Phoenix Maplewood string in my hands tethered to faceless friends

a dark figure materializes, unwelcome in its familiarity. the wraith thinks of his time in the hollow, his own bitter recollection of the day the stranger goes on to describe. funny, how benign it sounds in this brief accented summary; it's almost insulting. and perhaps, in another reality, one in which zephyr's body was not pitching a rebellion against him and his sides were not slowly swelling to blimp status, the wraith would have launched an attack based on this alone. after all, anyone who would attack a child — a wounded child! — certainly deserved a cold fate among the worms. at 9 months old, malnourished and undereducated, zephyr had certainly been closer to adulthood than he felt... but he hadn't looked it, nor acted it, and while he's past expecting others to meet his own standards, he can't help his continued resentment toward the cruel ignorance of the world.

unfair, he thinks, for anyone to see the wreckage of youth gone horribly wrong and think that it ought to be punished.

much as he yearns to say it, to force a confrontation for the sake of laying one of his own demons to rest, he finds himself all too aware of his current state of weakness. and so he remains guarded, silent until the stranger makes an inquiry that chills his blood. immediately zephyr realizes he should have known that others would be able to tell, especially those with many more seasons under their belt than the wraith. no doubt this man has seen the signs before, at one point or another. the ice sprite goes tense, the only change in his otherwise stoic demeanor, and then —

no, clipped, sharp-edged for a moment. wintry tones soften back to flat nothingness as he continues. i would not have chosen fatherhood, had i known enough to make the choice at the time... and i certainly would not have chosen to give anyone a reason to call me a mother.

the statement doesn't feel personal or private, so he has no qualms about making it. if anything, he wants the whole world to know; let them hear that he is no mother, nor even the picture of a warm and welcoming father, for he'd never had that capacity in him. let them see what happens when a child is born twisted at its core, malformed in ways the eye cannot see, then abandoned to the wilds to make a life for itself among those who would sooner carve bloody pathways to their own satisfaction than suffer the smallest inconvenience for the sake of another.

wintersbane, he feels, is no better than the stranger before him in that regard; he'd taken what he wanted, and left zephyr to drown in the consequences. perhaps everyone is the same in that way; it makes no difference whether they want pain or pleasure from him. regardless, it never seems to matter what he wants. not to anyone but him.