Knowledge of Hellboy II is helpful (though not required) to read this little blurb.

Adadolisdi Ajilvhi

I wanted to watch them burn.

Even now, days passing to carry me further from that moment, the kindling of shock still stokes the fire of my anger. Resolution comes with a heart at peace, Professor Broom used to say. Despite years of witnessing the cruelty and spite of mankind against freaks of nature, against the one he called son, the professor maintained that peace even as the agents of evil surrounded him. Even unto death. It is a lesson he tried to teach us in order to control our abilities. I am a failed pupil. There should be no surprise, his father having predicted the ferocity of the collective human reaction to HB. And yet…

I wanted them to suffer.

Not because I recognized their ingratitude. Not because I saw them force Red to destroy something so like himself; unique to the world and therefore feared by it. Not because I watched the panicked stares delivered upon their savior. True, all of these things were a fuel dripping slow onto the embers of disgust within me. But when I knew that he knew, the fuel was overturned to send inner flames to the surface. I have never hated being human so violently before that moment.

I wanted to tell them.

Before the blaze escaped the confines of my skin, I had been one of them and therefore given a brief moment of attention. Until I defended the beast. My words fell like the plant creature's innards; unwelcome in their downward plunge. The repugnance granted to HB shifted to me, the voice of logic molding into shameful dissent in their ears. It consumed me, this disgrace at sharing any part of their species' lineage. They saw only the slime, unaware of the beauty emerging from it.

I wanted to let go.

Only a red hand on my shoulder could tame the energy that was trying desperately to break my restraint. He wouldn't allow them to come to harm, these creatures that warranted no protection. They were saved, a gift to be repaid in condemnation spat out upon the demon. The same people shell out for tabloid papers and comic books bearing his grainy, uncertain image. And now that they have their Lock Ness monster before them, he is rejected as a devil. If only they knew; he had saved them again. From me.

I wanted to curse them.

Bold declarations of pestilence and affliction upon their families and homes and futures rose to my lips. And died there. Because at the pinnacle of my rage, my eye caught sight of the rosary entwined around his wrist. Something close to a prayer seeped out from a deep place, a place that heard the professor urging 'peace, be still.' Home, HB said and I followed with a wake of unspoken denunciation trailing behind me. In that moment, I turned my back on the world. The world of humans and their prejudice and cowardice has lost a member. I have made my choice. I am a freak.

I wanted a heart at peace.

This being the only hope to resolve who I am with who I love, I understand the task before me. We have mixed, he and I, in a manner surpassing cohabitation. And with that brings a host of additional fears which still my tongue from telling him. There may soon be more like HB in this world and I am resolved to keep my burgeoning family from it. It is not them that feed my shame. It is the 'normal' world that is unworthy of us all. Retreat goes against every fiber of his being, but I know of no other solution. Perhaps in a return to seclusion, both we and the hated world can find peace.

Title translation: Prayer in fire (Cherokee)

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