She liked exploring the old magma floes of Tephra. The cracks and crevices spread far and deep, running this way and that across the humid kingdom. Every turn she took was a new thrill, never knowing what creature or wilty, strange plant might be waiting for her on the other side. Sometimes, disappointingly, there would be nothing at all, except for some more black rock or a small plume of ghostly steam rising from somewhere below her narrow stature. As a horse, she’d never be able to get to do this, but as a snake, she was practically the queen of her own little wonderland.
Sometimes on the lucky days, she would run across a field mouse or a large beetle, and talk to them as though they might be her subjects. Her slender chest would puff, and her head would rise tall and proud and she’d hiss commands that were completely clear in her opinion, but her remarks were met with empty stares and zero response or action. Every. Time. And when the sour taste of displeasure flooded her mouth, her rebuttal was quick and absolute. She’d leave there satisfied in the end, and her subjects cleared of their duties and existence altogether.
It had been a boring day so far, until a clatter of dark pebbles rained down and scattered across her head and back. Coiling, her slender body wrapped itself protectively around itself until the worst of the litter fell. Pushing herself up, her small arrow-shaped head popped out past the crack that sheltered the rest of her. The sun was bright and the heat of steam and lava through off her young senses somewhat, but she could still feel them stomping around and making noise nearby.
Flaring her tiny hood in the most threatening way she could, she turned in the direction she thought they stood and screeched in a miffed, wispy voice, “I’m not afraid to BITE you!”
@[larva]
Show me the weight of a fury divine.
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.
@[Priya]
Hey, she knew that voice!
She’s glad she held off on snapping at the thing that had very gently touched her nose. Honestly, the little snake had been too stunned at the intrusion on her delicate snout, to allow the thought of baring her needle-like fangs in time to actually latch onto anything. But Priya is quite obviously and utterly relieved when her swaying head tilted backward to shoot a beady glance up her father and her reptilian smile widens when he reaches for her again. Accepting his nose as a means to come out of her volcanic kingdom, she wrapped her slender body delicately around, clinging to him before she is placed back on the open ground.
“Daaaaaaaaaaad” she drawls out in a minuscule voice, putting on her best show of childish annoyance at such a very dad-like thing to say. “I think it looks silly.” Huffing, she turns away to look at the steam rising briefly before looking back to Larva again, this time with her small dark horns proudly displayed on her forehead. It’s obvious she doesn’t look pleased, but she would wear them just for him.
What have you been up to out here? Hunting beetles and field mice?
Suddenly her demeanor changes, as though she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have, and her serpentine eyes seem to widen while the corners of her lips drag down into a pouting frown. “They wouldn’t listen to me!,” she says dramatically, releasing a held breath as if to get rid of a tidbit of pent up guilt for what she had had to do and that she had failed to get the mice and insects to do it for her. “I asked them nicely to die, but they wouldn’t! So I had to do it myself,” her large green eyes welled up with the heavy tears. “How do I get them to listen to me, Dad?”
@[Larva]
Show me the weight of a fury divine.
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.
@[Priya]
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