“Shouldn’t.”
He’s not wrong. His voice is so quickly becoming the logic in her head, and nothing about that sentence seems right when really thought about, but Hobgoblin has mostly been right these past few times. The ridicule she can withstand, but his mind has aged into maturity til there is no longer the blindness of a mad man.
No, Hobgoblin has given up that life after seeing the worst of it through her, and left her to be the one who is blind.
“No, I don’t think you understand. I ha-” Force builds up in her voice before his roars forth to cut her off. It strangles her with a gentle hand and soothes her into silence. A long sigh drifts from her as the obvious tension in her body relieves, everything visibly sinking until she is standing still, head in the air with eyes clutched shut, horn reaching to pierce the sky as the Sun shines down on them with the laziest of warmths. Hobgoblin stands idle, closer to the shrines, turned with them to face her.
Together, they look like a priestess arguing with her patron.
What a funny thought that is, thinking back to how their bond has built itself up.
“Hobgoblin understand. Hobgoblin know. You, Hobgoblin, share head. Hobgoblin know You.”
“Then why do you think that I shouldn’t be doing this?” Words fly out of her mouth in the same way that a snake lunges for the kill. Hobgoblin is left to reel, yanking his fanged head backwards and scowling away from her sight.
It doesn’t do much good to hide behind the lack of meat on his bones. Anger steams from vents as his patience wears thin, but most of it comes from her. Sikeax has fallen into a tortured reality of fearing for her children in every way possible when it can almost be assured that they are fine.
Well, except Zhu.
“Hobgoblin, I’m scared for him. What if he’s not okay? What if he’s hurt and too far for help, trapped or lost? What then?”
And Hobgoblin cannot give a response for the mother’s torment audible in her whispering. Sadness hugs them tightly til they weep in its arms, clutched hard in her chest. He has taken part in raising each of her children, yes, but because he has no womb to carry them in, no breast to nurse them upon, or the compassion she holds so feverishly, he cannot understand the horror of losing a child.
It’s not to say that he doesn’t love and care for each of them, but it’s not in the way that Sikeax does.
And when there’s nothing else to be argued over, Sikeax steps forth with seaweed held firmly in her mouth, dropping it in front of what’s left of the Earth God’s shrine.
“Just because one God forsook me at the mercy of what used to be my family doesn’t mean that I have to give up on another.”
She can't come complain when the silence comes rolling in.

OOC: screams because it's t I M E AT LAST
Hobgoblin is in his wendigo form


"Talk."

You were angels,

And I sit and listen dreamlessly,