no matter what they say, I am still the king
Anger is a hungry thing - it will devour everything from the inside out, until there is nothing left. What else can you feel? What else is left inside you beside this hard diamond of a feeling? There are things that have kept you alive but will bring you to your grave. Not everything you believe in will keep life in your lungs. Not hate, not loathe, not love, not hope.
“I pity you.” His voice is void of all emotion. His jaw has hardened under the touch of your kiss. He has once again succumbed to the dark ache of shadows that define him. It is not like the anger you live in - it is unlike the hate that has shrouded the land - it is simply a shell of a feeling that has been created throughout the decades of his life.
He does not say why this pity sluices through his veins. You will learn soon enough. What you deny, will come through tenfold. The love you have said no to (for there are only your children), will come up to creep up on you in the night. You are truthful in your words, even he cannot deny this (and why would he want to, anymore?). You are not ruthless, you are not cruel - you have simply come to terms what the world has given you.
But it does not change the way his emotion curdles in his stomach. It does not change the way his demeanor sheaths over - from vulnerable to eerily placid. Your kiss leaves an acid burn on his throat, and it will be a reminder of the years that have passed between you two. But you parting taste will not be enough to quell what will happen.
There is only one way to be alone, my little snake.
---
It is cool and quiet in the ebbing daylight of the jungle. Decades have passed since he last found himself, and how ironic to find himself back in the kingdom he had founded. He could not call it home, not in the least bit - but he was back again to forge a different kind of future.
The boy is easy to find. The smell of Sabbath’s skin is something so simply he can conjure - the sharp tang of distaste wrapped in the lulling lust of desire. And the ophidian child reeks of her. Her voice echoes in the recesses of his mind, and seems to entwine between the thick trunks of the trees towering above him. What have you ever given me to warrant your request? How foolish, to declare a question so bold. What has he given her? In truth, nothing.
But what he will take? That is something far more precious.
---
He waits until the night has devoured the land - for there is no better time to become a living nightmare. His dark body sluices through the night with soundless ease. Her punishment was almost laughably easy, it almost felt unfair. The thought washes away just as quickly - unfair? He had given her the choice, and she had decisively sliced her own wrists. She would bleed for the lost love of her child until she had nothing left inside her.
The oddly blue child slumbers silent and sweet, as if the ocean had stained him. And her, beside him - a face he had not seen in months now. They had parted that day without another word, and he had waited patiently. She had grown ripe and burst open like a peach - but had given him a much better gift: a child, a son.
He watches, time leeching through the night. It wasn’t as though he was debating on the decision - he was well aware of the destructive decision he had already made his mind upon. Rather, it was quite nice to drink in the picturesque moment that he deserved to ruin. A small smile edges onto his features as he reaches out towards the two - sweet dreams, little things.
His power crushes lavender and chamomile and a soft and quiet calm into Sabbath - something to keep soft and still and serene. Sleep - sleep - sleep. (For a watchful mother would never rest too easy).
And to the little boy who would become his - he sends him a dream. He sends him a wondrous thing, full of color and light and exploration. He feeds the feelings of curiosity, excitement, wonder. The thought of “What is that?!” and “I must go further!”. He entwines the music of the trees, and the accompanying song of the birds, and the smells of flora and fauna. And he lures.
“Come, my child. There is an entire world that waits.”
And the magician turns into the maze of trees, back into the night.
(now, the storm is coming in)
(Basically, Crowns can invent any kind of dream he wants - Eight is basically just creating a dream in his head of something cool/interesting/curious that Crowns will dream of and want to follow off into the night where Eight is)