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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


    what are we holding onto
    #1

    She does not know how long it’s been. There is grass beneath her head and the sound of water nearby but the pain that blooms all across her body with such intensity dulls any other sensation.

    There are no eyes to open, no heart to beat.

    But she’s alive.

    A ragged gasp is the first sign of life continuing in Mazikeen where she lies, discarded near the lake. The large moon overhead shining on her torn and blood-soaked body - there is little of her white coat to be seen. A shuddering sob escapes her next, horror seeping in with the pain. She doesn’t understand why she can’t see anything but she tries to move anyway. Mazikeen cannot piece together her memories, there are only fragments.

    Malik had been there - and she remembers Gale screaming. There is a deep ache in her chest where her hammering heart would be but these two thoughts encourage the broken mare to stir. To try to rise and find them, to make sure they’re okay.

    She manages to move one of her legs an inch across the grass, manages to lift her burning head just off the ground, before she falls still again. There’s nothing left in her body to move, nothing to pump the blood needed. Some twisted magic keeps her alive but it cannot stitch her body back together, cannot repair her the way Gale had been able to heal his own body.

    Had she been trying to kill him, is that why he was screaming? Or… no, there was someone else she was fighting. It wasn’t Gale.

    That thought is clearer than the rest, so she thinks it must be true.

    Mazikeen fades in and out of consciousness but she cannot tell the difference between each state. Sounds ring in her ears, some that make no sense at all, and she tries desperately to drag herself out of the dark pit her mind is slipping into but there is only so much for her to hold onto.

    m a z i k e e n .
     


    @[Sabal]

    others are theoretically welcome to join this thread but please ask first
    no chaos week shenanigans
    #2

    you can sink to the bottom of the sea,
    just don't go without me
     


    Sabal was restless.

    On a normal day, that wouldn’t be saying much considering over the past few months the entire world had been turned upside down, right side up, and sideways and she’d been doing her best to adapt as best she could. As if adjusting to motherhood wasn’t enough of a task. Thankfully, kelpies tended to raise themselves more than their equine counterparts and in this regard her son seemed to take after his mother and grandfather. Though Sabal did assume that maybe one day she should try to introduce Chasm to his father. Maybe. That was a whole different anxiety inducing scenario she’d like to leave off of her plate for the time being.

    Her anxieties of late had been focused around things happening in Hyaline. She’d been worried for Mazikeen, and not just in the physical sense.  She was worried that Mazikeen was setting herself up to be hurt in a way that went beyond skin deep. Falling in love with someone who was being consumed with something far beyond Sabal’s ability to comprehend was…dangerous.  Sabal wasn’t worried about Maze’s ability to hold her own in a fight, but she was worried that this wasn’t going to be a fair fight. And there were children involved in this scenario too.

    This is seriously like reality tv mixed with some murdery shit.  Great for TV, bad for blood pressure.

    The fact that she hadn’t seen Mazikeen in some time was…concerning. Especially since in that time Sabal had given birth and she assumed that her even pregnant-er friend had too.  Something wasn’t right.  Her squid senses were tingling. So with Chasm safe and tucked away in a bed of seaweed in the bottom of the lake, Sabal started for the surface.

    It's near the surface of the water that Sabal can smell the blood in the water.  And that’s when her squid senses escalate into a persistent sense of panic.  She uses her fin wings to propel her towards the beach, cresting the surface like a magnificent Sea World performer. But there’s no applause at her spectacular showing because the only thing on the beach is Mazikeen’s crumpled form. And Sabal lets out a strangled sound as she clumsily shifts and makes her way towards her friend – her gravely injured and clearly not pregnant friend.

    God, Sabal has so many questions, but she’s absolutely speechless at the brutal condition of her friend. She slides to her knees next to her friend, lowering herself to the ground as gently as possible. “Maze, it’s me. It’s Sabal. You’re safe,” the kelpie murmurs, doing everything she can to keep her voice steady.  Sabal gently lowers her head to her friend’s chest, ensuring that she can hear breath sounds coming from her chest.  When she’s satisfied that she is breathing, the panic again rears its head. Sabal has no healing ability – she has no way to make this better or to take her friend’s pain away.  But Maze can’t die. She just can’t. Because Sabal no longer knows how to live in a world without her.  Mazikeen is too stubborn to die, and Sabal is too stubborn to let her.

    She doesn’t have to ask who did this, though.  She knows, in her bones, what happened. And though she hates herself for having to ask, for potentially bringing her broken friend more pain, she has to. ”Maze...are your babies safe?” she murmurs against her friend's bloodied skin, because if the answer is no, Sabal will swim through hell itself to try to keep them safe. She owes Mazikeen that much for not being here to help in this fight.

    Sabal finds herself paralyzed, curled up in the grass with the broken body of Mazikeen. Should she stay here and do what she can, or try to find someone who can help. 'I wish you could yell at me and tell me what to do!' she screams in her mind, as the tears finally begin to fall.


    sabal.


    @[Mazikeen]
    #3
    Ryatah
    She does not often get strange feelings, but tonight something draws her away from the area of Hyaline she has always considered to be theirs. That corner of rock and tree that most stayed away from, often deciding they did not want to deal with the panther stallion that was rarely in the mood for company. It was the first time in a long time that she had anywhere—or anyone—that felt like home, and she was reluctant to part from it. But because she did not choose to leave often, she missed things happening within the kingdom. She knew Maze was supposed to have twins thanks to her conversation with Agetta, and she had grown to recognize the man that was often with her, but other than that she was mostly in her own world.

    She is willing to leave her world just briefly, hoping to put her worries to rest.
    Hoping that as she steps out beneath the moonlight that illuminates the dark land in front of her that she will find that all is as it should be, and that perhaps it was just the lingering effects of the eclipse that made her feel restless.

    The silver light of the moon washes across the surface of the lake, lighting it up until the surrounding mountains and trees reflected off of it.The lake was the heart of the kingdom, the pulse of it calling her forward, and it is there that she finds the fallen form of Mazikeen, and an unfamiliar figure worriedly next to her.

    She feels her heart lodge in her chest because even from where she stands she can see there is far more blood than the last time that she had healed her. And even though Sela isn’t here she cannot bear the thought of having to tell him that she was not able to save Maze a second time.

    Quietly, she approaches the pair, and though she says nothing she knows her presence would be hard to miss. Her own glow rivaled the moon with its brightness, though the light that radiated from her was far more golden. With the stardust the trailed from the ends of her wings draped against her sides she could have been a vision if not for the worry so plainly written across her face. “Maze,” she says softly, looking first at the blood-soaked and torn girl on the ground. She sees that her eyes are missing, and her chest clenches tight with an indescribable emotion, inspiring a phantom throbbing behind her own. There is a large wound across Maze’s pale chest too, and heat flashes across her lips in memory of all the times she had traced the scar left behind from a similar wound on Atrox.

    She looks to the other mare, offering a thin smile before introducing herself, “My name is Ryatah. I’m a friend of Agetta’s, and Maze, too.” The other girl was clinging to Maze protectively, but she takes a slow step forward anyway. “I can heal her,” she tells her gently, taking another step forward, until she is close enough to touch Maze, and she reaches for her.

    She concentrates on her chest, first, working to close the large, gaping wound. She is certain that it will scar, thinking that she had not gotten here in time, but there is little she can do about it now. Her pale nose sweeps up to her face then, enveloping the empty, bloodied sockets with the golden warmth of her healing. That first time in the dale when Carnage had torn out her eyes she had been lucky that a healer had been nearby, and she had only stood in shock for a few short moments with blood pouring down her porcelain-white face.

    “Who did this to you?” she says quietly against her skin as she finishes up the last of the smaller wounds. It seemed unlikely for this to be an attack from the creatures that had roamed during the eclipse. To go for the eyes and the heart, it felt personal—and no one knew that better than her.
    EVEN ANGELS HAVE THEIR WICKED SCHEMES


    @[Mazikeen]
    #4

    Mazikeen hears someone approach, hears that first strangled sound, and she tries to stir to react to it but she can’t. She slips into the darkness again just long enough to be startled by the feeling of someone touching her. In contrast to her bruised and shredded body, Sabal’s kind and worried words and touch are alarming. They help her return to the present - even though the present is a horrible place for her to be. She tries to lift her head, to comfort Sabal - to tell her she’s alright even as her blood soaks into the ground around them. She can’t die and she tries to tell her friend this. Even though the words do not make it out of her mouth, even though it certainly feels like she should be dead.

    When Sabal asks about the babies, Mazikeen manages to reply - this particular ache reaching through all the others. Her voice is low and rough - and the injury that is the cause is the only one she remembers getting, when the Curse had latched itself to her throat. “I don’t know. I… I took them to Tephra but… I think he was here, I think my son was here.” Another sob racks through her broken body.

    Had she failed at keeping their children safe already? The one thing she thought she would be able to do? She needs to get to Tephra, she needs to make sure they’re safe with Wishbone. Needs to know that she did not already fuck up their lives even when she took herself out of them.

    The hollow centre of her chest where her heart should be aches at the arrival of another. Mazikeen feels guilty that Ryatah is here to piece her together again, enough that she tries to shift away - she doesn’t deserve the angel’s kindness this time. But what Mazikeen thinks is movement of her body is only a twitch of her legs, too little energy left in her body to do anything more than think about protesting.

    Is it weak of her to want the healing, even though she doesn’t deserve it?

    The physical pain recedes but there is still a deep ache in her chest, she assumes it is heartbreak even though she cannot hear her normally thundering heartbeat in her ears. She wants to apologize, wants to tell Ryatah how sorry she is that they only meet while Mazikeen is dying. But the winged mare quietly asks who did this to her and there is no point in trying to protect anyone from the truth any longer. “Gale. He’s my…” But what word is there to describe what he is to her? She hadn’t even known what to call him before. “He’s… normally very nice.” Mazikeen says this with a strangled, horrified laugh as her head rests on the blood-soaked grass. She’d fallen in love with him because of that kindness, because of his laughter and his ability to draw laughter out of her, and because of his strength.

    It wasn’t Gale who did this to her, but it was his body.

    She doesn’t know where the desire to defend him comes from but the words rise up anyway. Or maybe she’s defending her choice to be with him. “He’s Cursed now, not himself.” And then urgency bleeds into her voice as she twists her head to where she heard Ryatah’s voice. “If you or any of your family see an iridescent blue stallion or animal, stay as far away as you can.”

    She tries to move then, this urgency and the dulling of the pain freeing her frantic thoughts. How much time has she wasted lying here? Where did Gale go? Was Malik okay? Had anyone else been harmed? Mazikeen tries to get her legs underneath her but she is shaking too much to try to stand. Her mind keeps wanting to blink her eyes, to clear her vision, but nothing seems to help. The world is black again, like the eclipse has returned and washed them all in a deeper darkness than before.

    “Why can’t I see anything? Is the sun gone again?” She finally asks in a whisper - because even though her mind is a little clearer now she cannot remember what happened after her rage had taken over. It is only a small blessing that she was not conscious to watch the one she loves tear her burning eyes from her face.

    m a z i k e e n .
     


    @[Sabal]
    #5

    you can sink to the bottom of the sea,
    just don't go without me
     


    Sabal isn’t sure how long she lies there, clinging to Maze under the bright light of the moon. It couldn’t have been that long. It could have been an eternity. Time means so little in moments like this.  She also wishes that Maze had the strength to tell her she was a fucking idiot for crying and to stop getting her squid snot everywhere, and the fact that she didn’t made everything even worse.

    “Say the word and I’ll go check on them, unless you think they’re safer hidden away,” she could do that much for her friend. She knows that they’d been hidden away for a reason – for this reason.  Perhaps Gale would expect Maze to go looking for them, but perhaps he would not assume that another from the pack would go… She knew better than to assume. The Curse always seemed to be two steps ahead of them. But perhaps the curse failed to recognize that the bonds of Hyaline went deeper than just friendship. They’d built a family of their own on the shores of this lake, strange looking as it may be.  And Sabal would happily go to war for her family. The idea of leaving Maze here alone is crushing, but she would do it if asked.  She lets out a ragged breath and presses herself more closely to Maze’s broken body. Because Maze was not and never would be alone and she wanted to make damn sure that Maze knew that, no matter what state that she was in.

    It’s the light she notices first – not the sound of the other approaching.  Sabal squints tear-laden eyes up at the figure – trying to make sense of the burning, beautiful light that rivals the moon itself. She’s sure, given different circumstances, she’d say something stupid and make an utter fool of herself at the sight of the literal actual Angel. But she simply stares dumbly up at the mare, clearly an Angel in both appearance and nature.

    Sabal didn’t know Ryatah, but something about the mare’s presence instantly puts her at ease. She remembers her, vaguely, from the mountain. She had been the others who had answered the call to bring back the sun. She doesn’t recognize her as the grandmother of her son, but perhaps that’s a conversation for another day. The fact that she has the capacity to save her friend is the only thing that matters to Sabal in this moment.

    “Sabal, I’m Sabal,” she offers, quietly, releasing her hold on her friend but only just.  “Please, do whatever you can to help her. She’s my best friend,” she says, trying not to jostle Mazikeen too much. The kelpie tries to allow Ryatah room to work, but cannot bring herself to move too far from Mazikeen. Her friends blood drips down her scaled skin, turning her pearlescent skin a deep crimson.  Sabal can’t bring herself to care.  She watches quietly as Ryatah works – closing the gaping wounds that had been opened.  Sabal allows a tiny sigh of relief to escape her as the blood flowing from the wounds slows and finally stops with each sweep of the mare’s pale, glowing nose.  The thanks practically radiates from the kelpie as Ryatah works – for she is healing two, not one, for as she stitches Maze’s flesh together Sabal can feel the oxygen returning to her lungs and the sheer panic fading from her blood.

    When the Archangel asks who had done this to Mazikeen, Sabal’s eyes slam shut in a mixture of pain and guilt. Because she knows very well who had done this, and why. And she had sworn to try to help – to try to protect them both from this very fate.

    She’d failed.
    It’d almost cost Mazikeen her life.

    Her eyes go to Maze when they reopen, as it is Maze that answer’s Ryatah’s questions – sounding stronger than she had before.  The relief that Sabal feels is wrought with guilt, but she doesn’t interrupt until Maze is finished.

    “It takes his memory,” Sabal offers, in way of additional explanation. She doesn’t know why she tries, because she wants nothing more than for the blue stallion to bleed. Kelpie justice is primal. She wants a drop of his blood for every drop he has spilled. But she’s seen this curse in action, or parts of it at least. “It wipes away huge chunks of his memory, and after this…” she stops talking and shakes her head. She can’t imagine there’s any of Gale left after this. She’d promised Mazikeen she’d help end things when it got to this point.  But what was true now was that whatever was within Gale’s body was the greatest threat to Hyaline, and it had bested their greatest protector.

    When Maze asks if the darkness had returned, Sabal’s already broken heart fractures a little more. She involuntarily casts her gaze up to the brightly glowing moon, casting its ghostly glow upon the lakeshore.  Her own body was glowing, but nowhere near as brightly as Ryatah had been only moments before. “No, the moon is out,” Sabal starts, carefully, “You know I promised to be honest with you, Mazikeen, no matter what,” She pauses for a moment, choosing her words carefully. How was she going to tell her best friend that her lover had taken her eyes?  But he hadn’t really, had he? Gale hadn’t.  “The Curse took your eyes, Maze,”  She pulled her friend a little closer, knowing implicitly how impossible it would be to hear. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed against her friend’s blood-soaked skin.

    And she was so very sorry.

    Sorry for the betrayal.
    Sorry for the pain her friend was undoubtedly consumed by.
    …and sorry she hadn’t been there to stop any of it.


    sabal.


    @[Mazikeen] @[Ryatah]
    #6
    Ryatah
    Mazikeen says that it was Gale that did this, and it takes her a moment to realize there is something inherently wrong with that statement.

    Violence has been normalized for her—it was the only form of punishment she knew. She is familiar with being forced to bleed or to beg, and then still dying. She is used to paying for her mistakes, no matter how insignificant they seemed. It was the same cycle she has been in nearly all of her life, and the version of herself that existed years ago, before a relatively normal life with Atrox, would not have recognized the horror in what Maze says. There is a part of her that still does not comprehend — the part of her that does not fault Carnage for the things he does to her, because she accepts him for who he is and all of the things that come with it.

    But she knows that the relationship between Maze and Gale is not like her and Carnage, and she thinks instead what it would be like to have Atrox hurt her like that. It makes her chest feel tight, makes her want to crawl inside of herself and maybe never come back out.

    She is used to love looking like many different things, but she is sure Maze never expected this.

    “I’m sorry, Maze,” is all she says at first, with another gentle touch to her brow. Her gaze turns to Sabal when she explains that the Curse takes with it pieces of Gale’s memory, and that he likely would not remember this incident. “And there’s no way to stop it?” she asks with a slight but concerned frown. She wants to think that there must be a way, but she has already been faced with so many things and no possible way to fix them—like Atrox’s heart.

    She asks if the sun is gone again, and Ryatah casts a sympathetic glance towards Sabal. She is so familiar with being blind that she is not sure how to explain it to someone that is not; it has been so long she does not remember what it was like to first have to learn how to navigate this world in the dark. She can’t remember if she had been afraid, or frustrated, or if she only had felt the immense weight of guilt at angering Carnage like that.

    “If it’s any consolation,” she begins, soft and careful, unable to recall what she would have wanted in this situation all those years ago in the dale (her situation was different—the entire kingdom descended into chaos, and it was a miracle one of the few healers available had even found her. She doesn’t remember when she finally had the chance to process being blind). “It does get easier.” She pauses, because she wants to clarify that she only means the sight, but she is sure Maze knows that. The Curse, and everything surrounding it, she cannot promise will get easier, or even find some kind of resolution. “And if you ever need anything else, you know where to find me.”
    EVEN ANGELS HAVE THEIR WICKED SCHEMES


    @Mazikeen
    #7

    When Sabal makes the offer to go check on them, Mazikeen cannot focus enough to sort out her wishes on the matter. She doesn’t know if it would be better to know, or better to not let there be a single trail from Hyaline to Tephra. Her mind swims with the possibilities and she shakes her head but she cannot say what she is saying no to. Not yet.

    She doesn’t feel like she deserves the apologies she is getting, the gentle touches from each of the mares. Doesn’t deserve their kindness for welcoming someone who could do this into their home, for not warning Ryatah and her family sooner. She’d told Selaphiel recently, but only the barest information.

    And in return he had warned her this would happen. He had told her Gale would kill her, and she had walked right up to him anyway.

    When Ryatah asks if there is a way to stop it, Mazikeen gives the angel a sad smile. “That’s the next step in my plan, to figure that out.” It feels a little laughable now, the idea that she’ll be able to solve anything.

    And then there’s the answer to her question.

    The world is not dark - her eyes have been taken. Mazikeen flinches from Sabal’s touch but quickly leans back into her friend in a silent apology a moment later. It is not the kelpie she is recoiling from, after all. It’s the whole thing. This too-big thing that she’s been caught up in.

    She thinks Sabal means to be kind, referring to him as the Curse, but even though Gale’s name is not spoken by her friend, Mazikeen hears it anyway. The same mouth that had trailed across her skin, the same teeth that had teased her skin and sent shivers through her, the same lips that had whispered kisses and kind words - they had torn out her eyes. She doesn’t know why she assumes he would’ve used his mouth instead of his claws, but this way feels more intimate and she thinks that’s what the Curse would’ve preferred. Would have wanted any piece of Gale to taste it as he devoured her.

    Her stomach twists violently at this thought. And yet she cannot help but think that if there is ever a day when they stand together again as Maze and Gale she will comfort him and pretend it does not matter to her, that she is fine.

    Mazikeen had not expected this news, does not know how to react to it, except to lower her head to the ground again as she breathes heavily. There are no words to explain the churning inside of her and how it clashes with the hollowness of her chest. There would be tears now, if there were eyes for them to swim in. Since there is not she just sobs before she bites her tongue, allowing the soft words of Ryatah to sink in. It will get easier. She can learn to navigate in the dark, she had done it before. And now she has her shifting - she can focus on her other sense, can learn to patrol and hunt... and fight.

    She can, but right now it feels impossible. Right now there is not enough hope for her to imagine that future. Once she is sure another sob won’t rise out of her when she opens her mouth she tilts her head to where the “Thank you, Ryatah.” She wants to say more but she doesn’t know what words could possibly be appropriate. “I’ll try not to…” but the joke about trying not to die again in the future falls off of her tongue before she can even make it. So she just tries to smile instead.

    “Just… thank you. I’m sorry we always meet when I’m a mess.” She thinks about how kindly Firion had spoke of his mother in that moment, how he said she saves many even when she doesn't realize it. Then she thinks of how she had told him she had nine lives. Now she's at six so she might run out before he gets his turn.

    With effort she tilts her head to her friend, her voice quiet as she focuses on the question from earlier so she will not focus on anything else. “Will you stay with me for a bit, Sabal? And then… and then I’d like you to go to Tephra. Wishbone, that’s who I gave them to.” And then softer she adds as she starts to lose consciousness again, succumbing to the weight of her thoughts, the wound on that missing heart. “Make sure they’re okay.”

    m a z i k e e n .
     


    @[Sabal] but we can probably end it here! Ily both and anyone who makes it through this novel.




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