He isn’t like her. He isn’t hailing from the north, bones infused with ice and loving of all things related to snow and just how beautiful the void of the north is. But nonetheless, he comes from the same mountains where she had been brought into the world in, both brought forth in maybe a sense of false safety.
There was nothing safe about the Foothills. Even as the Falls, she cannot think of it as a place to be comfortable at. It is nothing more than damnation, and the thought runs a twisted expression against her face, drawing her nostrils as they rise and fall into a mess of valleys and mountains. She doesn’t mean it, but she hopes he doesn’t notice when it fades with speed. She should have better control.
“Foothills?”
Please. I can’t.
She’s upset and good at hiding it when she needs to, but there is never a way that she can hide how she’s really feeling from him. His mental brows have been corralled and knit into knots, eyes soft and head worrisome. The word that they both know will come soon enough doesn’t arrive, and in return, she almost thanks him.
The Grey, whether they still exist or not, haunts her. They’ve stained that part of the world permanently with their presence and their actions. One does not help by killing.
“I’ve never been to the heavenly fields, except for when I first met Hobgoblin.” It’s not a lie even though she feels like it is one. It’s heavy on the tongue and pulling her throat tight, as if she can’t force it out completely. Hobgoblin had been born there, and she had received him there, but no other memory is held to that place.
Just another place with a name that she has no purpose for, a little too close to something that she’s too scared to experience.
Can we go back to the north?
She captures him entirely, grasping his head and body as she asks him if they can go there. They’ve never questioned one another on these topics, instead opting to act as they please while the other follows without question, two bodies functioning nearly as one, as well as two very opposite people can.
“Have you tried Aloe Vera?” Probably not, because I’ve never seen it grow outside the Throat. “It grows like crazy in the Dragon’s Throat. Takes away the pain of sunburns and helps heal them and keep them from happening. I could get you some and show you how to use it sometime.” The idea of him with a sunburn doesn’t come to mind much, nor has it ever. Her coat is pale, his reminds of her of the night, her skin is soft, his, well, she thinks that it is like stone. He doesn’t seem to crumble, even at the harshest touch.
Discomfort swells in her like a rising wave. It touches her shores, and slowly overwhelms in the form of fear. She has nothing to be scared of at this point, so it must be- oh.
Oh.
OH.
Hobgoblin was drawn himself into a submissive position at the smoke vaping from the Dragon’s nostrils. Hobgoblin, a creature who gives zero damns about a single thing other than himself and would willingly destroy worlds at any chance just for sport, does not submit to a dragon because the overgrown mongrel can produce a bit of smoke.
Neither of them, definitely she, is going to have the agony of 3rd degree burns again over a fucking jellyfish.
“Why you little...” Her voice is hard and slow, slithering from her lips like a long, drawn out hiss that has been held in too long. “BITCH.”
Hobgoblin jumps, leaping with his long body twisting mid-air, tucking his tail between his legs like a frightened dog because hell if he isn’t terrified at the response that Sikeax gives as they equally sprint, his upon landing and her’s a fearless charge towards the golden beast.
Later on, he’ll look back on this with smug pride. Sikeax has charged a dragon for him.
Teeth do not flash behind curls lips and her horned skull doesn’t dip to threaten. She has no intention of harming the beast. Volterra could easily wound her more than she could the dragon for hurting it, and here it seemed they had gotten along well on this meeting up until it made it clear he lacked the effort to discipline his companions.
No wonder Zhu acted the way he did.
“You do not burn him. You do not burn anyone, do you hear me, anyone,” She draws out the pronunciation of ‘anyone’ to add much needed emphasis to it. “over anything as meaningless as food when there is more than enough to go around. You share.” Hobgoblin shifts uncomfortably near Vérzés, watching Sikeax mother yet another thing that she didn’t need to. A pleading glance is given to his friend and then Volterra, as if to ask for forgiveness.
“I’ve raised two overgrown sons and Hobgoblin and don’t think your cute little fire trick is gonna stop me from getting you to act like a lady. If you want to burn him, then burn me because I will heal myself and then hunt. You. Down.”
She ends it with a snort, firing it in the direction of the dragon, and then turns to greet Volterra with a relieving sigh, now half-expecting some sort of retort from him. They weren’t her’s to treat this way, but Hobgoblin was a large portion of herself that would find herself empty without, and his problems are her problems.
“I’m sorry, both for that and what did you say?” She pulls herself together like the situation didn’t phase her, silently grinding her gears in the back of her head. Hobgoblin slinks towards a jellyfish of his choosing, promptly latches his claws into the bell of it, and drags it back to his choice of placement. Yellow eyes watch the pair as he chews in silence, wishing he could bring the topic up to Vérzés for conversation.
“Endless Night.”
Huh?
“Skullface ask Endless Night.”
Oh!
“Uhh… Are you not that old?” What a stupid thing to ask. If he doesn’t know it when she calls it out straightforward, then chances are he isn’t old enough to have experienced it.
Her ears swing back and droop at the thought of thinking about it, even speaking on such a subject. Those were very foreign times compared to the current state of Helovia, but Hobgoblin’s curiosity has been stirred and she can only imagine that Volterra is the same way. “When I was just a baby, probably no more than season or so old, the Sun, it just kinda, well,” There isn’t a correct way to form her words. Vanished? Left? What more is there to say?
“Sun explode?”
No.
“left. I feel asleep at night with my friend after swimming in the ocean, and when we woke up it was still night. When I left to go home, it was night. But it was a funny kind of night. There were these glowing trees,” Oh yea Sikeax, you were totally on tons of weird herbs back then to have hallucinations like that. Hobgoblin snickers at her thoughts. “there wasn’t a moon or any stars for a long time, and even then it didn’t end. The grass wasn’t growing, there wasn’t anything. It was like living in a void but where you weren’t totally in the void, like on the ground with everything like you can remember it, but at night. Looking back, it makes me feel like I was dead and everyone else was too.”
Hobgoblin is swollen, staring with eyes now wide with amazement. “I hope it’s something you never have to experience.”
“Why Sun back?”
I don’t know. I just don’t. Everything just happened.
Volterra is quick to save her, a hand that he probably doesn’t know that he has extended but one that she grabs with haste and holds onto tightly. The dark didn’t bother her anymore as a repercussion of it, but the memory leaves her uncomfortable because it led to other things.
She frees herself of that subject as much she can as she tries to imagine control being something that she had experienced in the Dragon’s Throat, but in reality, all of her relationships had been well. Africa - oh god, how that name stings straight to her very core - and her had been close buddies, Kri had been kind but fierce, never once harsh in how she reigned, and well, Andromeda, her mentor, well…. She had been like a friend that wasn’t completely a friend.
But maybe warriors were given other types of treatment, and she had been given supremacy in her devotion to her learning. She can understand. Ampere led the warriors and then lead the rank leads, and was at times, a bitch.
“It’s not like what you imagine. You don’t have to submit or follow orders or give up freedom. The Throat is my family, a bigger one but it’s nice to have people around who you feel like care about you and your safety and maybe love you some. It makes you feel important. Everyone helps one another better themselves and at the end of the day, you can go to bed feeling accomplished. But, if you’re wanting to be a leader, please one to be remembered.” What an odd thing to tell him, but lately it seemed as if no leader left anything behind that made them noteworthy. No one cared anymore. It seemed as if it was another title that they could wear and be proud of, and then abuse.
Her voice is soft through the entire time she speaks, waiting for some sort of rough, low response, and instead, receives a chuckle. It catches her off guard, but in the odd relief it brings, she can only offer a weak smile in return.