and let me kick you off a bungee

Momma had been lost, withdrawn into her own world— her body remained at my side, her mind did not, it wandered to far away places I could only dream of. I wanted to free my mind that way, to let myself drift into a universe a million light years away from the burning sands of the Throat, where no one but myself could find me (I want to hide away forever there). I'd like to let the weight of my life lift from my shoulders, to exhale serenely with Death's gentle caress there to carry me off.

When will I be swept away?

Why have I been allowed to wander, unwillingly chained to this earth for nine haunting months— months spent trapped inside a fiery hell, with wounds that smell and burn, a walking plague with a sickening stench that follows (It makes sense no one took initiative and approached me). I was something of a ghastly spectacle, the lone black ghost with the shattered wings and broken face, silently venturing through the Throat when the heat of the sun no longer threatened me (otherwise I would sweat and smell; it made me sick). I was only freed from my strict night roaming when the cold weather swept in, a moment to breathe freely while the world was coated in a chilling frost that cracked beneath my hooves.

But now the weather was warming up again, taking away what little freedom I had. It soured my mood to be pushed back into the dark, into the cool nights wasted wandering alone— who will keep me company now?

The cry catches my attention, the furious shout from a tiny body. A boy's lone figure stands before heated trees (superficial, no normal tree is so distinctly coloured like that)— it's the Arena, a competitive space to perform the ritualistic dance we have come to consider somewhat of a test of skill, a game of wits and strengths. It's where challenges are held, where the strong parade about in brutish shows to display their dominance. I have only caught wind of a few such events, but never finding enough  interest in the way the distorted shapes clash and overheat.

And here stands a child, swearing at the world and rearing up like he's one of those courageous warriors, prepared to battle to keep a title he has not yet earned. I take confident strides towards him at the center of the ring, ears falling back and muzzle outstretched to get a clearer view of the young boy. He's thinner than I, smaller, but his wings grow fine, their subtle change in temperature giving away the pristine condition they're in.

It's envy that hits me then, a strike across the face (his wings are functioning— he's a perfect child— he must be loved) as I approach. It's inexplicable rage that consumes me, a white hot brewing mix of self hatred and jealousy. What have I done to be treated so poorly? To not have the same chance to be so innocent that I shy away upon screaming a single foul word? I am upon him then, head tilted down at the winged child with a blank expression and fallen ears (I hope my mangled face scares him)."What do you think you're doing?" My words are sharp, harsh as I let my anger seep subtly into each syllable. "I doubt the Sun God gives a shit— or anyone for that matter." My words grow cold as I think about how precious he must be to so quickly apologize for swearing. I, on the other hand, have grown to live without a filter— no one ever reprimands me for my use of "bad language," so I don't think they care (or are listening to me, which is no surprise). "You're so young... shouldn't your mom be glued to you or some shit?"

-- @Saoirse

and let me kick you off a bungee

The boy startles, his form flourishing with warm colours around his head at the surprise from my harsh words. I let a satisfied smirk slide across my lips, standing a little taller.

He's tripping and stumbling over his words, an unsteady sentence spilling out in a single breath, huffing and stomping his hoof out of failed defiance. I would have laughed had I had the energy, had the need, but instead I just watch his figure madly stomp a lone foot as if to prove something to me (the point doesn't exactly get across). "Okay, chill. Don't go crying, I'm not in the mood to deal with crybabies." I'm never in the mood to deal with them (despite being one of them)— I'll keep quiet about my own unstable emotions and the raging storm of feeling brewing beneath my skin.

"How do you know that?" I lean in at his distanced figure, getting flashes of the shifting temperatures blossoming over his face. "Because, if he really cared, I wouldn't be looking like this." I lean back, thinking I should be doing something unsettling to spook him, but I can't think of much (perhaps, "take a look! Take in a whiff of the horrors of heat and infection!"). "If he cared so much, he wouldn't have let the innocent suffer, he wouldn't let monsters in." My voice hushes, hollow and haunting as I try to focus my gaping sockets on the boy (maybe this will scare him?).

I can see the visible fear, the change in colours across his canvas as he denies his youth. Perhaps I'm wrong, but from the fragile appearance of his body, it's easy to see he is still developing. "You look young." And maybe I wasn't that much older, but I still felt— powerful? In his presence, I was his superior, I was the one with the experience, with the ability to weave lies and make his impressionable mind believe anything. The excitement tickles my gut, mischief forming a twisted feeling beneath my skin.

I don't think I feel bad about him telling me his mom has left, that she's gone, whisked away by some unknown force that seems to tear apart families. It compelled my mother to wander from me, to forget that her womb ever bore such a burden, that it ever produced something so disastrous from forgotten sin. I do not feel bad for the colt, do not pity him or empathize with him— he is not special.

He deflects the question back onto me, my brows twitching at the question he spits out at me. What do I tell him? That I lost my mother to a darkness that takes only the weak minded, the broken hearted— that she did not want me, that motherhood was not a burden she could bear. I will not tell him about her insanity, about the interchangeable thoughts that control her, that turn her into a tyrant or an uncharacteristically loving mother. "She is lost within herself." I answer calmly, refusing to let any sort of worry spread through my veins. I can suck it the fuck up and deal with her abandonment, I don't need her (Apa takes care of me, that's good enough).

His head has not moved, frozen in the same position, staring, wondering— he is gazing at my eyes (or lack thereof). I can feel the weight of his gaze, can taste the question on the tip of his tongue. It is always there, no matter who I speak to, it is somewhere in the back of their mind or on their lips, it is a tense feeling lingering in the air between us as they meet empty sockets. They always want to know. "Don't look too long, you might see something truly awful."

-- @Saoirse
& a note: this was made before she was outcasted officially so im just gonna keep posting her here while she goes through the process of rejoining

and let me kick you off a bungee

I think I've found a way under his skin, listening to the way he cannot keep up with his words, uselessly flapping in the wind in response to my statement. He cannot deny his youth as much as he tries, words falling on deaf ears as he refuses to accept that he is still a child (sure, we both are, but I am older than he is)— no matter what he does in an attempt to prove me wrong.

"Yeah, alright." Is my only response to his denial of being a crybaby, knowing that he's probably too afraid to admit to it (I know I am).

He has no response to my reasoning, no argument as to why the sun god is such a holy, important being who resides over us and keeps us safe. I have silenced the colt with easy words, with an unveiled truth spilling between us— he could not run from it forever, could not live with his rose coloured lenses for all of his youth. Someone else has to exist here with me, without that scarlet filter to keep them from believing that everything is whole and good, that there is nothing wrong in our world. Let him soak in the lies, the corruption, the endless pain and horribly reality we try to hide from our children (no one chose to hide it from me).

He was born in Orangemoon, the transition season from blistering hot Tallsun to subzero Frostfall, meaning he was only a few months younger than me. I don't boast the small difference in age, shrugging my shoulders and moving on.

If I could roll my eyes, I would. In fact, if I had the ability, I'd be rolling them as far back into my skull as they could go. He simply says 'oh'— 'oh,' as if he does not quite understand what my words mean, as if they're some ancient, cryptic message scrawled out on a damp cave wall. I feel that I shouldn't have expected him to understand such a vague response to a very simple question. "To put it simply, she left me," what I will not say is why. I will not explain to him that my mother has been eaten up by guilt and despair, cast out by her own subconscious because she committed a horrible act against her daughter— a child formed from her flesh, blood and bone, borne from her cursed womb, destroyed by her insecurities and diseased mind.

'Do they hurt?' Yes, they fucking do. Even though the wounds have long since healed (not fully, but considering how they were to begin with, there's improvement), I still feel phantom pains and the awful tightness of mending flesh, knitting together to close up the gaping holes. "Not as much as they did when I lost them." I wish I could forget the feeling, the sensation of having my eyes torn from my head like berries off a bush, gnawed and trampled— scuffed up and dirty, some creature probably carted them away the moment they were left unattended, when Momma fled the scene to cleanse herself of her sins, to wash away the blood staining her lips.

Whatever confident, optimistic attitude the colt had wandered into the Arena with has since diminished— he is softer, quieter than when I'd approached him originally, satisfied with the results of my experiment. I wanted to see how far I had to push, how much I had to twist and terrify in order to scare the impressionable mind. And it was not far at all.

He tells me he knows of healing things, things that could help. I lay my ears back, unimpressed of his offer of aid. I don't need his help, I don't need help from anyone, I can do fine on my own (I can't). So what if my wounds smell sometimes and haven't closed up entirely? Maybe I want to succumb to infection and crippling agony, perhaps I deserve to suffer more if I've suffered this much already.

I recall Sikeax offering aid, dealing with the fresh wounds on a traumatized child. I wasn't even a month old when she stripped away the hastily applied bandages from my eyes, taking with it whatever hideous barrier my body had formed to protect the wound from getting any worse (it hadn't helped in the slightest). I can remember only pain, from when she tore it all away, like some sick door opening up to memories I only wanted to forget (but I can't). "I don't know if I trust you to have the skill to fix any of this," he was nothing special, I doubt he can mend shattered bones and return my eyes from wherever the hell they'd ended up— but if he knows someone who could at least stop the pain for once, the throbbing, who could get rid of the sickening feeling of the elements sinking into the sockets. Make me numb. "But if there's anything to take the pain away, I suppose it can't hurt to try." Fuck it.

-- @Saoirse

and let me kick you off a bungee

I shrug my shoulders, feeling the cold, emptiness associated with my absent mother slipping in to sweep away whatever emotion I'd been clinging to now, wiping away the stains from my sorrows and leaving me with a blank slate. I do not know if it is normal for mother's to leave, to abandon the fruit of their labour, to break the blunder of their womb and leave it to recover in solitude— what is it typically like, to have a mother who loves and cares, who can take care of you without hesitance and not go from suffocating you with love and affection to spitting at you, turning a cold shoulder and leaving you behind. What is it like?

"I don't know, I'm not the one to ask about this." I listen to him, how he wanted her to stay— but not I. I don't think I could have handled having Momma be a constant presence, an unstable mind lurking behind me at odd hours, when the world is silent and all I can hear are her aggravated whispers at an invisible entity. "I didn't want my mom to stay." But it still hurts that she's gone, and although not entirely alone (Apa is still here for me), I still feel abandoned, an ugly duckling wandering the world without a mother for guidance.

I am cast aside, forgotten and ignored by all who encounter me, it seems like no one cares for the mangled child of a woman scorned and a man rising to power— the product of a peasant and a king, a Cursed Child, just as my mother was, torn apart by hysteria and loathing, by a weak mind and unsteady hands. What am I to them now? The shunned princess of a newly crowned sultan, the hidden catastrophe of the Indomitable. Even if he offers such unconditional love, I cannot help but feel as if it is all false, he just cannot bring himself to push away such a mangled monster made from his own uncontrollable desire, so he lies through his teeth and hopes that eventually I drift away into the same purgatory that has ensnared my mother.

There's a stabbing pain at the mention of healers, thinking of someone who has long since replaced Sikeax, who has turned her back on the Throat (where is she now?). I don't think I trust the new healer either, still desperately clinging to Sikeax and her nurturing nature, how she took me under her guidance and care as if I was her own child. So who had stepped into her place now? Whose face will I greet when we finally find a healer to help us? Nobody I will ever care for, no one whose hands I will willingly place my life into, there is no trust to be offered to the new Sun Physician.

I tread carefully behind him, listening to him list off Aloe Vera and what it could be applied to (he says burns, but these are not burns marking my hide, these are the marks of emptiness, of a burning hate that overwhelms and ruins, a cataclysmic force that ruthlessly destroys). "But these are not burns? Will it still help?" What good can it do to something ice cold, to a freezing heart chilled over by the vacancy, the loveless being wrapped over the quiet muscle.

He mentions a root that numbs the pain, that wipes away the severity of my suffering, and I know what I need. Can it erase emotional pain too? Can it wash away the sorrows of my youth, the despair that entombs me? "Looking for it would be good, that sounds like it may help more than the aloe." I want to be numb, to find a substance to push away everything I feel and turn me into what I know I cannot be through will alone (emotionless).

I focus on his striding figure, thinking that as we exit the arena, I should perhaps ask what his name is. It seems reasonable enough. I suppose that's something typically done, an exchange of names between acquaintances (are we acquaintances?). But do I want to know his name, and does he want to know mine? Do I want to let him know it, to let him in? I'm trusting him with all too much already, and a name seems like the final step of trusting his character. "Do you have a name, or shall I call you bőgőmasina?"

-- @Saoirse
bőgőmasina - crybaby

and let me kick you off a bungee

I don't feel envious of perfect families with neurotypical parents who love and care for their child, who nurture them and adore them and treat them like they scattered the glittering stars against the night sky. I don't wish that I had that, that Momma was a presence in my life that I could put trust in and was so sure she was there for me, that she wasn't almost psychotic as she tripped and stumbled, mumbling to someone who wasn't there. I wish I could live without the pain of emotions, the physical ache of being so frighteningly alone (I had Apa, but his time was dedicated to the herd now more than ever and I couldn't take him away from his responsibilities). And so I felt despairingly alone, a distant face nearly entirely erased solely by lack of affection and adoration. No one pays attention to the broken child hiding away within herself.

But these are not burns marring my face, wild flames did not eat away at the young eyes, did not fry them from their sockets and leave me charred and writhing in pain. The fire that burned me was the uncontrollable, unpredictable fire that Momma embodies, the manic depression and false wellness that consumed her and fractured me. It stole my happiness just as it did hers, it left us a tragedy, an unsteady pair that could not function the way we were expected to (the way I was expected to, as a young child). "I think I would've rather burned than be painstakingly taken apart." And it's true, for flames must hurt far less than watching my own mother destroy me bit by bit until I'm left squirming in pure nothingness, thrown aside and left to wither like an uprooted flower drying up in the sun.

"I mean, maybe? I really don't have any experience on this topic so I certainly wouldn't know." Tormented ligaments stretch in an effort to shrug my shoulders, crumpled wings sagging as I raise them slightly to accentuate my point of carelessness.

His screaming does nothing to make me appreciate his company, ears flattening and face twitching as his cry goes unheard, ignored, shrugged off by the healers who reside within the Throat's borders. Perhaps they have better things to attend to, have something more worth their time than a couple of screaming children who just want attention and guidance, thinking that such a grossly deformed child was a hopeless project to idly push aside, because I was not bleeding out on the burning sands or wracked with an ugly disease that might just kill me slowly (I think of Gaucho, ready to sickly laugh at the idea of the fallen leader whose death drove some into a frenzy, as if they could not handle the loss of just another sun bleached, sand soaked body from the Throat). Wasn't one of his many children a healer now, the one who shouted at me for being an ignorant, distant child? Maybe she knows she's being summoned by me, and cannot help but stifle a laugh at the idea of helping such a piece of shit, wishing upon me a plague to knock me down, but she does not know that that is just what I want, something to wipe me clean from this fucked up world.

I stiffen at the mention of the name, spine tingling and mind buzzing because the colt mentioned the Marsh. My ears threaten to jerk back, to show the displeasure of the newly recovered Helovian territory, before I open my mouth and swallow the curling hatred that lurks in the back of my throat for the marshlands. "The Spectral Marsh? Kérem! And why not? Nothing there's gonna hurt you, unless you're too much of a punci?" I snort at the idea of traveling to the Marsh with the boy, listening to him fret over the cool carcasses bubbling up to the surface after years of being consumed by a blackness that was only recently wiped away, or perhaps they were far more recent than thought. "Are you afraid of the bodies? Or monsters?" The noise that escapes my throat is some sort of taunting coo, a hollow moan as I lean towards the boy, grinning maliciously as I tease him for his hesitance over wandering into the Marsh.

"A bőgőmasina, crybaby. Stop laughing, I don't like it." The last sentence is a hiss, suddenly realizing just how unappealing it was to listen to someone else's empty laughter mock me, leaving such a bitter taste on my tongue as my scarred brows twitch in disapproval. "Saoirse? I think I like Bőgőmasina far better than Saoirse.." And as was to be expected, he asked my name as well. I let the idea of giving him something fake roll around in my head before letting it slip away and offering very blatantly my branding. "Valdís. I think it's some sort of a sick joke, because it comes from valr, the dead and dís, goddess."

I remember very clearly, Momma whispering the story of how she came up with it, how it came to her when she looked down upon my bloodied face, how the red stains on my cheeks and pouring down the grooves of my features wrote out the name before her. She says that she did not know the meaning until she looked further, until the hushed voices murmured out the history behind it in the dead of night, while she ventured out into the Marsh to hold gatherings with ghastly presences.

And so she named me the dead goddess, an other worldly being adorned in thorns and the stench of rotting corpses, wearing a tattered veil and dull jewels as she moves through black fog and swallows up the fleeing souls that fear her.