...a brilliant light...

...tiny hands curled into fists...

...so cold, so alone...

...a pathetic wail, a scream of protest...

-I’ll leave it to you, other me-

The next time I awoke, I was playing with other kids. A pile of blocks. I was trying to build something, something that meant something and another child had snatched one of the blocks for himself.

In a fit of rage I threw myself at the other boy, a boy with deep blue hair and striking blue eyes. One of my hands found another of the blocks, and I pounded him with it, a wordless scream on my lips.

I froze.

Something-

Something was wrong, wasn’t it?

The other boy was crying, blood red on his lips.

His hands were raised to shield himself from another blow.

I let the block in my hand fall from nerveless fingers.

I felt like throwing up.

The anger died, replaced by regret.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered, but he kept crying.

I tried to embrace him, to hug him, but he struggled against me.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I repeated it over and over and he stopped struggling and embraced me instead. We cried together, he and I.

His hair was strange. I mean, it was blue. Like a rich, deep mazarine, or sapphire. Yeah, sapphire. You don’t really understand what sapphire blue is unless you’ve held the gem, peered into its depths as it glitters and shifts in your palm, but it was like that.

“You mean it?” He cried, and I nodded. “I mean it.”

He pulled back from my hug and looked me in the eye. His eyes were like that, too. A shade of blue that shouldn’t have been possible, and his pupils were slits.

“You won’t hit me again?” He asked cautiously.

His teeth were daggerlike points.

What the fuck-

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“Don’t just take the toys.” I prodded. “We can share.”

He nodded and held out his hands, so I hugged him again.

We went back to stacking the blocks. Whatever it was that I was trying to make was forgotten. I couldn’t remember. It’s just... for a moment it felt like something. Like it meant something.

His tears petered off to sniffles, and he rubbed them off on his sleeve.

“Play?” I invited, and he nodded. I passed him a block and we started to get to work just as a woman came into the room.

She had long black hair, streaked with the same blue as the boy, and was wearing some sort of ornate headdress with horns and jewels and the like sticking out everywhere. Her eyes glared at me, but she called over her shoulder, “Is this how the Azure are treated?” She mocked scornfully. “Perhaps I should take my business elsewhere-”

I was pretty sure my parents were beyond that door.

I stood up. “Not them.” I stated, trying to force every bit of gravitas that I could into my tiny frame. “Me.”

She looked at me in the indifferent way adults look at children, seeing but not seeing them, but then stopped and focused her attention on me, as if she was seeing me for the first time.

“You’ve done a bad thing.” She chastised me.

I nodded. “I did. And I said I was sorry.” I replied.

“I wonder who it is that looks at me from behind those eyes.” She murmured, those terrifying raptor eyes boring into me, her fang-like teeth gleaming.

“Me.” I repeated. I was having a hard time breathing. Adrenaline was churning in my veins and I felt like throwing up, but I forced myself to meet that terrifying gaze.

“I did something bad, and I said I was sorry.” I admitted. “Not my mom. Not my dad. Me.”

I could feel it. I was under the gaze of a predator that was a hairsbreadth from striking. If I shifted, if I blinked, if I so much as breathed wrong, she would kill me.

“You hit my child?” She demanded.

“I was mad. He took my toy.” I managed to squeeze out. “I said I was sorry.”

“He said he was sorry, momma.” the kid echoed.

What was his name, again?

“When you play together, you need to play nice.” She agreed, tongue sliding along the points of her teeth.

“We’re sharing.” I replied. I hoped that I was at the age where it was still okay to shit myself, because if I wasn’t careful it was gonna come out.

She sneered with all the arrogance that comes from an adult looking down at a particularly stupid child, with the weight of... something ancient and obviously inhuman staring down at a species that was so far below them they were barely worth her notice or care.

“Little human thing thinks it can share with an Azure, does it?” she replied contemptuously. “Azure take what they want, and you should feel grateful for what scraps your’re allowed to keep for yourself.” She sneered, but her child stood up in front of me, arms wide.

The woman looked startled.

“You’d protect this... human?” She stated dangerously.

The child nodded.

The woman raised a delicate eyebrow. “Very well.” She decided, and rearranged her robes self-importantly.

There was something else in her expression, too. Something I couldn’t figure out, something-

But it was all going dark again.