Nightmares and violent shapes
the state of dreaming
has left me numb

Embarrassment should have struck him by now, swinging across his tear-streaked cheeks and slamming the reminder into his brain that strong displays of emotions are a sign of weakness and submission, that he is rolling over to bare his belly to a stranger not much different from him. But he cannot see that, because the tears are clotting in his eyelashes, threaded from the night, holding back the moons he holds in his skull through dark storm clouds that welcoming empty their weights. For all that he cares, all the more noise that the kid(lol) puts out is enough to show him that he is there, ears jerking into position to listen to everything he makes.
On occasion, he releases his own calls, nothing more than low clicks that build and destruct his company within a matter of a few seconds. There are no horns. There are no wings. He cannot see that his brother is wearing their father’s face, and sees him nothing more than a soul encased in a body.
Just like his mother, just like Hobgoblin was shown him through physical brutalities and mindless slaughter that nothing is holy, and that life is a simply a thing that comes and goes. If they were to kill, he wouldn’t care.
The mention of puddles makes him curious, and then suddenly, hopeful. He could wash the salt and the tears from his face and hide his curse, and as he dips towards it, drawing his cloven hooves along the surface as if he was diving the surgeon’s scalpel into a chest cavity, relinquishing in the feeling of cool, wet water that reminds of him home, he finds that it is salty. No use to his eyes nor his stains.
The desert is a curse.
A question still hangs in the air, but in his ears, it’s that same old sound, gibberish mixed in with actual words. Sikeax is not here to rescue him, and Hobgoblin is not there to aid in any way possible. He is out on his own, in a real world situation where either has to ball up and become the fallen with those who he will walk over in his near future.
Warlords and sons of warlords, especially the first-borns of a grand warlord of a line of other greats behind him on both sides, the ones who inherit the throne and power, should not quiver and break beneath their challenges. Instead, he forces himself to prosper, to shove his growing body into a challenging position that will (hopefully)pay off.
He is not weak, nor will he ever be, whether it be of battle wounds that he will proudly sport and continue to sport as they become scars, the deafening of his baby ears, the speech he cannot form correctly, or the cough that rattles his rib cage til all of his ribs threaten to break.
Swallowing, he finds himself with a hardened throat and pained. He swallows that too.
“My e-e-zz…” The sound of the final syllable drags out across his jagged teeth and searches for correction, words that make sense to him but maybe not this one. He’ll get his point across in his own way, regardless of him.
“Dragon.”
All the time that they have practiced pronouncing his homeland’s name has paid off. The words come out with the grace of a porcelain-legged ballerina, who after time after time has broken them and glued them back together out of persistence.
His eyes, they burn like Dragons are within them. A turn of a black, velvet muzzle swung towards where he believes the Sun is at is further testament to what he is trying to say.
He doesn’t care to crack their now tightly shut shutters to look for a physical reaction, waiting with ears pressed forward so that his stranger will make a noise that he can use as a crutch until they feel as if they will work correctly again.



"Talk."

zhu