Blighted Bars

they made a mockery of him once 'look at the walking tragedy' now they whisper when he passes

he's a demon, with a crown of blood

She poises the statement at him and he bites down on his lower lip again. She was right, but it was because it was what he was made to do. Born and bred for destruction and violence. And in his life? It was all he knew. He didn’t know the tender touch of a mother until he won the trial. He didn’t know what love could be like until he met Lusea. He didn’t know any of it, and he fumbled his way through it — a machine at first, uncertain but pushing through. “Because I am.” He puts it bluntly, exhaling a sigh.

Then, as she notices he doesn’t want to answer, she tells him again. He doesn’t want to answer it, again, because he doesn’t know. If things were different, maybe? Maybe they already are? The blight in him shifts and pulls differently and he finds himself closing his eyes with a deep sigh in response to her. Can’t she tell that she still means something? Why else would he constantly find a reason? Why does he have to say it?

But fuck it.

He opens his eyes and looks toward her, seeing the well of black tears springing in her gaze. “I don’t know.” He answers honestly. A gruff answer, accented thickly. “Maybe? Probably?” He shakes his head and looks away from her, fingers curling into his arms and digging into the fur that covers him. “I loved you too.” He finally says, defeated, quiet, withdrawn. “That’s why I came to apologize at the infirmary. Why I came to plant the rose at the clinic. Why I’m here now to see if you’re better.” He closes his eyes tight and shakes his head again, pissed at the blight for letting the softness shine through. Pissed a small amount at her for making him talk the hypothetical question he wrangled constantly.

does it look like he's still under your control?

SUNJATA