Inky's Collection of Shorts

Thunder

Prompt: Writing challenges with inky week 1 - write a betrayal to someone by the person who's close to them (father figure, mentor, that sorta thing)

content warning: quite a good deal of blood

The blood pooled at his hands, dripping down from above, forming a puddle that stained the skin of his fingers and stretched out across the marble tiles. He stared at it, wide-eyed. His brain had trouble processing the crimson color. Maybe it was some shade of pink that he was simply too dazed to recognize. Perhaps they'd revamped the floor while he had been away. There was simply no way, he was certain, of it being his blood - much less his blood spilt by the woman before him now.

"Get up."

His eyes trailed up the splattered boots, their polished surface covered by a matte coat, to the meticulously-ironed pants, to the hands just as stained as his own. He stopped at the neck, where an inked leopard's dots snaked across the skin. He didn't want to meet those stormy eyes. He couldn't.

Why can't you? Are you so weak as to not be able to? How could you possibly defeat anyone if you can't even look at them?

Even the voice in his head was hers. He could never escape her.

But why would you? I raised you. I love you. You know I would never do anything to you.

I did nothing to you.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to turn his focus away from the voice. His arms were shaking now from the exertion of holding himself up, his neck just as sore. In a second - any moment, he was sure - he would collapse and that would be that.

"What did I say? Get up."

Could he? He actually didn't know. He could hardly feel anything below his elbows anymore. The blood was beginning to coagulate, sticking against his skin like a second layer. He pushed himself up until he was on his knees, then to his feet, and opened his eyes. The world came swimming back into view. He blinked blearily, trying to adjust, as he looked up.

Her face was just as he remembered, even though it had already been a year since he'd last seen her. The smile lines had faded, as if smoothing out to erase the facet of her he thought he'd known so well. Or had it never existed in the first place? He could barely look at her, and so he turned his head down once more.

"I missed you, you know."

He nodded, the action sending a spike through his tired body. "I know," he said. His voice was dull, even to his own ears.

If she'd heard him, she didn't show any sign of it. "You were a child in my mind when you left," she continued on. She flicked a droplet of blood off her finger to join the pool on the tiled floor. He watched it disappear into the sea of red, gone in a flash. "You're still a child. You know you're nothing without me."

"You taught me everything I know," he intoned. He'd heard those words since birth, had grown up with them whispered beside his ear and shouted when he dared step astray. I taught you everything, and therefore you are mine.

But that was his blood beneath him. That was his blood that caked her hand, the same blood that she'd instilled within him. She should've been fussing over the wound, not tearing it open. She hadn't missed him. She'd missed the sword that she herself had sharpened so fine.

He was no longer her son. And she was no longer his mother.

"You taught me everything I know," he repeated, louder this time. His eyes flicked back up, and this time he wasn't afraid to hold her gaze. Those clouds in her eyes were as dark as ever, hiding any blue sky that might've existed, but he found that he wasn't as terrified of getting struck as he had been before. After all, he was no stranger to pain. "But a student outgrows their master in a heartbeat."

Irritation flickered across her features. "I'm not your-"

"No," he agreed, cutting her off. "You are nothing to me."

Stop this, the voice in his head warned. But he was done listening.

He lifted his hand to his face, wiping away the blood that dripped down, and smiled.