"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
Having been raised by the fire-eyed woman, Sickle’s disbelieving snort at his mention of positive change in their mother elicits a chuckle of his own. It’s accompanied by a grin, because he knows that if he’d been told the same thing six months ago he would have thought it impossible as well.
But it had not been impossible after all, and their mother is better.
His mother, Sickle emphasizes. Her mother is Wishbone, and Malik remembers the story of their father’s bloodless victory in Tephra. Where had the purple once-queen gone? Had it truly been a bloodless takeover, or had Gale simply hidden the bodies? Malik is curious, but something in the way Sickle’s voice has gone soft tells him that he shouldn’t prod.
He’s attempting to smile reassuringly, the way he would for Myrna, when she speaks again, asking if they’d hurt him.
The way he stills is born out of long habit, of knowing that he can avoid detection if he is still. If he is not seen, he cannot be a target, and he had mastered the shift into a jumping spider at a remarkably young age.
“I’m fine,” he repeats, because he believes it to be true. Had his parents hurt him?
Only when he deserved it.
He had gotten better at not deserving it, as he had once been certain all children do. The way his mother treats Myrna has made him doubtful, that and the way Mazikeen’s orange eyes went sad whenever he would flinch away without conscious thought. Sickle’s concerned gaze casts further doubt, and the tight sort of sharpness in his belly grows more intense.
(Bits of memory begin to trickle back, so slowly that he does not even recognize them as what they are.)
His mother is better now, he reminds himself. “She’s never mean to Myrna. She’s better now.” That is true, a bright and certain beacon that he can cling too even as Sickle’s presence begins to brush away the darkness that has lain so thick upon his mind.
He recalls, with blinding clarity, the sensation of his heart exploding, and his father’s satisfied nod.
Malik flinches and pulls back, away from Sickle. “Did you do that?!” He accuses, unaware that she plays no role in the return of his memory, save her presence as the impetus.
Malik says he’s fine, and there’s that reassuring smile, but something about the way he stills makes it difficult for her to believe. The way he stills reminds her of what some of the native Tephran animals did when she surprised them as a navy panther. That pause where they freeze, trying to decide whether it is in their best interest to run or not.
It doesn’t surprise her at all that living with their parents would’ve inspired such a reaction - but she hates to recognize this behaviour in her beloved brother, even if he isn't quite the Malik she had been expecting.
And she hates that she had not been brave enough to go and rescue him.
Confusion clouds her expression when he mentions that Mazikeen is never mean to Myrna - a name that Sickle doesn’t recognize at all. But before she can ask, something else happens. She has no idea what, because all of a sudden Malik is flinching and pulling away from her, accusing her of - well she has no idea. Her uncertainty multiples and the brindling on her coat begins to take on the colours of their surroundings. “Did I do what?” She asks, incredulous, and then tacking on another question just to clear everything up. “And who the hell is Myrna?”
Malik had liked to watch rain falling on the lava flows, to see the way the water would hiss and boil, returning to the sky as steam, only to eventually fall again. He’d disliked the sounds of the jungle’s howler monkeys, and had usually slept as a leopard for the sole purpose of keeping them quiet and wary of his scent. He had visited Loess as a young mamoose, and met a kraken at the edge of the ocean.
The memories return piecemeal, little flashes here and there, falling like individual raindrops and eventually coalescing into a flood of understanding. He chokes, because the memories of his second - more recent - childhood are far harsher than those of his first.
He remembers Sickle now. Remembers her, and Wishbone, and all the parts of his time in Hyaline that his father had made him forget. Malik shivers, the ache of long-healed wounds almost tangible along his skin. His mother loves him, says a voice in the back of his mind. His father had said it too, though far less often than his modified memories had led him to believe.
He takes a long breath, and breathes it out slowly. Sweat beads along his dark skin, glittering in the light emanating from his black hide.
Reeling still, the answer he gives to her first question is nonsensical, mumbling and half-words as he deals with the reorganization of his history. He remembers now, is the gist of it, and their father’s magic had made him forget. The second question seems to shake him from his babbling, and his mismatched eyes move up to meet hers, blue to blue and orange to orange.
He takes another deep breath, feeling somehow much calmer than a moment before.
“My little sister. ” He answers, and then amends: “Our little sister.” She’s probably back with their mother by this time of night, though he’d left her chasing after Bolder earlier in the afternoon. Malik glances up at the sky, where the streaks of light grow ever dimmer through the bare branches overhead.
He's glad his father had made him forget. Malik doesn't understand why he'd suffered so, but it must have been for his own good. It had been to make him stronger, deadlier, more powerful. His mother has been teaching him restraint of late, and he has done his best to listen, but the two ideologies have not yet come to odds.
“He’s gone now.” Malik finally says when he looks back down at his sister. “Maybe that’s why Mo - Mazikeen is better too.” He’d thought it was because Myrna was a better shifter than he’d been, but perhaps that is not so. “You could come see her,” he suggests. “Decide for yourself if she’s changed.”
Sickle watches Malik shiver and then begin to sweat and she is so confused, so overwhelmed and uncertain, she has no idea what to do. If they were younger, if this was still the Malik that she had grown up with, she wouldn’t hesitate to close the gap between them and offer comfort. But she doesn’t know who he is now, doesn’t know what’s going on because he only mumbles pieces of words in response to her first question and Sickle feels like she’s going to explode from the confusion of it all.
It makes her want to run away - which makes so little sense because she’s finally where she’s been wanting to be for (what feels like to her) so long.
Something seems to solidify in him and he meets her gaze. The second question she asked doesn’t come with a mumbled response and she almost wishes it had. Her eyes widen and she stares at him, a confusing mixture of joy and jealousy and uncertainty choking her so that her question is little more than a handful of squeaked out breaths. “We have a sister?”
He said Mazikeen had been nicer to that sister but… but a sister.
They replaced her.
Sickle’s eyes are swimming with tears again, the shock of everything and how it could still hurt rising up. She shakes her head and takes an unconscious step backwards. “I don’t know… ever since you were taken I’ve been trying to get you back. Wanting to be older and braver and stronger so I could go to Hyaline. And now... Now you’ve had a whole other life without me. The home we grew up in doesn’t really exist anymore, even if you did remember it. Wishbone is missing… ” A sob interrupts her words and she closes her eyes shut like somehow that’ll make things alright just like it did when she was little.
Sickle seems shocked by Myrna’s existence, and though the circumstances had been different, Malik had once been equally startled by her sudden existence (and his responsibility for her). Perhaps that is why, as her eyes well with tears, that he takes a step closer. He’s supposed to take care of his sister. This is a different sister, but different enough for it not to matter?
Experience tells him this is a poor choice, but his father is not here to punish him, and his mother is soft enough now that he thinks she will forgive him for this potential transgression. So instead of experience he trusts his heart, and hopes she does not flinch when he places a reassuring touch against her shoulder.
He knows what it is like to strive for one thing, because Malik has been driven in pursuit as well. He chases power, and Sickle has been chasing him. Will he be as surprised by what he finds at the end of his search as she has been? He hopes not.
Wishbone is missing, she says, but Malik knows that drawing attention to the fact that at least she is not dead is unlikely to bring Sickle much cheer. He is sure she’s looked for the purple mare, and while many of his memories are still foggy and unsure, Malik knows that he would have looked for her too. His memories are still murky, having not yet entirely shroud of darkness under which they’d been kept so long. It is easier to focus on what he has not forgotten, Malik finds.
“You wanna meet Myrna?” He suggests, thinking that his cheerful sister might lend some of her happiness to his sad sister. It is difficult to remain in a bad mood with Myrna - except when she shifts into something that he cannot manage, and especially when it’s on accident and she hadn’t even meant it. But Sickle can shift too, and perhaps that will not grate on her as it does on their less-skilled brother.
“I could bring her here, I bet.” He’s nodding as he says it, the plan falling into place. He’ll have to wait until his mother is distracted, Malik knows, because he’s not really old enough to be bringing his baby sister out to the Common Lands. But surely she’ll forgive him for it, when he returns with not one but TWO sisters, because he is sure that seeing Myrna will convince Sickle to come to Hyaline.
Sickle’s ears flick backwards in wariness when Malik steps forward, though she wouldn’t be able to explain exactly why. Some faint attempt at protecting her heart from being hurt again. He doesn’t really know who she is, Sickle reminds herself. He’s accepted that she’s his sister with remarkable ease but she has no idea that some of the memories have been uncovered. Maybe he’s just being polite. Maybe he’ll forget she exists again just as soon as they part today and go back to Hyaline where she no longer invisions him being tortured, but intead pictures him living happily with his mom and his new sister.
The reassuring touch that he places on her shoulder is both too little and too much and a sob escapes her before she can grit her teeth closed and her eyes follow. There’s little relief there in the darkness.
She has Asterope, she has her friend, but she doesn’t understand how she so efficiently lost all her family and she doesn’t know what to do with this ache inside of her.
Malik is here, he’s with her and he’s offering her a chance to meet their sister, and the uncertainty in Sickle’s heart twists all the more and makes her feel nauseous. She does want to meet Myrna, she wants to have a family again, but she finds herself spitting out something else entirely when her eyes open again to look at him. “Why would I want to meet her?” The bursts of anger that she experiences are all often short lived but it’s enough to continue speaking, to step back away from Malik as her eyes - well, they don’t exactly harden like she wishes they would. She’s still actively crying but her voice has an edge to it. “What did our…” She chokes on the word ‘parents’ and starts again. “What did they do? Decide I wasn’t good enough to keep so they just went and made a new daughter so you could all forget I existed?”
It shouldn’t matter to her, she knows this. She didn’t want to be a part of their family, did she? But it still hurts to be replaced, to know this whole time Malik’s been in Hyaline with another sister while she’s been tricked again and again in her search for him.
Maybe this was just another trick. Another false promise to get her to go somewhere else. Maybe this wasn’t even Malik at all.
Paranoia seeps in at the edges of her sadness and she latches onto the wariness it encourages her to feel. Better that than the grief she can’t understand.
The sob that follows his touch against her shoulder is unexpected, and Malik’s eyes widen. He doesn’t pull away though, not while her eyes remain closed. Malik convinces himself he’s being helpful, providing comfortat least until her eyes snap open again.
Then, he does pull away, the pair of them expanding the distance that separates them until it is wider than before. He had still been thinking of how to sneak Myrna from Hyaline under their mother’s watchful gaze, and she snaps back that she doesn’t want to see Myrna at all.
Then she’s yelling and crying, the combination a rather alarming one. Malik’s bicolored eyes grow wider still, his uncertain ears flicking. She asks rapid questions, and while the first one has several potential answers, Malik feels uncomfortably sure that the answer to the last one might be a simple: Yes.
Though the memories that have returned paint their father in a different light, Mazikeen is still the same. Well, the same as she’s been since Myrna, which is to say: less violent and occasionally more sad, but still his mother. Could she have forgotten Sickle? Malik thinks of the way she cares for his sister, the way he has caught her looking at him (worried), and how the smell of blood is far less dense in the mountain air than it had been during his childhood.
“Maybe he made us all forget,” Malik says softly. But why? Why keep him, and not his more talented sister? Shouldn’t he have been the one left in Tephra, the one who had searched for his missing twin? He frowns, imagining how that must feel, and decides he does not envy Sickle in the slightest. Not even for her shifting.
“I didn’t mean to,” he continues, his voice quiet even as her eyes grow hard. “To forget you, I mean.”
It’s difficult for Sickle to stay mad when she’s yelling at someone that doesn’t yell back (though she has yet to experience being yelled at back - maybe her anger would be quick to dissipate either way). She hates that Malik takes a step back too even though she had done the same, hates that she sees her own uncertainty written on his face.
If this is Malik. She doesn’t know - can’t know what is the truth anymore. Not when they come from a family of shapeshifters, not when she had been lured to the Pampas by someone wearing the face of her cousin.
Even when his voice is soft and she can feel her rage deflate, she is so unsure. So wary. She doesn’t have much experience trying to protect herself but she fumbles for walls, tries to find a way to retreat inside of herself and protect what she can. “It doesn’t matter if you meant to or not. You did.” The words don’t have the same angry bite to them, and she feels that sorrow welling in again.
Sickle doesn’t feel like someone just on the cusp of adulthood. She feels like a small child and just like that she changes her shape - not the young panther she had been before but a cub version. It’s incredibly annoying to be so small but somehow that aggravation just cannot seep in and distract her.
There’s a very strong instinct to curl in on herself. To bury her head in her furry limbs and hide from the world. Instead, she looks down at her blue paws and whispers something she only wishes was true. “He doesn’t think I’m worth remembering but he’s wrong.”
Her words hurt, and the blame settles uncomfortably on Malik's dark shoulders. It doesn’t matter, she says, he still forgot her, even if he wished he hadn’t. Even if the memories had been taken away rather than willingly given, even though Gale had shrouded Malik’s first year of life behind a veil of shadows that have only just begun to clear away.
Malik shakes his head, huffing out a hard breath as he starts to look away.
But then she changes, becoming a small leopard cub. That is a shape he remembers, one he often wore himself. One that he’d worn when his memories had been taken from him, Malik remembers. A foul taste rises at the back of his throat at the image, and he thinks that perhaps he will not wear the shape of a leopard again for a very long time. He is thinking of Gale, of the experiences he now remembers, and a shiver runs down his black marked spine.
Sickle’s voice, small and sad, breaks him from the grim memories.
Is she worth remembering? Yes, some part of him knows, but he is still flinching internally at the fresh memories of long-healed wounds. “He is wrong,” is all he manages, trying to convince himself of the same.
He’s wrong. Malik agrees with her statement even though she just barely believes it herself. Her eyes, so close to matching his, close and Sickle gives into the instinct to curl into a ball just enough to lower her small body to the ground and rest her head on her paws while she cries.
She can feel the sorrow and the tears wanting to erupt further and she knows she could lose days to weeping about this exchange and how incredibly confusing it’s been. How different from what she had hoped while also giving her a glimpse at the possibility of… well something. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be ready to call anyone else her family but she wants the piece of it that’s standing with her.
Maybe even enough to face the rest of it.
This thought works its way through her mind, easing her sobs. She doesn’t open her eyes or stand up, just tilts her head where it’s resting and sniffs. Oblivious to his own pain, the dark thoughts and memories he is wrestling with, the small cub that is Sickle asks quietly “What happens now?”
Do they part ways? Does she come with him to Hyaline?
Whatever he thinks is best, she’ll do. She's so tired and so sad and just wants someone else to tell her what needs to happen so she doesn't have to try to figure it out on her own anymore. She hasn't been very good at doing that at all.
