Drefan

If drugs were only taken for necessity and hardly ever for want alone, I would have had no reason to take the bottle of crushed opium into the northlands. All the reasons for the spite and my driving need to forget and feel nothing had been left behind in Royale, far to the south. There was freedom in the desert sands that should have stomped any need for the drug. But I would not admit to myself the continued desire for relief and the fixation, no, the physical dependence that I had on the use of the poppy.

Laid out on a hardwood platform, there should have been a sense of shame when Yeshe found me. But time and space were outside of my understanding, forcibly affected while I was lying on the mat. How long had it been since I had seen my brother's face? Since the sun had warmed my skin? I only remember feeling as though I was ‘not there’ as the opium unfocused my eyes, impaired my coordination, and took the feeling from my extremities. The herb had kicked my ass months before the Guard found me so there was no respect left to lose.

Opium plays on compulsive behavior and weak self-discipline. I had plenty of both regardless of how I presented myself to the world. Once I had acquired a taste for the drug I had looked forward more to the hours wrapped in its embrace than any others. I could never have been the one who weaned me off. No, it was my brother who conceived of the plan to bring me home.

I had always underestimated Thom, and that was unlikely to change. I had named myself his protector not long after he was born and his mother passed on to the river below. It had taken rumors of great power in the north to see me leave his side. There were so many what-ifs of my being gone and he left alone to deal with our Father’s rage. But if I had found the sword, the prison of our ancestor’s soul, maybe then with Drakor’s help I would have had the power to push back. There had been rumors of the sword in the caves of Kustel and I had taken a chance so that I could have the strength to stop Robert, so he never laid another hand on either of us.

Yet no, I heeded the vapor and listened to the tune on my nerves, forgetting about time, hunger, and fatigue. So Yeshe found my body in the den and my brain floating above the sea. Cramped quarters filled with bodies, smokers in various stages of mental and physical decay. I don’t recall how they removed me, only that everything hurt, but that the pain came in slow motion, registering on every nerve-ending. My pulse had rattled, and my heart sizzled in my chest as withdrawal took me through agonizing heights.

It was the smell that woke me this time. Over the edge of the bed, I dry hurled into a waste bucket already full from my bloating insides. The cramps tried to double me over and I cried out without a voice to articulate the pain. The chain clanged in protest as throwing up moved my limbs, stretching the impediment to its manacled length on my ankle. The aching pains were mostly in the calves of the legs, and between my shoulder blades. I had no energy to speak of but restlessness remained. They had trussed me to the bed? How long have I been here? Like this?

Unfamiliar surroundings, worn plank walls, and hay-covered floors.

At least they had not gagged me.

There were stories of those who were forced off the drug, begging for relief hours before they were screaming, shrieking prayers through multiple nights. Had I done the same?

The burning of my throat was my answered shame. No wonder I was in this place, likely far from civilized people. Itching, the tip of my nose, my scalp, and neck, between my shoulder blades, my fingers came away bloody.

The chain on the door was pulled and the door dragged against the floor as it opened toward me. My limbs refused to cooperate as I made attempts to pull myself back and away from whoever was intruding upon the silence that I had so far taken for granted. The opium had only tapped harder on an already deep well of unease, on fears that I could not stomp down even when I knew there was no real danger to my person. Raw like exposed flesh, the mask of uncaring that I had shown the world was beyond my ability to cover up with this time.

Long wild cords of dark hair framed a tanned face that I was glad to see. Avan.

He shuffles into the barn making a disgusted face at the state of the place, holding onto a clean slop bucket. Placing it near, Avan settles onto the bed gingerly, eyeing me oddly, as though I would react ill-naturedly to his closeness.

“You called out to him,” my friend informs me, allowing me to guess who he was referring to.

“I did?” my dried throat did not help how I wheezed.

Avan shrugs, “You were in agony these last seven days. It would have been stranger if you had not called out to Lord Nanqa to stop the pain.”

Wait. “Seven days? I’ve been here for seven days?”

“If you do not remember all of it then Lord Nanqa has blessed you with some ignorance, at least.”

A snort and I pulled a leg to my chest, “I remember Yeshe and the quest I had abandoned. Who else knows I’m here?”

“Mistress Suinia, Prince Thom, and my family.”

“Thom?” my friend could likely hear my disturbance at this fact.

“Yes, he wants to see you.”

“No. Not like this.”

“Your highness…Drefan, he has already seen you worse. He was here when Mistress Suinia and Lord Yeshe brought you back. It was like you had taken a trip to hell and not the deserts.”

Avan absently played with the ropes of his hair, pulling at the loose bottom lengths.

His black brows furrowed, “We feared you would die but we could do nothing if we wanted you to be free of the drug. I could not take listening to your begging any longer.”

I was not the only one put through hell by what I had done. Were no decisions and consequences thereof my own?

“I’m sorry, Avan.”

A small smile appeared beneath that childish mustache, facial hair that was struggling to define my friend as the man that he wanted others to see him as. “You lived through those nights. Now you just have to live through going back to your family.”

I shook my head, too fast; the room blurred and caused motion sickness. Gagging into the bucket once again I groaned.

Avan gripped my shoulder while saying nothing. It was his way, he was a man of few words and I had always appreciated the silent companionship. He had supported me and listened even before he had known that I was royalty. But I had always wondered if I was risking him by keeping his counsel, and those worries only doubled now that his family was involved in my many mistakes.

“Fine. Is he here?”

“No, Prince Thom said he had to study and that you could find him where he usually spent his time studying.”

Good. At least I could try to look a little more human and less like the corpse before I saw him for the first time in nearly a year. It didn’t do any good wishing that my brother had not seen me like this already, but the second time had to be better.

But was I in any state to go anywhere? By the Void, I could not shake my head without feeling like my insides wanted to be outside of me.

“Rest.”

Avan gave a light shove to my shoulder, hand gripping there as he meant to propel me back and down onto the bed. It was only out of stubbornness that I gave a grunt of complaint. But I knew I was not going to make it off that bed, let alone out of the barn, not like this.

My friend unfurled, going about replacing the slop bucket as had been his original intent upon entering the barn. I kept my mouth shut just watching him go about the gross labour. The smile and his wave goodbye were the last things I saw before I fell asleep.

There is a reason why opium, induced its users to have pipe dreams. It gave you a near-endless sense of optimism. For a time all problems were solvable, nothing was insurmountable. Opium did not need to give you hallucinations or dreamscapes when it made you think that you could do anything if only you will it hard enough. But reality is a bitch.

Groaning, I was finally up and out of the bed, still stinking of everything putrid from days of my body expelling the poison in the only ways that it could. I had been informed that Mistress Suinia was outside and meant to speak with me. The Vesiput code demanded that you did not leave a Necromancer waiting for you, it was disrespectful and a sign of having very little honour. I may have been an addict but I still tried to follow the code Royalians lived by, even as I broke it.

I finished scrubbing every inch of my skin with the sponge and lukewarm water that had been left for me. I was having trouble with the ties on the shirt when the chain on the door was pulled and the door dragged against the floor, opening. My shoulders hunched, my hands clenching fists before me. Over-reaction I realized as Avan stepped into the quiet barn.

The change had been gradual but deliberate, a strange skittishness I tried to control. An increased unease for loud noises, brought on by my past and an increasing need to sink into opium in dark quiet rooms where I could believe myself alone. I had become too accustomed to silence or just the coughs of fellow opium users. Here I was jumping at the slightest noises, I could not remain calm and collected even when I knew the noise was coming. Going back to life as it had been before this, was going to be hell. He was going to use this against me.

I jerked backward when fingers took up the ties near my rope burned throat, arms coming up to shield me from a preconceived assault. Avan waited me out, hands retracting with an uneasy smile, followed by mouthed apologies. Slowly I came down, watching nervously as he took up the ties once again and created a loose bow.

“You are worse now.”

Returning that uneasy smile I shrug, playing off Avan’s concern. What else was I to do? Avan stated facts that I could do very little about. I had always been uneasy of touch and proximity, but now, I was that much worse.

Dressed, I finger combed the shoulder-length, dirty blonde hair that I had tried to wash and stepped past Avan, toward the barn door. The aching pains in my extremities came back now as I pushed a fist into my gut, reacting to the returned ache there too. Why was pain that much more acute now that I could no longer run from it? It only made me miss opium more.

With a grunt, I made my way out of the barn, shielding eyes unaccustomed to daylight.

-

She was sitting under a tree; Mistress Suinia looked out of place, pale against the tree bark, black hair cut jagged and veiled by dark lace. The black dress she wore had no ornamentation beneath the cloak of the same color etched with gold runes of her people, the Haruzan. The cloak was closed at the throat with an emerald broach and her fingers were encased in gold metallic fighting claws. They clinked together as she looked at me. I could not imagine what she was thinking; dark-stained lips pursed and shadowed eyes racking me over.

“We have work to do if you are going to step back into life as if nothing has happened while you were absent.”

“What do you mean?” Work? I looked half dead of course, but I could not make that go away in some instant of magic arts. Illusions were useless against the Royalian Devotion, a pledge to Lord Nanqa created, especially for that purpose. It was a mental connection between the Royalian people and their Emperor that kept the people safe from the magic of the northern Camarians. Such as magic that had the potential to brainwash our people against our customs and our God.

In that vein, it helped us see through illusions, charms, and other physical and mental trickery. The Devotion only worked so long as the commoner had the Cassiterite obelisk grafted to the bone of the lower arm and the Emperor alongside his heir, both had the crystal inserted into their skull, usually behind the ear.

Mistress Suinia remained cryptic, “There is one option we have, but it’s up to you if you will use it.”

She opened up the tin she picked up from the grass beside her, filled with some sort of clay or cream.

“Skin cream has clay and oils in it that will conceal the shadows beneath your eyes and give you back some of your natural colorings. Being inside for so long has made you look that much more like death. This way you can play off your symptoms as the after-effects of the flu.”

This would not be a first. I had been concealing, layering cream over the rope burns on my neck for years now. Only in the last week had people seen the marks in the open. The shadows under my eyes and the hollows of my cheeks were just more of me to hide.

I grimaced as I knelt before her, the movement still causing shoots of pain through my limbs and rolling nausea.

Mistress Suinia goes about removing her metal fighting claws. She then covers her fingertips in the makeup, “Hold still.”

I closed my eyes, holding perfectly still for her as she rubs the cream into my cheeks, under my eyes, and into my throat.

“You will need to use it on all the skin others will see.”

“My hands too?”

“Not a bad idea,” she takes my hands and I can feel the clammy substance spread over the backs of my hands as I blink before opening my eyes fully again.

Sitting back Mistress Suinia closes the tin and hands it to me.

“When you left for the north, you became a rogue necromancer, your highness. Quitting your training and having no Master or Mistress to oversee you is illegal and dangerous.”

Settling so that I was kneeling comfortably in the grass I kept my mouth shut and listened, ready for any and all reprimands for my behavior. I may not have liked it, but she outranked me regardless of my status as a prince.

“Yeshe gave up his position as a Black Guard, and his ability to live in the Empire by agreeing to go north to bring you back here.”

I had not asked anyone to sacrifice anything for me! Neither had I asked to be brought back. But I was being petty in my resentment. I owed a debt and the Vesiput code was clear on the fact that you repaid your debts no matter what.

“Here,” the Necromancer passes me two envelopes, one already opened; the other still sealed shut.

“You will accompany Yeshe to Kuojuhtumid where he will be able to live out the rest of his days. Whereas you will go there for necrotic studies as I have guaranteed that you will have a Master there that will teach you. The first letter is your acceptance to understudy in Kuojuhtumid. The second letter is to his Majesty from Lord Daugovantril explaining that you have been given the honor to study in the Necromantic Bastion.”

Wait. “Lord Daugovantril?” I pulled the letter from the open envelope and scanned the elegant handwriting. “Under the Lord Daugovantril? I am to study under the Ascended?”

Lord Daugovantril was one of a few Ascended on the entire continent. Ascended were powerful necromancers who survived the ritual of ripping out their soul and binding it to an inanimate object known as a phylactery. That act gave them resurrective immortality, allowing them to reform from their phylactery unless it had been destroyed before they could do so.

“As you are a son of Lord Nanqa, his lordship is intrigued and wishes to see your abilities. Do not squander this opportunity, your highness.”

“I…of course. Thank you, Mistress.”

“Do not only thank me. Your brother had the largest hand to play in all of this. The plans to bring you home were made primarily by him with input from me and Yeshe. I would say you owe your life to Prince Thom.”

“I will thank him when I go to see him after I speak with my parents.”

“Good. Let me know when you will first make the trip to Kuojahtumid. Yeshe will begin to decompose as soon as he leaves my side and the longer he is by my side, the greater the likelihood someone will find out he still exists on this plane.”

“His obelisk was removed to keep your movements from my father?”

“Yes. Prince Thom did not wish his majesty to know what had happened to you up north. Now you will repay the debt to Yeshe.”

Yeshe, who had once been a Black Guard, the highest military order in Royale, stepped out of the farmstead, stooping to exit without hitting his head. He wore the undershirt and breeches of black that marked him as military but did not wear a black officer’s coat with golden buttons that declared that he was part of the Black Guard.

He had served for years and now he could no longer, due to my brother asking him to leave our homeland and venture north to find me. It was not so strange for Necromancers to travel abroad, but Black Guards had no reason to leave the empire, and to do so was suspicious. With the devotion removed, his movements outside of Royale could not be monitored by the Emperor.

Stopping close to us both, he gestures back at the farmstead, “I do not want us to outstay our welcome. They have been good to us, Mistress Suinia. We owe them, something.”

“We do. I will send them goats from my family’s herd. I know they will not accept coin, but it’s more likely they will accept a gift of livestock.”

Mistress Suinia turns back to me, “You should get to the capital, your highness. The sooner the better,” she motions to Yeshe with her dark brown eyes.

Yes my duty to him was going to be on my mind the entire time I was with my family. However, the acceptance to train in Kuojahtumid would make it easier for me to leave sooner rather than later from the Capitol. The less time I had to spend by Robert’s side, all the better. I was old enough not to be stuck by my father’s side for long periods, thank goodness. But there was also my mother, and in that, I felt the shame of what I had done, all over again. I was not looking forward to seeing my mother but it was for an entirely different reason than for Robert.

The incoming weeks, we're going to be busy ones. Once again my life was not my own to live. Reasons for my departure and my dependence on opium were only beginning to come back to me, but I knew the more time I spent at ‘home’ the more those reasons would become clear.

It was time to prepare myself for the trip to the Capitol and in this, I could sense Nanqa’s approval.

-

There was something wrong with my father. Something I am afraid that I have inherited. Anger born out of life’s abuses and offenses, born from what had been taken from us both with no sense of fairness. Both of my parents are obsessed with the dead. They spend more time appeasing the past than taking care of the present or creating a future for us.

But that was the beauty of the Devotion, the connection that the obelisk created between the Emperor and his people that not only shielded them from outside trickery but also allowed those Emperors with a less than noble intention, into their minds. It could fix the memories of loyal subjects, erasing all transgressions. The only reason I knew of the less than noble moments was because of permanent markings made on me. Those rope burns, and bruises. Scars could not be forgotten. That was what my mother whispered to my then, young ears. Because she could not be made to forget, telling me the truth of my father’s deeds, one of the only times I remember a vibrancy to her eyes.

“Never forget.”

She couldn’t.

Aidna was of the Ylivieska, a tribe from outside of the Royalian Empire, and had never taken the Devotion, so she had no obelisk to affect her memory. She refused to let me forget either so that even when every servant and palace guard would not remember the yelling and the malevolence, we would not be ignorant to the man that Robert truly was.

Being in the man’s presence was to stand by the sea before a storm. The scent of the rain on the air and the breeze picking up but never knowing when exactly the gale will hit the shore. It was that uncertainty that left you with your hackles raised and a biting edge to your tongue even when you know you will pay for every word you say. Is that what was wrong with me?

I knew to fight with him was useless and would end only with more pain and bloodshed but I relished it nonetheless. I wanted to be the one with the first and last word just so that in those insignificant moments I could have control. Over my fate, and over when the fighting would break out. Let the punishment be for something real, something I could make out instead of for infractions that as a child I could not see. Did my poking of the bull mean I deserved what he did to me? I don’t know but I hated him anyway.

-

Once back at the palace I couldn’t ignore the guards and the servants who acknowledged my presence. Faking a smile, I would move through the halls. It was unlikely this late in the afternoon that Robert was in the throne room, so I had to search for him instead.

“His Majesty is at the training grounds, outside,” a voice from behind me. A voice that I remembered and one I did not feel immediate animosity toward.

“Lady Rabendoe,” I turned to the half-demon woman, my smile far less an act when speaking with her.

Her orange eyes looked about the hallway and she leaned toward me, speaking softer, quieter, “You look like you have seen hell.”

“Mmm, maybe I have,” shrugging. I ran my fingers through my shaggy blonde hair.

“Be careful what you say, your highness. I do not think you want others questioning you as to why you look the way you do.”

“I will keep your advice in mind, Lady Rabendoe,” I bowed with my arms crossed before my chest, as was protocol. I stepped back and away to disengage from the conversation politely.

The Imperial Secretary was someone I respected as much as I could respect anyone who worked with my father. She was known for her kind heart and was the reason that compassion was shown by the Emperor and court, when it was shown, at all.

Turning away from Lady Rabenhoe I continued down the hall toward the doors that would bring me outside.

Returning home meant speaking to him. About her. About how much I had hurt my mother with my sudden disappearance. As if Robert cared. But Father would act the part, patronizing and surly. It was best to get this returning conference over with.

Hands stuffed in my pockets. I approached the outdoor training ring. Saimaa, another of my father’s concubines, was sparring with a guard, wood staffs flowing, hitting, and retreating. The Emperor’s confidant, Saimaa was adept with staff and a pole-ax. Darker brown and bald-headed, with eyes of black, she was opposite of my mother who was pale as the snowy land she hailed from. I often wondered if Robert treated Saimaa as badly as he did my mother, but had concluded that there was no way that was possible. Not when Saimaa was so capable and able-bodied. That only embittered me more.

There he was, Robert, standing outside of the fenced yard, watching the sparring match. It was as if the Emperor could sense my presence as I came outdoors, as he looked to the left, straight at me. Yet my father kept his silence until I was beside him, the noise of the training yard forgotten as he studied me. What did he see?

“You worried her.”

I thickly swallowed the lump in my throat, leaning forward against the fencing in front of us both. My hands curled around the wood’s edge, the slivers digging into my hands a balm to my rage. I kept my silence, trained by violence and honor.

Robert continued, “Aidna thought you were dead for over a year. She would ask me continually if you were still alive. ‘Tell me you can still feel his life force through the obelisk.’ Your mother prayed for you faithfully.”

Lips formed the word before I could help myself, “So?”

Gritting my teeth, “Did you strike her to make her stop asking about me?”

Out here, in the public eye and with enough noise that my words only carried to his ear, I could get away with talking back.

Robert turned fully from the sparring match, his interest waning, and his entire attention now on me. His arms crossed before his chest in a relaxed pose.

“It would not have stopped her, you and I both know that,” the Royalian Emperor took a deep breath and gestures off toward the gardens, “She’s in the grove, as she always is.”

I pushed away from the fence, not sparing my father a glance, done with this conversation. Due to this, I did not notice Robert reaching out, and did not see the hand that flashed toward me. The meaty digits grabbed me by the back of my neck and I went stiff in his hold.

A calculated squeeze.

“You were gone for nearly a year. Did you let that stolen time shorten your memory? I am still your Emperor. You will speak to me as my station demands and you will show me the respect due to me as your elder. Do you understand?”

A discordant breath escaped me, my eyes wide and staring ahead at rose hedges that squared off the gardens from the training yard. Fists shook at my sides, and I gathered as much of my dignity as I could muster in an effort to hide reborn terror, “Yes. I remember.”

“Good.”

Letting go, Robert pivots on the spot, turning to watch Saimaa, who has the guard on his back, her staff pointed at his face. I had been dismissed even as he applauded her win. Stuffing my hands back into my pockets I hunch my shoulders as I take off for the entrance to the gardens.

Bastard.

But this next conversation was not going to be any easier. Less terror-inducing, but more painful. I was sure that my mother wanted to know why I had disappeared for so long and I could not bring myself to tell her it was because her son was an addict. The shame and dishonor in it were stifling. Even the thought of telling anyone outside of the few who had helped bring me back to Royale brought a shivering cold like a bucket of ice water had been thrown over me. It clenched my lungs tight and left me trying to draw air. Yet it was likely she would know something was wrong, it was a mother’s intuition.

Trailing over the hedges with my fingers, I walked through the private portion of the gardens, further in, toward the grove where I knew she would be. Deep, in a corner, there she was, dressed in royal black, the shawl fringed with silver embellishments, covering her head and shoulders.

“Mother?”

The difficulty at which I held control of my voice…

She turned from her constant vigil at the statue of Marthei, The Watcher. The statue’s dark skin was in contrast to the white of her dress and the blanket that was wrapped around the infant in Marthei’s embrace. The fallen Archangel held the baby close to her chest, her eyes closed and black curls wild about her face. My mother’s movements are frantic, hands seizing my linen shirt by the excess of the fabric.

Tiny fists clenched and her shaking perpetuates through me.

Father had assured her I was not dead over the last seven months so why was she like this?

“You were gone so far, for so long, where were you?”

“I tried to find a way out, but all I did was fail. I found out only more of my weaknesses.”

My absence had harmed my mother, more than I had thought when I had followed the possibility of our freedom north into the deserts. She still shook and I covered those small and thin hands with my own so I could pull away from her distraught hold.

Aidna let go of my garments but I did not let go of her hands as I bowed to her deeply.

In bowing I prostrated myself, eyes closing, chewing upon my bitterness. Did I have any more face to lose? Was I deserving of that dignity before the woman who had brought me into this world? No. This was my mother, not Robert. Before her, I had no pride, if the opium had allowed me to keep any at all. I had to apologize to her for the constant worry that she had the whole time I was gone.

Even before I had finished the wordless apology she would move to pull me upright, those trembling digits lying on my hollow cheeks. I knew that once she pulled them away they would be caked in the makeup Lady Suinia had put on my face to hide the opium’s damage there. She would know. But would she say anything?

She beseeches, “Please by Marthei, allow me to know where you are if you go away again. Let me know you are alive. Where you end up. I do not care how far, or how long, just allow me a message or word of you. Just that. Please.”

By the Divines, she should not feel the need to beg like that. Not to her son. What had I done? There were fundamentals meant to guide us, the Vesiput code of honor, not lightly broken. Honoring one’s mother was one of those edicts. I had little honor, of this I knew with surety. Between the alcohol and the opium… What honorable man would allow them-self to fall to such excess of either? Not a Royalian. Anything in such gluttony was by the living code dishonorable. Just like my pride, I had left my honor on the Opium mat. What could I possibly offer in recompense to her for the fear I had left with her?

Truly I had only one thing left, even if I valued it so little.

I undid the buckle holding my Vogdashnen, the ritual dagger that every Royalian man and woman wore in order to serve their Emperor in undeath. It was meant to fulfill our duty to the Empire through our death.

I presented the dagger to my mother, head hanging, not daring to look at her face as I offered her the very thing I never wished to offer my father but by Imperial command someday must. My life. The blade was pulled from the sheath and I tensed, not sure what to be ready for. But just as quick as my mother pulled the blade, did she sheath it.

Fingers caressed my skull, finding skin beneath the shaggy unkempt hair. She sings, her voice unable to rise above the whispering tones that she spoke in, “In this snowy night, the stars shine bright, and we beg for the dark-one who gave, to end our woe by taking what clings to us so…”

Aidna retreats turning her back, re-engaging with the statue. With the past.

“I know what you are trying to say, but I cannot accept it.”

My control over my throat is lost and the next words come out pained, “Then what else can I give?”

“A promise.”

Conditioned by pain and anguish I grunt, grabbing what remained of my prior control as I buckle my belt with the dagger once again.

“Of what?”

Promises could be poisonous. It appeared that even in this atonement I had done wrong.

“That you won’t leave him again or have you forgotten what I have fought for all these years?”

“Never.”

“Then I accept your apology so long as you will never leave Thom like that again.”

Her pale arms rose toward the sun, and the loose, black fabric fell to show the bruises beneath and I know I have lost her, back to the Lullaby. “Slumber now, and slumber deep. In endless sleep, in endless sleep…”

I turned from her, unable to watch her, fleeing from her side faster than I had fathers, making sure that I avoided the training grounds where he still stood. I headed my way back to the palace. My heart was twisting itself in knots, and I felt my breath quicken, rasping, and uneven. Every encounter with my mother left me both exhausted and distressed, but in an entirely different manner than the encounters with my father. Sadness leaked from her and I wore it every time I pressed. Was it any wonder at all that I had left?

I had the frame of mind to retreat to my room to gather my wits. I still had Thom to visit. But not right then, what I wanted most was to sleep. A way to stop the aches and pains, and the distress inside my brain.