#im having a bad day so i hope this is okay

Day 5 of @the-line-is-erased:Cairo - Mistakes - Noble dragons don’t have friends.

“I understand that you were there when Aziza died.”

Hamid hated how small his father made him feel.  It was a different kind of smallness than being around someone like Bertie, who was huge and imposing physically.  Hamid’s father had a piercing gaze that cut through to his bone and a tone that could quell a storm.  

“Yes, Father, I was.  I was there with my friends, my mercenary group.”

“And you couldn’t save her?”

Hamid wrung his hands.  “We tried.  There was a lot going on, there was a necromancer, and…  It was a horrible accident; it shouldn’t have happened.  She shouldn’t have been in the crossfire.”

Saleh huffed.  “I see.  Just another of your mistakes then.”

All of Hamid’s breath left him in an instant.  Saleh turned and left, but Hamid forgot how to move his feet.  The only movement he could muster was the pounding of his heart, the quivering of his lip, and the racing of his mind.

“It was an accident!  A mistake!"  A younger Hamid yelled, standing over the shattered pieces of a priceless vase as his father glared down at him.  He had been racing through the house with his siblings, playing, as kids were want to do, but such childish behavior did not suit the heirs to the al-Tahan name, especially when they were so careless as to not watch where they were going.

"I don’t know what happened, it was an accident, I swear.”  This Hamid is a little older.  He could still feel his fingers tingle with the warmth of the first fire spell he ever cast, the first manifestation of his magic.  It was a brotherly spat between himself and Saleh Jr, leaving a singed bit of wallpaper in their wake.  But there were to be no excuses for either of them when their father saw the mark.

“Father, I made a mistake.  There was an accident at university…”  It had only been a matter of months, but this Hamid felt lifetimes younger than the one replaying these memories in his head.  That was the coldest Saleh had ever been to him, as if he wasn’t already chastising himself enough internally.

Or at least, it was the coldest he’d ever been to Hamid until he let Aziza die.

In the suffocating miasma of disdain that Saleh left behind long after he stepped away from that conversation, Hamid knew that he would never prove himself to his father.  All he could do was try to prove worthy to himself.

~~~

As Hamid and the others climbed onto the rooftop, the infected city of London below them, he felt the chill of fear race up his spine.  This was it. 

In the back of his mind, he heard the faintest melody.

“Thank you, Aziza,” he breathed almost silently.  “I may be seeing you soon.  But… let’s finish this.”

And as Hamid faced down dragon fire, he knew that he might never make up for his past mistakes, but at least he could do right in that moment.  Whether or not his father would ever see his worth was his problem.  Hamid knew who he was.  

And with Aziza singing to him from beyond, he was the one who would help them save the entire world.