…was it even worth the trip anymore?

I was—well. I had been going back to the caves—for reasons. Primarily because I wasn’t flat-on-my-ass turnt with them weeds you had shoved down my throat (I mean, not literally, you were still just a tiny asshole of a lizard—but that’s basically what happened, so. Whatever.) But there was something itching at me, a feeling I couldn’t describe, an urge that made absolutely no sense whatsoever but felt right and reasonable and you wanted to see it too so you kinda urged that strange feeling right along, too.

I had been thinking about seeing the crystal cave again.

And I’m not sure why. I’m not sure—what I was gonna see, how I was gonna react. It felt like it had only been yesterday that I was destroyed, utterly and completely, and that I had left a trail of crystal dust in my wake; that Leos had to come and save me from drowning in myself; that Hototo’s image was burned into my eyes, fresh and dead and so, so terrible to begin with.

Those caves were a setting for big things in my life, and maybe I wasn’t high anymore and maybe I was tightening myself up for another big thing and I was trying to tie loose ends before I took the plunge. Maybe I wanted to face those crystals—that shadow that I had never been really able to shake, and maybe I’d be able to lay it to rest once and for all once I could gaze upon the scene of so much shattering and emerge from it alive and breathing.

I guess fate was clued in on that idea. Of course it was.

Of course she had to be there.

I stopped in my tracks; something sick came over me as my gaze fell to her and her long legs, already towering over me—her body taken from her, aged and primed, because she was a useless tool when she was a foal, wasn’t she? How dare she have a childhood.

How dare she have a life.

(But it made sense, didn’t it, because Hototo was dead and there needed to be balance--)

(--and the only reason he was dead was because of m--)

I snorted, hard, and you flapped above me wondering at my stoniness, at the sudden blankness that had come over my thoughts. “Nothin’,” I muttered—and I willed myself to walk on and mind my own business.

It didn’t matter that there was this hulking stud and this long-legged child of the Earth in my path.

Whatever. I wasn’t here for them. I was minding my own business and going to see the crystals.

I didn’t hide my presence—it was too open and they’d smell me, anyway. I just…walked around them, keeping my mouth rudely shut, my eyes keeping straight ahead, unwilling to let my gaze fall on a pale, muscular chest or eyes that gleamed with eerie gold—

--and I was just making it to the threshold of the caves when I realized—

--your dumbass wasn’t with me.

“Cheek,” I sighed with exasperation—because I knew exactly where you were. You were behind me, flapping down to the ground, hooting trilling excitedly at the sparkle of scales in your eyes, the impression of stone dragons soaring above you—

--I turned and you were zpsnick!ing into another shape—an eagle with heavy wings flapping up dust. I could feel your frustration ebbing from you in powerful waves; you zpsnick!ed again and this time you were a lizard, a larger one than the regular form you used, but it didn’t work either because you didn’t have wings—

--and you kept trying, zpsnick!ing into a bird again—a lizard—then a bat and that was weird cuz the wings looked the same but you were a mammal so it was all wrong.

I smirked watching you; sometimes I’m allowed to be a bitch, even when you’re allowed to be an asshole. “Can’t do a dragon, huh?” I chuckled with dark irony as you flapped to my ass again, indignant with your failure.


"talk"

Quit Hollerin' "Why God?", he ain't got shit to do with it.