Oddly, Cera is reminded of the caverns in the Heart as the crystalline woman whirls to face him again, the world clouded by red and pain and confusion. Hiding in the dark, fearful of the world above, the creatures looming beyond their front door. How they had cowered, without sunlight, without borders. United as one in their fight for life, trying to keep faith that the Gods would not abandon them to their earthen grave. The world is askew with only one working eye, and his head sways unnaturally back and forth, confusion whimpering on his tongue as he tries to shake the ringing in his ears from the impact of her teeth on his face. He's coated in blood - face wounds bleed heavily, child, staunch them quickly - he can hear Midas crooning softly, but it does nothing to ease the pain. In fact it only makes his heart cry louder in supplication, begging for deliverance from the pain of losing everyone he'd ever loved. 

Her cry of his name precedes her rush to him and he does not attack her, this blow the last he can weather as his rage shatters and dissipates into hurt and defensiveness. He cringes from her, just as unsure of her motives as she is of his. But as her words blubber forth, and she comes to the same realization as he, Cera can't help but start to laugh softly. It peters out and then begins to build upon itself once again, louder and louder, until it's hysterical. Until the laughter becomes tears, blood running against his face as it mixes with his tears. Salt in the wound. Hurting himself with his own emotions. How poetic, considering what had just transpired between the two of them. 

"There's nothing," he murmured helplessly, still hiccuping laughter through his tears. "There's nobody, Sohalia. Nobody can fix this." His eye. His heart. His family. Nobody existed that could fix any of it, right now. 

He turned his watery green eyes to her, simply tired now. Aching. Hurting. She was both the weights tied to his ankle and the life preserver, and he wasn't sure whether to let the water consume him and drag him down or try and reach out for her one more time. Simply stood staring trying to figure out where to go next, after this. After everyone and everything. 

"You were the closest thing I ever had to a mother," he whispered dully, almost stoically if it weren't for the exhaustion exhaling on his breaths as he speaks. "You never even told me why you left. Never apologized. What was I supposed to do with that? What do you want from me anymore, Sohalia?" A hiccup of a sob tried to crawl from his throat and he crushed it hatefully in his windpipe. He was no boy anymore. It was time to stop acting like one. 

"To bear this weight forever? To watch everyone leave me over and over again without being hurt by it? Do you expect me to be godlike, to never snap? To never hate? WHY DOES EVERYONE EXPECT ME TO BE FORGIVING AFTER ALL THIS TIME?!" The words screamed out from his torn throat, and he turned and flung his head away from her, blood spraying all out across the sand, as if it needed to be tainted by any more blood now. "WHY DOES EVERYONE ELSE GET TO MAKE MISTAKES?! Why do you all need me to be the good one, the happy one? WHO MADE THAT MY JOB?!" And the bellowing of his anger and his hurt echoed across the sands louder than he'd ever managed before. Until even the echoes were silent and he was just left with the shattered picture frames his angry fists had torn apart, hating himself for touching the last remains of something good and pure he still had in his grasp. 

And his shoulders shook, too much of a man now to let himself cry, but too childlike in his heart to bear the burden on his small shoulders any longer.

DONT MIND ME I'LL BE OVER HERE CRYING

There is no sympathy left in his deadened, hollow breast to care for the way she stumbles, the hurt and ache in her voice. Even as he hears her crumple to the sand, far too soft an impact for the despair and hatred still bubbling inside of his adrenaline-hot veins, he does not turn to her. She deserves this. To stare at his back, as he had always been staring at hers; a mentor far above him, a retreating mother in ghostly parallel to the one who had abandoned him on the sands, a disappearing figure bound to return after seasons of betrayal without a word of explanation or apology. She doesn't deserve to see anything less than his own retreating heels, to cry after him as he had cried after her. 

Croaking vocals draw one ear back, frozen like a statue where he stands. Incapable of walking away, because a part of him cannot exact that same betrayal against her. Not when she is still part of the Throat. Still family, even if she'd never been family in the way he'd wanted. The way he would never, ever be with anyone but Bellanaris. Even to Midas he had not been the golden son the Gallant had always wanted, and Gaucho and Sohalia had never had room in their large family for an older, bloodless son like Cera. No matter how the Prince had tried, the only royalty he'd ever been awarded was a facsimile, a title he didn't understand the reasoning behind. He was no Prince. He may have been born and raised on the sands of the Throat but that had never mattered to anyone else before. 

Sohalia's hiccuping sobs finally turned him violently on his heel, disregarding the blood and his muddled vision and his burned skin. Stared down upon her like a damning archangel, unforgiving of her sins. 

"Even now you still don't apologize. All of you, every one of you, you take my forgiveness and you spit on it. I will live and die as the Forger of this land, and nobody will ever question my existence. Nobody will ever ask if I wanted more than this, if I ever thought of leaving for all the thanks I've ever gotten. Because nobody cares about those who don't put up a fuss. Loyalty means nothing to those like you Sohalia. Those who leave without thinking or caring about the consequences. Loyalty means nothing to this herd." And his voice was so full of anger that he could feel his skin shaking with the desire to burst out of it. To be free from these emotions he had never wanted to feel. When had the world turned him so cold? 

The scar on his chest ached, giving that quiet, stoic answer. 

"Get up," he said quietly, voice like iron but far softer in tone. "If you want to fix this, Sohalia, get up. We can't just stand around and fight, or cry. That fixes nothing." The Prince strode toward her in all his bloodied, golden glory. Dropped his head to hers and offered himself, the strength of his neck and his body to lift her from the sands. The first step to forgiveness that she had never asked for, but that he was offering her nonetheless. 

"I can't forgive you immediately. You'll have to earn that. But we'll start here. You and me. Help me fix this family." Single emerald stared down into her tearful blues, passing the torch of his fires to her wavering coals, asking her to build a stronger flame with the pair of them in unison. "If you want to stay, if you want to prove yourself to me...then help me now." And maybe she would earn his forgiveness a little more with each day she stayed. Each day she didn't turn and run, as she had so many times in the past. Maybe he could teach her about loyalty, for he had been born by the sand, and it had raised him fair and true. Perhaps his steadfastness would rub off on her, in that way.

DONT MIND ME I'LL BE OVER HERE CRYING YET AGAIN