, and he does, I want you to get everyone you can to leave Hyaline and find somewhere safe.” Not just a future without her, but one where she’s failed. One where she hasn’t completed her promise and can no longer do whatever she can to protect those that call this place home.

    “Can you do that for me, Sela?”


    @[Selaphiel]
    #16
    selaphiel
    these days i don’t pray when i close my eyes
    Were he half the angel his mother was, perhaps he could chase away her tears. Perhaps he could press his mouth to her brow and will them away himself. But he is not and he will never be. He is only Selaphiel, this thing cast from ice, who can only stand here and watch them pool in her eyes and cut rivers down her cheeks. And that dastardly heart in the cage of his chest, it spasms and aches for her and for her children. 

    There has to be more they can do.
    Surround her with healers, protectors, stow her away from this vicious thing that threatens her life. Let her kill it before it can kill her. Anything.

    But he does not say any of this because he knows that is her decision and hers alone. He knows that she is proud and she is smart and she is capable. And she will not be talked out of whatever decision she has already made.

    He knows that now all he can do is stand there and agree to do whatever she asks him to do. All he can do is fight to stave off his own tears, to be strong for her. He swallows thickly and nods, though those glacial blue eyes still swim with grief. He does not want to lose her again, Maze. His friend. 

    But he nods because this is all he can do now. All he can do is what she asks of him. He will look after his family, after his mother and Este. Though he knows that Atrox looks after his mother well enough. He will make Este his responsibility. 

    He squeezes his eyes closed when she continues. Because he cannot stomach the thought of her not surviving this time. Because he does not know what he will do if this thing takes her from them in some irreversible way. His breath hitches and breaks straight down the middle. He sways on his feet and does not, cannot, steady himself. He shakes his head. This he cannot agree to. He cannot, cannot, cannot.

    How he wants to say yes! How he wants to be dutiful, obedient! How he wants to do all that she asks of him! “I can’t,” he whispers and forces his eyes open. For a long moment all he can do is look at her, search her face. Because she had laid down her life for him, sacrificed everything for him.

    I’m sorry, Maze,” he continues, so quiet, “but if he takes you from us…” He swallows, falters, cannot finish. 


    I just bite my tongue a bit harder



    @[Mazikeen]




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