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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]  drown my woes in a lake of fire
    #1
    Mazikeen
    It's about midday when Mazikeen makes her way down to the lake, feeling better about doing it beneath the sun. She considers taking a roundabout way to get there, though it's such an open area she doesn't see the point. There's no point in concealing her actions - if they are seen, they're seen. It's no longer a secret that Sabal's son is here, though she hopes for not much longer.

    These are the only thoughts she lets herself have - surface level, never digging too deep, and in this way she manages something close to peace.

    Mazikeen slips underneath the surface of the lake as a kelpie, her white tail accented with orange and black fins. She has a difficult time figuring out how to get that tail to work, having never gotten around to those swimming lessons. She shifts into a squid to see if that’s any easier and a small laugh escapes her - but it dies quickly and she turns back into a kelpie, all traces of a smile gone from her expression and the Curse's low chuckle accompanying uncomfortable, intrusive words in her mind.

    Then you’ll hurt the little squidling till she does

    Her movements are awkward but they are still movements so she thinks it counts - it is pleasant to have this task to focus on, something physical that requires her mind to be in one spot and not splintering into a thousand different places she does not want to go.

    She sees Sabal’s collection and almost loses control of her shift, grief and anger churning through the very mind that had been blissfully quiet just seconds ago. The area around her becomes illuminated with the orange glow of the markings on her back and she calls out in a strangled voice, unsure if he’ll be here - and hoping he’s not, that when his mother didn’t return he fled Hyaline. “Chasm?”

    @[Chasm]
    #2

    c h a s m .

    Chasm hadn’t worried when mother hadn’t returned. She’d told him that she’d be away and that he was to keep to the lake as much as possible. Out of sight, out of mind.  Or something like that.  She’d told him, explicitly, that he’d be safe here as they were the only kelpies here in Hyaline.  He knew vague details that some of what was happing on the surface wasn’t safe, even though that just made him all the more curious to know what was going on. 

    The childish part of him wanted to go with his mother, he felt the whine in the back of his throat when she’d told him one last time to keep to the seaweed and the series of shallow caves left behind by hyaline’s natural springs.  However he kept his jaws clamped shut as he’d watched his mother ascend to the surface.  He let out a huff, which left him in a burst of tiny bubbles before retreating back to the shelter of the rocks nestled in the tall aquatic plants.

    This would, of course for the opportune time for him to make a break for the border himself. His mother didn’t know that he was fond of adventures outside the borders of Hyaline, and he was planning on keeping it that way. But since he had no way of knowing how long she’d be gone, he couldn’t risk a trip that would take him away for too long. Plus, there was something about his mother’s mood and tone that was…disconcerting. As much as he wanted to go and leave and have and adventure, the look in her eye and the quiver in her voice made it easy for him to decide to stay put. 

    He fell back into a restless sleep after awhile, glowing the same cool glow as his mother in the semi-darkness of this depth.  But he stirs when light flashes across his lids.  He blinks sleepily, trying to clear his hazy mind. Because there is another kelpie here and it’s most definitely not his mother.  And she knows his name.  Of course, Sabal had told her son of Mazikeen - but had obviously not filled in the more recent trauma-inducing details.  But he hadn’t ever expected to see her down here.

    ”Hello?” he answers, uncertainly, peering around the rocks and the long weeds.  ”You’re mom’s friend, right?” he asked, though he figured she was because he didn’t think many others knew he was even down here. He was, however, surprised to find the fiery kelpie was alone.

    ”Is, um, everything ok?”


    lineart | design



    @Mazikeen
    #3
    Mazikeen
    It takes some effort to stop moving and yet still swim, and Mazikeen grows a little frustrated with herself as she moves awkwardly trying to keep herself in one spot when Chasm peers his young head out from among the rocks and weeds. She keeps floating upwards, despite the weight of her body, and she does not know how to effortlessly remain in one spot. Mazikeen ends up needing to shift her forelegs into something with paws so she can grip at a large rock, and discovers that if she moves her tail slowly enough she is able to remain somewhat stable.

    She’s distracted enough by seeing him, the son of her best friend, that she does not care how silly she looks.

    Her smile is genuine, despite the sadness that bleeds into it and his uncertainty. Not for the first time, she wonders who the father is - there aren’t many male inhabitants of Hyaline. Spirit, perhaps? Though she’s sure she would have noticed if something were happening between the two shifters, no matter what else was going on.

    It is easier for her to think of these things, to speculate on where he got his gold eyes, then to think of the future she had wanted where he would have grown up with her children. Where they would have shifted and chased each other through the shallows of the lake while she and Sabal and Gale watched. Where they would have all known peace.

    “Yeah, I’m Maze.” She finally manages, her voice soft. And to his next question, she replies honestly. Not sugar-coating it at all, not trusting her instincts on how to interact with foals after experiencing a few more blunders than successes. “Not really. Your mom... she's not allowed to come back to Hyaline for a while. I don't know for how long. She couldn't come back to get you before she left, but you can go to her. She'll be on the western coast.”


    @Chasm




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