well someday soon when the spring brings the sun
i'll sleep, i'll finally
feel better when the winter's gone

Hobgoblin is a beast of burden. His voice is deep and almost sweet, and she can still hear him in the back of her head as she watches Amara. Pain is clutching her heart. Amara’s eyes upon her skin feel even worse as the time that they linger increases, watching and listening with a sense of heavy sadness and maybe disappointment as Amara apologizes.
“Monster lost cause.”
Hush.
“Monster hurt You. Monster do no good. Monster BAD. I kill Monster. Make You happy?”
Please don’t.
“Why?”
Another thing she can’t answer. The pain hitting her chest is showing itself to be depression. Quite possibly what she feels in her eyes are tears that are steadily growing into tsunami waves. She isn’t appreciated. No one, not even her own best friend, or is Amara her mate, a lover she isn’t sure she loves when she is scared they will wound her without question or second thought, can care for the things that she does.
One, two, three, four tears slither down her cheek as Amara steps away. Darkness sinks into her soul, and somewhere off, she can hear the faintest sound of Hobgoblin’s broken, empty singing.
She doesn’t make eye contact when the mare passes by. She draws herself, stepping slowly through the sand that clings to her skin gently and hangs on with vengeance, never letting go.
Amara’s words hang like a noose in her gallows. ‘So sorry.’ But was it true? Did Amara care? Did she truly feel sorry, upset with herself for the actions she so selfishly, heartlessly, cruelly threw into the face of someone who worked their hardest to ensure that she was cared for? Someone who wanted to call her her mate, a sacred term that isn’t sure is supposed to be out of love or friendship.
She reaches into the bottom of her heart and digs, shifting tired, wounded and bruised fingers into the mess of emotions that wear knives on all of their surfaces, beginning the search for love, the kind that mates are specifically supposed to feel for one another.
A new crack extends over the brittle surface of her heart and soul when she doesn’t discover it there. She guesses that Amara doesn’t think about her while she splashes herself clean in the waves.
Any remaining tears are batted away with swift blinks, finally holding her blues wide and sighing as her throat hitches, clinging onto a sob with a fierce grip that begs her to not let go. Amara will not see her cry. In the ocean, her wet cheeks and salty tears fit into everything else, and there can she really let herself go.
Hobgoblin’s heart is sinking somewhere in the sea as she walks into the thickening vegetation. Her vocal words work feverishly to hide the feelings of betrayal and sadness that force her breaking heart to crumble more. A last bit of strength rises up with all it has just to form her words naturally, assuring the absence of her pain to the outside. “Do you know what goldenseal looks like?”
The tone is the same as it always is, fading as she waits for the answer that she already knows. ‘No, I don’t.’ She is sure Amara has taken up no time in looking for things in the wilds when she was on her own. It wouldn’t be as productive of her time as chewing and ripping away the skin of her legs and body would be, the festering wounds and infections left to course through her veins until it achieved in taking her life away. “It spreads out like a star but with one side missing it’s points, with a dried, wrinkled appearance. It has a white flower like a daisy or a small grouping of red berries in the center. It’s going to taste terrible when you pick it, but we need it.”
A moment is given for her to process it and another for Amara to accommodate to her pace and move along side her. The vines would be no problem, but the goldenseal worries her. Amara would have to learn through failure, but could she be trusted? “Would you like to come with you, or would you like to go on your own to look for it?”
But can I trust you to be alone?
A glance is stolen, directed towards the mare’s legs, counting and following the shapes of each scar, both fresh and aged. Would Amara be returning to her with more symbols of her self-abuse when she had been falsely trusted with hope things would go well?
“Let Monster go. Leave Monster after. Monster live on island forever.”
She can fly.
“Monster will be fine.”
A mental grimace covers any features she has in her brain, but she can’t help but think about the idea. She could bolt once far from the Monster Amara, slip into the sea, and never have to think about her life in Helovia again. She could experience real freedom, real hope that things would better in her life, things that she hadn’t truly felt when in Helovia. But what about the things that she would be leaving behind?
The only thing that really comes to mind when she thinks on it is Zhu, but she is sure he will function well in her absence.
Something rubs against her legs, and subconsciously she reaches for it, tugging away at a vine until it tears and migrates into her mouth.
I don’t think I can.
Sweet tastes cover her tastebuds as she chews, swallowing absentmindedly, impatiently waiting for the response that will probably be neither a yes nor a no, instead acting a jumbled mess of words that will attach Amara to her body further.


"Talk."