and let me kick you off a bungee

I think I've found a way under his skin, listening to the way he cannot keep up with his words, uselessly flapping in the wind in response to my statement. He cannot deny his youth as much as he tries, words falling on deaf ears as he refuses to accept that he is still a child (sure, we both are, but I am older than he is)— no matter what he does in an attempt to prove me wrong.

"Yeah, alright." Is my only response to his denial of being a crybaby, knowing that he's probably too afraid to admit to it (I know I am).

He has no response to my reasoning, no argument as to why the sun god is such a holy, important being who resides over us and keeps us safe. I have silenced the colt with easy words, with an unveiled truth spilling between us— he could not run from it forever, could not live with his rose coloured lenses for all of his youth. Someone else has to exist here with me, without that scarlet filter to keep them from believing that everything is whole and good, that there is nothing wrong in our world. Let him soak in the lies, the corruption, the endless pain and horribly reality we try to hide from our children (no one chose to hide it from me).

He was born in Orangemoon, the transition season from blistering hot Tallsun to subzero Frostfall, meaning he was only a few months younger than me. I don't boast the small difference in age, shrugging my shoulders and moving on.

If I could roll my eyes, I would. In fact, if I had the ability, I'd be rolling them as far back into my skull as they could go. He simply says 'oh'— 'oh,' as if he does not quite understand what my words mean, as if they're some ancient, cryptic message scrawled out on a damp cave wall. I feel that I shouldn't have expected him to understand such a vague response to a very simple question. "To put it simply, she left me," what I will not say is why. I will not explain to him that my mother has been eaten up by guilt and despair, cast out by her own subconscious because she committed a horrible act against her daughter— a child formed from her flesh, blood and bone, borne from her cursed womb, destroyed by her insecurities and diseased mind.

'Do they hurt?' Yes, they fucking do. Even though the wounds have long since healed (not fully, but considering how they were to begin with, there's improvement), I still feel phantom pains and the awful tightness of mending flesh, knitting together to close up the gaping holes. "Not as much as they did when I lost them." I wish I could forget the feeling, the sensation of having my eyes torn from my head like berries off a bush, gnawed and trampled— scuffed up and dirty, some creature probably carted them away the moment they were left unattended, when Momma fled the scene to cleanse herself of her sins, to wash away the blood staining her lips.

Whatever confident, optimistic attitude the colt had wandered into the Arena with has since diminished— he is softer, quieter than when I'd approached him originally, satisfied with the results of my experiment. I wanted to see how far I had to push, how much I had to twist and terrify in order to scare the impressionable mind. And it was not far at all.

He tells me he knows of healing things, things that could help. I lay my ears back, unimpressed of his offer of aid. I don't need his help, I don't need help from anyone, I can do fine on my own (I can't). So what if my wounds smell sometimes and haven't closed up entirely? Maybe I want to succumb to infection and crippling agony, perhaps I deserve to suffer more if I've suffered this much already.

I recall Sikeax offering aid, dealing with the fresh wounds on a traumatized child. I wasn't even a month old when she stripped away the hastily applied bandages from my eyes, taking with it whatever hideous barrier my body had formed to protect the wound from getting any worse (it hadn't helped in the slightest). I can remember only pain, from when she tore it all away, like some sick door opening up to memories I only wanted to forget (but I can't). "I don't know if I trust you to have the skill to fix any of this," he was nothing special, I doubt he can mend shattered bones and return my eyes from wherever the hell they'd ended up— but if he knows someone who could at least stop the pain for once, the throbbing, who could get rid of the sickening feeling of the elements sinking into the sockets. Make me numb. "But if there's anything to take the pain away, I suppose it can't hurt to try." Fuck it.

-- @Saoirse