[open] you were way too bright for me

[Mazikeen]

m a z i k e e n . It’s been a long time since Mazikeen has wandered outside of Hyaline without a purpose. The common lands have just been places to pass through on her way to visit someone, or somewhere to check for her parents - and look for frogs with Myrna. She briefly considers going to Nerine but instead of crossing the river in the north she follows it south. She wanders along its banks where she can and flies or swims or hops over boulders and other obstacles when there is no clear path for her horse-shape. Once she is out of the mountains, it becomes easier and she no longer needs to shift just to continue on her way - wandering with the forest to one side and the river to the other. The water is still cold here, not yet warmed by the southern sun and carrying the snow melt from the mountains. Just like every time she wanders on her own, she wishes she had taken someone else with her - to have the company and the distraction from her thoughts. But it’s so easy to say she’ll be fine, to reprimand herself for still not wanting to be on her own. It’s been three years since she came back to herself - surely that should’ve been enough time to not feel the gnawing of memories reminding her of things she wished she could forget. Surely by now she should be whole and feel safe. Mazikeen alternates berating herself and trying the relatively new and alien process of 'giving herself a break' - and these two opposing thoughts clash in her head until it's nothing but raucous noise in her mind. So she stops on the shore of the bank, her orange eyes drifting to the current of the river - and she tries to lose herself in the way the spring sunshine is glinting off the surface, and the small glimmers of life that can be seen beneath the surface.