no matter what they say, I am still the king
It does not take long and the moon has only waned slightly before he feels the tug of the dreamscape upon his mind. The vicious glint of blue devours his sight. The child comes- and he knew that the boy would.
The landscape begins to change, the roots curling away from the boys’ feet as if they were might and magic. The vines part for him, the flowers bend towards his bright - the world is his oyster. And he is in the depths of Eight’s ocean- the question is not of sink or swim, but of float or flourish.
The blue boy is anything but - the apparition he brings into the dream is nothing like his mother. He is not full of loom or despise or distrust. He is a gleam of teeth (a grin - not a gnash); he is a quick question (not a quip); he is a curiosity (not a cruelty). It should be mystifying how a child who has spent so long beside the serpent queens’ side could be so flirtatious with the world - but Eight is no stranger to how vast the world can fling your offspring. Too many of his children had ended up too vulnerable, too timid, too shy, too worthless. The magician sees glimmers of his Sunday queen in the boy, but they are not painful (and they may only be remolded).
The small nose touches the apparition of his feathers and he twitches them slightly with the touch of the boy - the moonlight catching to create an illusion of rainbows, like an oil spill across his feathers. The magician waits until the boy has finished his comparison (water and flight - two things that will never make nice). Eight reaches out, fingers of magic tapping lightly until he has found what he has wanted. (Crowns, Crowns, Crowns).
He turns and a small laugh. “They’re wings, boy. You’ve got them too.” He nods his head towards the splattered sides of the boy. The trickling wings as his side are now a translucent blue like the waters that glitter in the rivers of the jungle - but they are solid and real and there and true. And the next moment, they are not (again, they are a liquid viscosity and trickling and transient).
“I am Eight. He steps forward, his body beginning a curl around the child, his nose reaching out to the tiny wings. “And you, are Crowns.” A tap to the feathers (water) a tap again (feathers) another tap (water). His eyes falsify a wide surprise with each touch. “Fascinating! No?” He leaves his touch with Crowns’ water wings slick beside him. “ I did not mean to wake you. The night was dark, and I am not familiar with this land. You seemed wise enough to tell me about it.”
(now, the storm is coming in)