Sikeax,

This fight, in the end, is not worth it. Her chest feels heavy and her heart sinks far enough that in the deep of her chest, hanging on torn muscles and cradled by the last bit of fight, begins to grow heavy enough that it is now starting to tear apart the last shreds of it’s safety net. The more she realizes what she has done, the longer that tears creep down Amara’s cheekbones from golden ores, the more this becomes a reality.
The tables have turned.
What have I done?
“Cast Monster away. Monster no good. Monster broken. Monster useless.”
Just like me.
And like a slap to the face, Hobgoblin becomes subject to her emotions, haunted by the pain that drifts about the halls of his castle built of bones and surrounded by fires that burn with the misery of others and her’s, slipping in like a violent poltergeist that is always watching, waiting, looking for the time to strike. He is strong, for he builds himself up to be just that. To stand over everyone.
But Sikeax’s crumbling heart and wounding emotions are his only downfall. Her hand is held by his own, bleeding because his fingernails like to dig into it, trying to break bone so she’ll suffer and never rebel. But the hearts are strung together with the thinnest threads made of love and understanding, stitched with a needle with a dull point named Care.
Looking back to Amara with his red eyes, drowning in Sikeax’s ocean of internal tears that she forbids herself to cry, he sees now that he will almost forever hate Amara, the Monster, because in his eyes, that’s all she’ll ever amount to, forever worse than himself.
“Monster should die. You better than Monster. Monster give no good to You.”
Stone-faced, all she can do is listen and feel. Zhu’s small body keeps her tied to this world as he drags it's baby soft fur over her legs before pushing out a small huff that might be, with time, a snort. Long, delicate legs fold below her body in hopes of protection, now having been worn down by the thick suffering in the air and the ache harbored in his young ears. His goodnight from his mother’s sweet, loving touch is but a bump of her muzzle, releasing a low purring sound towards him.
There is Amara to take care. A situation that stands before her like a mountain never scaled, spewing fire and ash with the intentions to scare all away. But in the very last days, someone has to try in hopes of saving the world.
“I think you’re worth it.” A heavier heart and soft, whispering voice that is wet with cries she doesn’t want to let escape, held behind bars that she believes are best for them. It’ll keep them from wreaking havoc in this world. It’ll keep everyone safe.
“Know Monster not worth it.”
Was she really? Would it be better, for once in a lifetime, to let the sleeping dogs sleep until they take themselves on to the next world? Would Amara do better in the afterlife, a ghost that can find herself free from all the suffering she's had to endure in this damned world? She even smells of death, festering like the Grim Reaper chooses to become her very shadow. She’s never noticed it in the past, or maybe it was because she’s become accustomed to the smell, forgetting to think that it was there along with the wounds and the infections and everything in between that worked endlessly to take Amara from this realm. “I’ve always thought you were worth everything you could of had, or maybe had but didn’t know you had. Why can’t you? Why can’t you see that you’re important to me,”
“Monster nothing but PAIN. Monster nothing good. Monster walking corpse.
She wants to tell him that he is wrong, that there was a time that Amara was something worth loving, only needing devotion and love and hope in this cruel place, that given time, Amara could become something better than what she is.
“that you’re someone special and one of the last people in my heart that isn’t dead? Why won’t you give yourself a damn chance to let people, ones who genuinely care for your well being, try to help you see that you’re better than what you make yourself out to be?”
What’s truly sad is, that as she speaks all of this, Sikeax knows that the hand she wants to hold out is shaking, scared of being bitten and stabbed instead of held and cherished. The dog she is attempting to aid has a habit of biting misplaced fingers.
Staring eyes are now starting to  tear her apart. Those gold eyes have bloody fingernails sharpened into blades and they’re reaching out, looking for soft skin, soft, pretty skin that’s perfect for destroying, and what’s worse is is that she has no place to run, locked into place so that her babe is not abandoned.
“Look, Monster more stupid. Monster want you to hate Monster.”
Every single word spoken, whether it before Hobgoblin’s wounded chest wanting to gain control or from Amara’s bloodied lips(and who knows, with those words, the blood might not even be her own), it kills her even more. She feels the urge to yell at them to shut up, to scream at the top of her lungs that helping can’t be her job anymore, that she, for once, needs help in her life, That she, Sikeax, the fucking Sun Physician of the ever-holy Dragon’s Throat, can no longer fight these battles alone, that she, a medic, the head of all the medics in this burning hell, needs a medic to heal her wounds that leave ugly scar tissue on the other side of beauty, the one on the other side of her almost flawless champagne coat. The ones that are painted all across her heart, soul, and mind, now constant reminders of wars that she didn't want to take part in but went anyway, simply because of duty and loyalty and unspoken laws of society, all of which she choose to believe in and follow, blindfolded with every step.
She doesn’t want to face this. She doesn’t have the ability to heal Amara. It only hits her now, when finally, the begging for help is done by the one that she had always begged to let her help.
Am I really that weak?
“Monster is real monster. Monster want you to know. Monster kill. Monster might kill you.”
But would she really?
One last look, every word exploding against her eardrums and tearing them wide open but never destroying them, never giving her the chance to go deaf so that she won't have to listen to these words and any other words ever again.
Blue eyes give in, crumbling as they burst and bleed across her cheeks. Hobgoblin pricks up somewhere in the back of their mind, trying to pick up what this feeling exactly is. A sob chokes out after a long minute of strangling her.
“Amara…” A bitter taste rides that word now, becoming salty with the fruits of her tears and heartbreak. Inside her chest, her heart, now as if made of the frailest glass, drifts to the bottom of her chest once more and shatters. “I’m so sorry. I am. I’m so sorry. I- I…” A thick swallow of all the words that come up, rising at once and desperately trying to climb their ways out in any way they can possibly manage. “Amara…. I don’t know how to help. I don’t know how. No one has ever told me how, and I’m scared.”
Amara’s voice digs into her ears like a thousand shards of glass, picked up from the pit of her chest cavity and placed between fingers so that fingertips, hard and rough, can glaze over her dainty skin and quickly switch over to every bit of torture if needed. All of those words are there, waiting for a response, and she knows better than to leave such things unresponded. She doesn’t need to hurt Amara, she doesn’t need to make Amara suffer like she is.
“You’re welcome in the Dragon’s Throat.” “Monster hurt Dragon Throat.”
Please don’t let me think that will happen. I don’t want that to. I don’t want to see any of them hurt.
“Then Monster not allowed.”
She needs a home.
“You’ll always have me. And Sameira. Both of us.” Another sob. Another painful reason to hate the world, another reason not to care about everyone, but only if she could manage to do it. “I wouldn’t mind having you here, but if you’re worried about things, those things, just-” There isn’t exactly a correct response that she can give at this point, one that might help Amara. “You can come to me, and I’ll make sure nothing bad happens until we can figure out what to do. Anything that might happen, it’s on my shoulders. If something happens, and you think you might need to leave,” Her voice catches on her words, tearing herself apart inside with a promise that is almost death itself. “I’ll give up all of this to make sure you’re okay.”
Just so you don’t have to suffer alone.
“You’ll always have me.”


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