There came a time, shortly after the birth of The Child, where my grasp on reality loosened altogether, and I forget entirely about what it meant to keep track of the passing hours. Time became a very loose concept to which I lived, bound only physically to the Throat, to reality. Mentally I drifted, wandered, a collection of thoughts and ideas that were shapeless and free. Val was something the body nurtured distantly, and the mind did not even linger on, a far away reality that I could never quite comprehend. My child— my daughter, loveless and without affection from a mother who could barely handle herself. I spent my time tucked away in hidden places, where no soul but Sameira's could reach me, where not even my child or Sikeax could offer company.

I didn't want it, didn't want the comfort of physical contact or interaction. I placed myself at a distance, perhaps to tear myself apart and start from scratch, to go piece by piece to rebuild everything about me in hopes that I'll somehow become a better person. For months after the disaster of Val's birth, I was plagued by haunting images and the feeling of her blood— my blood— dripping from my lips and pooling beneath her trembling body. All I could hear was the sounds of her flesh tearing away from the bone, from the body, and the cackling of the demon that haunted me day in and day out. The stealer of skins, the taker of identities, they who walk through this world with familiar faces held precious to me, most lost to fate. And I struggle every single time I wake up, sweating and shivering at the crimes I've committed, to push myself to rise from my resting state and become a conscious member of a society taught to shame me.

So I don't, I stay away from the masses and instead spend my time going over what little I've learned as a healer within the Throat, daring not to gravitate towards Sia and distract her from her duties as sultana. But everyday I struggle, yearning to speak to her over and over, to spark up a conversation that's stress free and won't pull tears from out weary bodies. I watch her, watch my spawn trot along beside her and treat her more like her mother than me, I know she fears me (she knows what I did). And it hurts, my heart yearning to receive such attention from the mutilated babe, to be able to have her trust me the way she does Sia. She fidgets beside me, subtly, quiet and tempered as we spend our token few hours together, where there is barely ever an exchange of words before she leaves me again, muttering some pitiful excuse to get away from her deranged mother.    

Today she's beside me, lips sealed and ears twitching frantically, her scars on display for the world to see— for me to see. I almost can't stand the idea of letting my gaze drift over the marred tissue, the deep and puffy wounds that have almost entirely healed, accompanied by mangled wings that I know will never prove worthy of flight. They are too small for her body, distorted and tattered still, the bones never properly having healed and instead leaving them dysfunctional. I could feel and see the stiffness of her steps as she wandered beside me, pressed closer to Sameira's side then mine (Sameira knows well how Val feels about me, she's kept from telling me directly but her hints are enough). She shuffles silently, milling behind me and keeping her head low, a silence settling between us as we cross the crisp quiet of the Throat.

Val lifts her head, ears reaching as far forward as they can and a tiny gasp catching in her throat (she holds it there, ear pivoting towards me in fear that I will snap again). "Sia!" She whispers, drawing my eyes up to see the familiar amber champagne figure wandering against the softened red of the Throat, solemn and elegant in contrast to the harsh warm hues of the landscape. Val moves quickly to reach Sia's side, Sameira hastily trotting along beside her as the pair near the sultana.

I linger, yearning to run frantically to the side of the champagne dam, to fall before her and selfishly weep that I wish she'd never been promoted, that she's remained the Sun Physician and that we'd been able to spend these past few months building up a relationship that had been in tatters since Zhu's entrance into the world rather than her spending her time building up a herd that'd fallen apart over the course of years from absent leaders. I was selfish this way, childish, demanding the attention of a woman who could not hand my needs. Perhaps I should stay where I am and hope she does not seek me out, does not try to find my distant figure as Val falls into their familiar routine.

I held my breath and watched Val reach her, shedding the stillness and fear that shrouded her slouched shoulders whenever she was in my presence, greeting Goblin with a familiar and rare smile that made my heart cry out. She could greet even that unholy companion with love and affection, but not I— she would never love me the way she would love Sia and Goblin, the way she would her father or Sameira. I was a danger to her, a presence that threatened her safety, someone she could never trust wholly. I amble towards Sia and my child, cautious to approach the two for it is I who is the foreign and unfamiliar body, the alien entering the conversation. Val turns to me, the smile fading and her ears falling back, she rejoins my side willingly and lets me greet Sia. The joy that consumed her dies there before me, flaking at my hooves and cruelly mocking me and my incompetence.  

"Sia, I- I'm sorry I haven't been around— I, I thought maybe you'd need space to work out herd issues and— I needed to work out some things of my own—" I swallow thickly, the apology clogging up my throat and feeling sour on my tongue. I've missed her, I've missed her so much. Do I tell her this? Should I? I do, the words spilling from speckled lips and hanging there in the air. "I've missed you," they settle there bitterly, exposed to disappointment and judgement. Val stays quiet. The words were soft and openly displayed, eyes meeting gentle blue and fearing that today is another heartless day, where Sia has distanced herself and I am greeted with just a husk. How ironic that on a rare day when every pitiful piece of me is collected here, pieces of her are scattered everywhere across the Throat. How unfair it would be (selfish) for her to leave when I need her here. "It seems that Val and you are getting along well," I note, eyeing the twitching babe with a hesitant eye, her head hung as she pulls back her ears and leans into Sameira.