04-21-2020, 11:06 PM
GHAUL
i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back
Ghaul knows much of this world but only precious little about the significances of life. Still, he has counted the days since Litotes left and he had to watch his silhouette slip into the horizon. There are still many nights where he stands at the border of Pangea and searches every warm outline for that familiar shape. Draco knows, and sometimes they stand together in silence pretending they aren’t so lonely that it aches down to the soft core of them. But it’s easy to breathe around that immense emptiness during times like these.
There is a delighted crooning in his throat when he explains that his child is, in fact, flawless. There could be no other outcome for a family as pristine as theirs. He opens his jaws to reply but he is interrupted by the way Draco’s face contorts itself with rage and confusion, maybe framed in relief. The hellbeast turns to follow his brother’s gaze and he feels his heart plummet into the depths of his stomach. It writhes down there, bathing in all that pent up hurt he’d hoarded for himself to bask in. Every ounce of it comes flooding back up.
“Father,” he whispers so softly it almost doesn’t reach past his tattered lips.
He swallows the lump in his throat and hurries to meet him, his massive wings stretching wide and then wrapping feverishly around both Litotes and Draco both. His mane smells like strange places and familiar people when Ghaul buries his face into his shoulder. A desperate kind of whining creaks from his throat as he traces Lie’s face to confirm it is just as he remembered it. It’s strange how the former king used to seem so monumental, so god-like to him when he was a child. Of course, the lion of Pangea is still carved of some immaculate stone, but it is entirely different now.
“I waited for so long. We stayed because we knew you would come home.”
He finally sighs and lifts his head. When Father had left, his horns had hardly been more than nubs and his scales were still soft enough to be pierced. Now look at them all – titans to be feared and worshipped, each of them.
“You.. are a grandfather now,” he admits sheepishly. He had intended to tell Draco first, but he is delighted to be able to share the news with them both now.
There is a delighted crooning in his throat when he explains that his child is, in fact, flawless. There could be no other outcome for a family as pristine as theirs. He opens his jaws to reply but he is interrupted by the way Draco’s face contorts itself with rage and confusion, maybe framed in relief. The hellbeast turns to follow his brother’s gaze and he feels his heart plummet into the depths of his stomach. It writhes down there, bathing in all that pent up hurt he’d hoarded for himself to bask in. Every ounce of it comes flooding back up.
“Father,” he whispers so softly it almost doesn’t reach past his tattered lips.
He swallows the lump in his throat and hurries to meet him, his massive wings stretching wide and then wrapping feverishly around both Litotes and Draco both. His mane smells like strange places and familiar people when Ghaul buries his face into his shoulder. A desperate kind of whining creaks from his throat as he traces Lie’s face to confirm it is just as he remembered it. It’s strange how the former king used to seem so monumental, so god-like to him when he was a child. Of course, the lion of Pangea is still carved of some immaculate stone, but it is entirely different now.
“I waited for so long. We stayed because we knew you would come home.”
He finally sighs and lifts his head. When Father had left, his horns had hardly been more than nubs and his scales were still soft enough to be pierced. Now look at them all – titans to be feared and worshipped, each of them.
“You.. are a grandfather now,” he admits sheepishly. He had intended to tell Draco first, but he is delighted to be able to share the news with them both now.