Though tempted to close her eyes to savour the feeling of him tracing the scar on her chest that he gave her, she enjoys watching him touch her more - the intensity of her red-orange eyes lessening for just a moment until she feels his thoughts again. She finds that his acceptance of her killing him makes her less interested in doing it, pushes that hazy date off further and further into the future.
And then when Mazikeen catches Gale’s thoughts about her surviving him, the glowing markings return to her skin. She does not feel fear the same way she once did but she feels panic rising at the mere idea of losing him so soon. Whatever hazy thoughts she might have about killing him were far off future things, surely at least decades away. She ignores the thoughts about hunger and deer for now and presses closer to him, chest to chest, so she can embrace him as tightly as possible in this equine form - inhaling the dark scent of his skin. “Stop that. If you’re going to leave me to raise a child it will not be our first.” Seventh or eighteenth maybe. Though there is no real desire in her to continue having children, she does not plan to go an entire season without him so they are inevitable - and she is curious to see what they might make together now.
He has bewitched her, but it is not a bad thing and she cannot stomach the idea of even pretending otherwise just to save her own hide. She tugs roughly on the short strands of his spinal mane, finding the promise she makes now comes so easily. “If anyone takes you from me, I will burn everything.”
Mazikeen does not know how this new bond works but she tries to shove her thoughts outward to him, tries to let him know that she will kill anyone who tries to harm him. She tries to show him glimpses of a future where he is taken from her anyway and she hunts one from every family she can find in payment before letting the survivors burn together.
And how if there is a day when he dies, she has expected for a long time now that she will die with him. Not quite since when she made her first promise to another Gale but once she finally knew the name for the feeling he inspired in her.
And this inspires her now to take back her earlier distaste at the idea of hiding. Because while it will bother her, she would still be with him. “If you think we should run, I will go with you.” She still hopes that if they are driven into hiding it’s for something more than just stealing one boy but his thoughts brought them to this conversation and Mazikeen doesn’t doubt that it’s important for Gale to understand where her thoughts are. About him, about everything.
She discovers now that her restlessness is rooted in a desire to do more with Gale, not more than him. His shadows are woven through her and they have fed her dreams of blood and chaos that do not end here.
@Gale