and let me kick you off a bungee

I shrug my shoulders, feeling the cold, emptiness associated with my absent mother slipping in to sweep away whatever emotion I'd been clinging to now, wiping away the stains from my sorrows and leaving me with a blank slate. I do not know if it is normal for mother's to leave, to abandon the fruit of their labour, to break the blunder of their womb and leave it to recover in solitude— what is it typically like, to have a mother who loves and cares, who can take care of you without hesitance and not go from suffocating you with love and affection to spitting at you, turning a cold shoulder and leaving you behind. What is it like?

"I don't know, I'm not the one to ask about this." I listen to him, how he wanted her to stay— but not I. I don't think I could have handled having Momma be a constant presence, an unstable mind lurking behind me at odd hours, when the world is silent and all I can hear are her aggravated whispers at an invisible entity. "I didn't want my mom to stay." But it still hurts that she's gone, and although not entirely alone (Apa is still here for me), I still feel abandoned, an ugly duckling wandering the world without a mother for guidance.

I am cast aside, forgotten and ignored by all who encounter me, it seems like no one cares for the mangled child of a woman scorned and a man rising to power— the product of a peasant and a king, a Cursed Child, just as my mother was, torn apart by hysteria and loathing, by a weak mind and unsteady hands. What am I to them now? The shunned princess of a newly crowned sultan, the hidden catastrophe of the Indomitable. Even if he offers such unconditional love, I cannot help but feel as if it is all false, he just cannot bring himself to push away such a mangled monster made from his own uncontrollable desire, so he lies through his teeth and hopes that eventually I drift away into the same purgatory that has ensnared my mother.

There's a stabbing pain at the mention of healers, thinking of someone who has long since replaced Sikeax, who has turned her back on the Throat (where is she now?). I don't think I trust the new healer either, still desperately clinging to Sikeax and her nurturing nature, how she took me under her guidance and care as if I was her own child. So who had stepped into her place now? Whose face will I greet when we finally find a healer to help us? Nobody I will ever care for, no one whose hands I will willingly place my life into, there is no trust to be offered to the new Sun Physician.

I tread carefully behind him, listening to him list off Aloe Vera and what it could be applied to (he says burns, but these are not burns marking my hide, these are the marks of emptiness, of a burning hate that overwhelms and ruins, a cataclysmic force that ruthlessly destroys). "But these are not burns? Will it still help?" What good can it do to something ice cold, to a freezing heart chilled over by the vacancy, the loveless being wrapped over the quiet muscle.

He mentions a root that numbs the pain, that wipes away the severity of my suffering, and I know what I need. Can it erase emotional pain too? Can it wash away the sorrows of my youth, the despair that entombs me? "Looking for it would be good, that sounds like it may help more than the aloe." I want to be numb, to find a substance to push away everything I feel and turn me into what I know I cannot be through will alone (emotionless).

I focus on his striding figure, thinking that as we exit the arena, I should perhaps ask what his name is. It seems reasonable enough. I suppose that's something typically done, an exchange of names between acquaintances (are we acquaintances?). But do I want to know his name, and does he want to know mine? Do I want to let him know it, to let him in? I'm trusting him with all too much already, and a name seems like the final step of trusting his character. "Do you have a name, or shall I call you bőgőmasina?"

-- @Saoirse
bőgőmasina - crybaby