He had no self-respect. Why should he respect himself when he had done nothing to earn the favor? He spent his childhood obsessing over a lack of attention and physicality. The crushing weight of his family’s expectations rained down upon him as relentlessly as spring rains eroded soft rock. They demanded greatness, and he was the antithesis. He was a failure, noticed now only for his failing heath and weak constitution. The black mare called him out with a question that made him seethe with anger for its apparent truth. Was he sick? Maybe, but not in the way she was assuming.
He pinned his ears and glared at her, despite the shame of her judgement that filled him to the brim. Looking past her briefly, he locked eyes with the red stallion who seemed more confused than sympathetic.
“She asked if I am ill,” Zahhāk spat, before returning his amber eyes back to the mare with the splash of white on her nose. He took a deep breath, his slender ribs expanding and filling his lungs with cold, damp air. He wanted to turn and run and pretend this never happened, but he could not bear the idea that finally, after years of isolation, the first souls to actually acknowledge his existence would judge him as a coward, even if it was true.
“No,” he finally answered, finding a deep sternness in his voice that even he had not heard before. His answer was almost not an answer and more of an affirmation that this state of being he was in could not continue. All that was left now was to prove it somehow—to both of them. He wanted them to bear witness to his pivotal decision, to rescind their judgement and substitute it for a reflection of who he truly could become.
“And I’ll prove it,” he finished, without any idea how.
Zahhāk
There was madness in any direction, at any hour.
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