1. learn the taste of dirt and pain.
2. teach it to others till your knuckles bleed.
3. see if that makes it easier to breathe.
Is he, too, a thing built to withstand?
We cannot know, not really. Cringe has not really known hardship, or nothing that he might consider hardship. He had been loved, born of magic to his father (the worshiper, the devout) and a monster (the god, curl-horned and cruel, the one Cringe has to thank for most of his powers). He’d known only the father - the monster, by then, had been gone, done with the brief and terrible union - but Rapt had loved him so. Would no doubt embrace him now, were their paths to cross again. Rapt would open his mind, would kneel, would be whatever the prodigal son needed. Pathetic.
Cringe himself has not known attachment. He’s loved nothing, and this has given him nothing to lose, nothing to mourn. He does not care that the lands crumble or rebuild, for none of them whisper home to him.
But that - that is not strength. Not really. Maybe he’s just a boy with a few party tricks who could crumble under the right sort of pressure.
But never mind that, for he is here, and so is she, this pretty red mare who peppers him with questions like birdshot. He tilts his head, intrigued by her, ponders his answers.
“I left Beqanna, for a time,” he says. The days had all been the same, swirling into one another, and he had met few other living things and spoken to fewer still.
“It’s a blur, mostly. Not a lot for me out there, so I thought I might as well return to the motherland.”
(Says the man without a mother.)
He takes a small step closer. He inhales her scent, the sweetness of it, of another creature this close. He wants to press at it, to touch her mind and feel for those fears, but he cannot have her run, not yet. He walked alone so long, he can surely be patient still.
“I think,” he says, voice calm, deliberate, “that you’re the very epitome of politeness. The only company I’ve had lately is myself, and I can’t say it’s kindest.”
“My name’s Cringe,” he adds, “what’s yours?”
cringe