i will be brutal

He does not often spend time with his children. In fact, the last of his brood that he had been around was Vulgaris, and they all know how he turned out. But Priya has potential to be something extraordinary and so he tries to keep his distance – he doesn’t want to ruin her. It is difficult to avoid your child when they are as tiny as her, however, and he finds himself surprised to be staring down at her. The oilslick scales of his cheeks and shoulders reflect the warm sun as he leans his head down to lightly bump his nose to her serpentine snout.

“How cruel, to bite your own father,” he jokes. It humors him to suggest slaying his sire was cruel when it had seemed like vengeance at the time. He does not share this dark secret with her just yet. Instead, he noses her up out of the crack she hides in so he can look at her more closely. “Is your horn so small in this form that I can’t see it? You know it looks so pretty on you.”

He is biased in believing his youngest child is perfect. Even when his offspring are evil, wicked things that torment others, he still finds them beautiful. Even if Priya sheds this innocence with her next skin, she will be the apex of his bloodline. This thought eases his mind as he admires the flared little hood that would otherwise warn predators to stay back. Such a fearsome little thing.

“What have you been up to out here? Hunting beetles and field mice?” he asks, tilting his gray head. His sage green eyes search the beady gaze of her serpentine form before he lifts his face to the canopy above. In this form, she is vulnerable to the birds who call Tephra home. It unnerves him to remember this and so he decides that perhaps he should linger close to her after all.

i will be brutal

He observes her with an uncharacteristic smile and softened eyes. Larva has nearly a hundred children, but only a handful have a special place in his heart - Darling, Shiya, Priya, and Echis. There is nothing in this world that he holds more precious than them. Perhaps that is why he finds himself so unimpressed with his sons. They’ve proven time and again to be more of a threat to the ones he loves than any other creature in Beqanna.

But his mind is wandering. He should treasure this time with his child. A soft laugh rumbles in his chest when she lets her horns show in this form. They are so tiny he almost can’t see them. He still doesn’t quite know where on earth she and Echis got these horns, but he rather likes the way they look with them.

“You have a younger sister with a horn, too,” he whispers to her gently, like a secret. “She lives in Hyaline with her mother. Maybe one day you can teach her how to be a beautiful little snake.”

He watches her expression change to guilt when he asks about the beetles and the mice. Another laugh tumbles from him and he nods in understanding. “Being a ruler is hard. You have to balance fear and love with your subjects. I know you’ll learn to do just that with time, though,” he explains with another gentle touch of their noses meeting. “Show them your kindness when they are good and then crush them completely when they disobey.”

Carefully, he lowers himself to lay on the ground before her so they are nearly eye to eye. He watches the beetles all skitter and scatter around as they go about their lives. Do they even have a concept of rulers and kingdoms, he wonders? If they lead a simple existence then he envies them greatly.