I grinned tightly down at you as you flapped against my ass with indignation and a furious attempt at balance, because bats are built funny and you were having trouble perching on my croup in a way that made sense. Finally you just said fuck it and with a final zpsnck! you were your fuzzy little owl form again, climbing up along my spine, across my mane, and perching yourself on my poll—where your beak ducked down and started nipping at my ear, tugging on it, punishing me for my impudence. I snorted in reluctant laughter—shaking my head a little to try and pull my earring out of your grasp. Playtime was over, though, the moment a deep, masculine voice cut across our fun.

"What is it?"*

“He,” I said, bristling up almost at once--god I hated when people called you an it. But then some existential crisis came over me as I thought about his actual question—and you flapped with pleasure at my blankness, your chest puffing up against my ignorance as I struggled for an answer.

Because—well. That was a good fucking question.

“He’s uh…” I blinked and you trilled your laughter, you beak nibbling in my hair because I guess you still loved me somewhere even if I didn’t actually know what you were. Like. Okay. You had hatched and you were a lizard then but now I guess that doesn’t actually make any sense anymore, does it? I can’t say you’re a lizard when you’re perched as an owl on my head.

“…um.”

Well, fuck. What were you?

“…an asshole?” I shrugged and you sputtered and puffed up again and you were pleased, well pleased, with my answer. “I dunno, he does his own thing I guess.”

The lightheartedness went away when she started talking to me—my stomach rolling with sour bile and a sick sense of shame whenever my attention was pulled to her. Oh shit but I wish she wasn’t talking to me—I wish I didn’t have to look at her--I wish I was spared this mocking reminder of my complete and utter failure. This fake Hototo.

Fake Hototo.

*"Why are you here? To see the crystal too?"*

Why do YOU care, Fake Hototo?

My mouth twisted—there was no real reason to be an ass to her, and you were telling me that, too, tugging on one of my bangs to straighten up because she had smiled at you and that was as good enough reason as any to like her for the time being. And you had a point—she did nothing to deserve any of this. She hadn’t been there for the sour parts, the awful parts, the regrets and the dark sorrowful shit and it wasn’t her fault that she was standing there, looking me in the eye, asking if I was there to see the crystal, too.

“…yeah,” I said, my eyes cast to the side—unwilling to look at her anymore, my gaze on her spoiled and rotten . “Uh…yeah.” I tried not to focus on the “too” in her question—like she was gonna go see the crystals for the same reason I was. To see a dark smudge of shame blazoned across it, to observe it, poke it, mock it--

I turned back into the cave opening abruptly and marched down, silent and snorting and hard, a wordless escort. You continued to flap on my head, anything but wordless—trilling excitedly for those dragons perched nearby, beckoning them closer, willing them to follow. Come, my ladies was a sentence that described your actions perfectly.


"talk"

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