08-24-2015, 11:51 AM
Kushiel, while not necessarily good with kids, was desperately fond of them. He liked the way they saw the world as something to be explored. He liked their souls, very big despite being tucked away in a little body. Kids asked questions that they shouldn’t, and demanded answers that they had no right to have.
In some strange way he could relate to them, and in more obvious ways, he envied them.
Kushiel saw the little girl, and a smile quirked on his lips. He tried his best not to let it grow any further. If he knew anything, he knew that kids did not like to be laughed at. This little girl did not seem like someone who should be teased, though Kushiel could hardly help himself. She approached, like the flitting of a bird, or the skittering of a squirrel. She boldly went where she had not gone before. The world was still very big for her, and he was glad their paths had crossed, for it seemed unlikely, and all the better for it.
“Hello, little woman.” He said, with no small amount of fondness. It was a good thing he had no children of his own, they would certainly rob him blind, he would be unable to deny them anything.
“Does your ma know you like to wander?” He considered for a moment.
“And talk to strangers?” He did not mean to scold. He had very little idea of how children should behave. He hadn’t known as a child, and still he was unsure.
He did, however, remember the pained look on his mother’s face when he did something very wrong. He could hardly make it up to her, so some twisted sense of duty caused him to ask after the welfare of another mother, surely as put upon as his own had been.
The little girl, now black, would one day be gray. Perhaps to match her silvery eyes? He smiled at that. Perhaps she would be a heartbreaker. For now, however, she was curious. Kushiel very much hoped she would stay that way.
“These flames a tame, very unlike the wildfire you see burning though the woods.” He stretched a nose out towards her, not close enough so she would touch and burn herself, but close enough so that she could see his party trick up close. A single drop of flame rolled from between his ears, down the center of his face, and dripped off his nose like a drop of water. The little spark of flame fell to the ground and singed the grass. A second later Kushiel called it back. It rushed to him, happy to be saved from winter’s damp earth, and returned to his mane.
“See?” He asked.
“No worse for wear.” This was not absolutely true, if we were being honest. Much of his mane had burned away, leaving streaks of char and soot behind. The places where the hair had burned he filled in with fire, and thought it lent him a lot more credibility than a full mane ever would.
“What’s your name?” He asked her fondly.
“I’m Kushiel.”
Kushiel
some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall