into the sea, you and me
all these years, and no one heard
i love you, let's go

If she had caught his softened gaze, then maybe she would have dove for the dying gasps of air that she believes their friendship is breathing. There aren’t many left for her these days, and the list of those that she believes will willingly speak to her without fear of shame feels far longer than the previous. It’s almost as if that it has been so long since that she has felt the comfort of love and companionship that she has forgotten that in some places it still does exist, she just needs to find the courage to look.
So, staring off into the blur of bodies and looking for something, anything, Hobgoblin, she misses it all.
He asks the question that haunts her without pause, and she scolds herself for not expecting it. Of course anyone would like to know the story of how she fucked up the entirety of the Dragon’s Throat, left behind three of her children, lost one, seemingly killed one of the most cherished people in this land, and managed to become Sultana and lose it all in just a few brief seasons. It’s definitely one for a hell of a Shakespearean play.
But nothing is telling her that she should hide it from him. Never has she thought of him as a demon, one that would turn against her and seek to destroy her further. Their memories are ones that bloom happiness and brought joy to her when the night was too dark to see in.
Maybe he’s the only one she can trust these days, all for his ignorance.
She’s got to fall before the words can come out of her mouth. The great pillars of her city named Pride that was already in ruins come crashing down, the dust buries the world around it and engulfs it until there is nothing left of it, and in the middle of it, she sits with her palms cupping her eyes as waterfalls slowly begin to pour.
Outside, she’s unsettlingly calm. Hobgoblin pops! once and she feels the cool rush of invisible water rush over her twice as he turns back around, wiggling out of sight as if he needs to resituate himself back into his skin the proper way. There are no tears streaming down her cheeks to wash the last of the blood-coloured sand away, none brewing at the gates of her eyelashes. The only real thing that could be caught onto before her epic is told is the heavy heave of her chest as the scared and scarred hands of her lungs reach out into the world to grab the breath they need to give her the bravery to do this.
Her eyes are actually a tad bit damp then, but no waterfalls or rising flood waters. They look like rain in blue skies when there is not a cloud in sight.
“Gaucho, the Sultan, he died, and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it.” She says this first sentence with such sorrow in her voice that it is almost monotone with the weight. A sinking ship that has accepted its fate after all of the stages of acceptance and grief have come to pass. “I don’t know if I ever told you, but when we first met, I was only in the Dragon’s Throat because I wanted to be a healer and the leader then, a single-winged Pegasus named Africa, was a dear friend and had offered me an apprenticeship beneath the Sun Physician at the time. Yea, well, I did that, and when I had found I had a knack for it, I got the chance to become the Sun Physician.”
Hobgoblin steps in with their gifts now and turns to her with a look of confusion, quiet. Sikeax doesn’t even offer him an acknowledging turn of the eye.
“Bitch.” He thinks for a second as she continues, not doing what he would have liked.
“I did it. I did that for years, and didn’t have a single problem with it. But Gaucho, he started dying. I can’t stress the dying part more. I don’t want to say that men like him don’t stay dying like that, but oh god Ryn,” His nickname on her lips is like the foam on ocean waves as they roll up on the beaches. It fits perfectly, and she wonders why she cut herself from it mere minutes before. “you can’t stop death like that. He wasn’t even fucking human when he came to me. It was like his brain gave up and his body decided that there wasn’t much to do without it.”
She softens until she is barely anything more than a cloud, head hanging low at the memory of his sweat-soaked body, gasping for air and blue eyes darkened by the storm of his illness. Her gaze continues to run to wherever safety is: straight into his direction, only visible by the movement of her eyes in their sockets.
“It’s not like I didn’t try to save him, though. I’ve got to admit that now, looking back, it was kinda naive of me to think that I could when he was obviously so far gone, but it’s hard to tell when you’ve never had someone die on you before where the line between keeping going and letting them go on their own is.”
Her lips curl into her mouth and the corners of them ache. “I let him die alone. He didn’t deserve that, I don’t think anyone does, definitely someone as great as him, and yet I still did it. And you know what I got in return?” She lets him have a brief pause to voice any thought he might have had about that, about what he expected her to receive. She bets he won’t hit the jackpot though. “The Sun God came and made me fucking Sultana before his corpse while the herd I considered my family either screamed at me for not saving him or accused me of killing him myself. A few pledged themselves to me, but I got scared. I asked a friend of mine, Volterra,” Rage explodes like a fireball in the back of her chest and burns a hole deep into the pit of her very core.
“SKULLFACE FAIL YOU. SKULLFACE REASON WHY NO LONGER CROWN.”
His voice bellows through the caves of her mind and she finds herself in the deepest hollow of them all, curled up in a ball, quivering, with no strength to fight back. All she can do is hope that someday Hobgoblin will accept the crown wasn't fitting, the people unwelcoming, and her throne built of thorns.
“to take up the Gladiator position in the herd, and to help me when I needed him. He was my crutch, and when I couldn’t keep myself up to uphold my crown when my so-called family hated me so much, they went after me and him when he had done nothing wrong other than be a potential barrier to me losing the crown.
“So, I did what I thought was best for me, and I didn’t fight. A whore who believed Gaucho’s decaying cock and their bastard sons was her right to the throne, and I didn’t care enough to even think about whether or not she had that right. I just let her have it.”
An outward laugh makes a weird escape. It isn’t meant in humor, more so in the context that she can turn around and laugh at the shambles of what she has done.
Even now, the Throat is not faring any better, but that’s not her problem anymore.
“I haven’t spent much time there since, and I think I’m going to be leaving when I can say my goodbyes to those there that still matter.”
Hobgoblin scuffs and the jagged stone edges of her eyes bring no change in his demeanor. Only a raise of the head and a tilt, sticking his nose into the air in defiance. A frown slithers over her face at both Rikyn’s snort and smirk, and Hobgoblin’s attitude.
And while his reasoning does soften her feelings towards his towards Hobgoblin, it doesn’t silence them completely.
“He has a lot of reasons to be.” Surprise bursts in her like a distant supernova, not catching the jerk in Hobgoblin’s ghastly body as he catches her say it in the calmest of tones. “When we first bonded, I was still fairly low in my view of myself, and Hobgoblin is…”
She has to pause for a few seconds to figure out a way to describe how he is, rolling the dull edges of her teeth along the back of her lips as she does so.
“very high in his view of himself, but not in a bad way. He’s very brave and doesn’t think twice on doing what he thinks is right and what he wants to do. It’s something I can respect him for, but not all the time.”
She gives him a quick look, watching as Hobgoblin stares at her with almost awe and most definitely confusion.
But last of all, “He also reminds me of my son in a lot of ways, but not in the bad, destructive ways. I guess I could even say he was my first child. I raised him from birth, was patient with him like I was with my other children, and he became who he intended to be with my guidance when it was needed.”
Rikyn’s golden gaze is hunted down with almost a predator’s craving. “Children aren’t born to be controlled, and I refuse to believe that I should do the same with him.” A passing glance is exchanged for a study of his own companion, taking in the sight of the rather large deer.
“Do you do the same with him?”