She had rejected him from the beginning.
Mother, he thought, with that children’s innocence blossoming in his eyes. Mother, he thought as she turned to him with endless pain and barely disguised disgust. Mother, he thought, even as her love for him withered the moment she saw his hairless body. Mother . . . he thought . . . even after she crippled herself so terribly during pregnancy that he came out like this.
Naked. Vulnerable.
Ugly.
It is that rejection that he does not understand that drives him from the mountains of Hyaline, a place his mother may return to when he does not remember her as mother. A tiny babe, hairless, easy prey: Abyss. A name fitting for a boy with an endless abyss of reasons to hate, but still finds a little spark of kindness in his chest.
So much like his fiery mother.
If only she knew. If only he knew.
—
Abyss is different now, fuller and wiser and just a little lighter. When he walks through the Forest, like he is today, he gets that same tingling feeling as when he first broke out of Hyaline. He tucks his wings tightly to his sides as the cooling sensation builds and builds until it covers his whole body.
This . . . consumption of his being means something—he just knows it—and when he is feeling particularly empty he strays back to this part of the Forest. He lingers where the trees spread apart, remembers the dead crunch of leaves beneath his hooves and the way his baby’s breath blew out in a fog like fire.
and bring this whole sham down