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As Hathach sat there, staring into his empty hands, he felt a certain shudder run through their metal workings. The gears stopped, and started turning backwards, before clicking to a stop, and beginning again.

He closed his eyes. It was the 28th of August, his birthday. Another year gone from the promised fifteen years that he had been told that he had left of his life.

Always, he wondered, if he had not been frostbitten and near death, would he have died of his bad heart years ago? Would he have ever found out about his heart, if it had not been the snow? And was it worth it, the loss of his arms and legs, for an extra fifteen years added to his short life?

He had only been thirteen at the time…being that young, did he even have a choice about life and death?

But the choice was already made. It was too late to change it, to regret it. Far too late…

It hadn’t even been his choice.

If you could call it a choice, it was that nameless old man’s choice, he decided. It was that man’s choice, to either leave him to die of frostbite, or to repair his arms and legs.

He had chosen to repair his limbs…

And had only left him a step farther from Death than he had been before.

And now, he suffered because of his heart, daily. He had to earn money, broken money, to buy the expensive medicine that his heart required. Very expensive medicine. Very hard work.

Was it even worth it to live?

Was it even worth it, that, after a childhood of trying to love people, he had given up, and had decided to leave people there to rot, not caring if they lived or died, because healing them would mean sacrificing his own life?

Was it even worth it to love people who hated him, who saw him as a monster?

He had given up on people, given up forever on them…

He had tried his hardest, but what had he done wrong along the way? Why had there been so much hate?

He didn’t believe there was anyone left who loved him, he had deserted those who had, and there had been very few in the first place…

How could you love someone who had accidentally orphaned himself by causing his parents’ deaths?

How could you?

How. Could. You.

And that was what Hathach wondered, every day, every single day.

Every. Single. Day.

And the answer he had come up with, was, no, you could not love someone like that.

No one could love him.

Not even if he had tried his hardest to love others.

It just wouldn’t work.

So he had deserted them, every one of them. They didn’t need him anymore.

No, they didn’t deserve him anymore.

Not that anyone deserved him in the first place, him, being both a blessing and a curse, to everyone he had met.

Loving is when it hurts inside, when it hurts so, so, much…

…because you have given up everything for the other person.

And it did hurt inside, and Hathach grasped his chest and keeled over, laying his head on the table, as he reached into his inner pockets in search for that precious bottle of medicine, all the while trying hard not to cry out from the pain…

The pain…

The tears came, coming from the sensation of his heart being torn apart…

He swallowed the two prescribed white pills carefully, swishing them around with the blood that had erupted from his mouth; he had bit down so hard…

And as the ocean of pain resided, Hathach wondered, as he often did, every day: Would it have been better for his heart to be replaced with metal workings?