[open] feels like we're on the edge right now; any

[Anath]

all these voices in my head get loud
i wish that i could shut them out
i'm sorry that i let you down

It's just a single syllable, it should not mean so much. To many that word means nothing at all. For this small child it is the first hard cane to land across her back. It does not matter that she had already suspected that this was a lesser gift, are not all young ones eager to show off the new steps they take, the things they find their bodies and minds capable of? Now she knows that this is nothing to the way Malik changes his shape, of no consequence and she has made a fool of herself.
Anath does not know the word for humiliation, but she bares it, standing still and square before Mazikeen, her jaw tightening against the sting of cruelty. Her green eyes shine but she does not cry or challenge that single word.

The remaining light in her grasp glows small and dim upon her black and gold chest. Behind it there is an ache she will learn to ignore.

Coolly, Malik's mother speaks again and Anath is unsure how to answer her question. Her reply comes stumbling as she tries to reduce the offensiveness of it. "I don't know the-- I need to know the rules." Clearly she is in violation of them but does not know how. She is quick to understand that she is lesser, a lower creature than Malik. He is kinder than she realized, or maybe he really believes she can learn to be like him.
Anath knows she has asked for nothing, done nothing but play alone in the sun and show the white mare her light, are these things also wrong?

She should have asked the rules before. Couldn't she have been told her name and this? That there would be rules?

anath

let you down

@Mazikeen