everybody wants to rule the world

It takes months to find myself again, lost to the fleeting fantasy that everything was just fine, forgetting myself in the idea of perfection. The world has fallen away from me, peeled down to nothing but whispers and the lustful touch of men desperate for company. I know just what they all want, and know I can offer them the company they seek, but my mind eludes me as they love upon my curves and pleasure themselves with my restless body.

I pushed myself out into the world, desperate to find my mother (to find Sabre, I miss her, I need her) despite the healing wounds that stretch across my skin from her parting. I know I will not find her, but I still try, hollowed without her fury, the cruel lashes of her tongue and the emotional scarring she left for me that littered my existence. I didn't  know what I was without her, seeking her approval and affection teeth sinking into my neck because I couldn't prove myself worthy of her affections (those were her affections). She pushed me away, rejected me, hated me, and I felt something when she screamed, when her mouth foamed and eyes blazed with a fury I never knew any living creature was capable of. But in her absence, I was purposeless, useless. Without her to impress, who was there?

I returned to Helovia empty handed, with nothing to prove I had ever gone looking for her, no proof that she or Sabre remained alive and well outside of Helovia's borders. I thought for a second that I witnessed the fleeting figure of my mother, weaving between the trees in an attempt to escape my sights, but could not prove that it was her, for whatever whoever it was had disappeared into the forest. I encountered herds, warring bands and nomadic groups, each offering me a place within their ranks. I denied them all, despite the temptation of leading a life outside of Helovia, of being someone great outside of the world I'd grown to know so well. The harsher groups took less kindly to my rejection of their offer, lashing out. I felt alive when I fought them, interlocked in a battle between behemoths that even Volterra could stand no chance against. I showed them the power of a land they had never graced, of a will they could not break, and they crumbled to my hooves. I did not escape unscathed, returning to Helovia with a new layer of scarring to weave stories for (who will ask for the history behind them?)

I sought out Zhu after our encounter, trying to find closure, to find meaning behind the actions that took place in the dead of night (why had he left so suddenly? Why did I linger for so long on it?). I sought another sibling of mine, for Helovia was littered with them, but not a single one turned up. I longed for parents, for someone, for being so isolated and alone was driving me mad.

Even Volterra had disappeared on me, and it was obvious I was desperate for trying to bury my sorrows in him, for wanting to spill out the emotions and thoughts that brewed beneath my skin in his presence. I was still hesitant to trust him, even though he boasts that he is active within the lives of his children, I still wonder how true that is. But I cannot talk, because I am an absent brother, a fictional child donning the trademark skull, a ghost wandering the night with just my ghastly features to identify me.

I had ventured to the fields mindlessly, hooves kicking up dirt and grass as I make my way along a lightly beaten path, appreciating the chill of a Birdsong night after spending too long away from Helovia. Bubblegum pink catches on a soft blue glow from afar, brows narrowing as I draw closer, legs trembling and mind reeling as I stumble my way to her— she is nestled beside Hobgoblin, draped in pale white (the screaming deer, ugh, probably my least favourite of his forms) and curled up in the grasses, silent. That's a first. I approach with caution, hesitant to disturb Sikeax, to intrude on the quiet hours before dawn.

"Sikeax?" My voice cracks from disuse, unsteady and quiet, barely a whisper as I inch closer to the pair.
"Talk."