[private] I'm feeling this deep, aching sense of dread

[Mazikeen]

mazikeen

Mazikeen deserves the sharpness to Sabal’s voice when her squid friend tells her this joke isn’t funny and she finally has to look away, turning her head slightly and closing her eyes. As if that’ll help settle the twist in her stomach, as if this will somehow be easier. She wishes this was some cruel joke. This would be the part where she laughs and nips her friend and then they continue on their way, Sabal telling her what an idiot she is. “You have to go.” She says again, this time without much conviction.

But when Sabal demands to know what is going on, her eyes open and while there’s anger in her tone when she snaps back, it’s desperation that’s shining in her eyes with the hot, bitter tears. Any worry about whether she’ll annoy the Curse by being honest disappears. He’d told her to get rid of Sabal, he didn’t tell her she had to pretend it was her idea. “He found her, Sabal. He found Wishbone while I was… while I was lying around recovering and he fucking hurt her and it’s my fault. He knew exactly where to go!” It could be a lie, Mazikeen doesn’t have any proof, but she believes him. Heaven help her, she believes him.

Which is why she tells Sabal the basics of the deal she had struck, aware of how stupid it sounds but needing to believe that if she does this one thing - everything will be as fine as it possibly can. “You’re the price he’s making me pay so he won’t hurt anyone else I care about.” Even though this right here is hurting them but better to do this than to see Sabal torn apart like she had been, better this than Chasm being caught in uncaring jaws.

She doesn’t want to have to repeat what she was told to do if Sabal won’t leave, even though she would never do it. She couldn’t.

The mere thought of it causes disgust to churn within her again and she begins to pace, her anxious energy needing some sort of outlet.

“I should have gone with him to Islandres when he asked me to, I should have given you Hyaline a year ago and then none of this would be happening.” She inhales a deep, shuddering breath and pauses, looking up to the sky, tracing the tops of the mountains she knows so well. The mountains that line their home. “And now I’m… Sabal, fuck, I’m just trying...” But she can’t get an explanation out.

Her next words are soft, spoken with her eyes still up and as the tears begin to fall. “If you're not here, he can't use you against me.” It's not that simple, it never is, but it is one less pressure point of a million that Mazikeen seems to have.

She doesn’t know if what she’s doing makes any sense, she just can’t see any other options. Not right now, not with the memory of what it felt like to wake up shredded on the shore so fresh in her mind, not with the sick knowledge of Gale finding exactly where she left the twins after all her planning. Mazikeen thinks she just needs a little more time to stop being so weak, to get over that, and then she’ll be able to come up with a new plan. And then everything will be fine.

@[Sabal]