— I'm not here looking for absolution —
They are not frightened of the deer.
This pleases him.
They do not coo at it either and he supposes that is right, also.
Instead they lurch to their feet and stand off against it. There is steel in their eyes and the girl actually attacks the deer. It nearly sets his temper off, having something of his own creation attacked like that, but he supposes that she is of his creation too and he thus lets it slide. Instead, he releases his grip on the deer and lets the bones fall to the ground, clattering as they do and lying in disarray at their feet.
Once a moment more passes, he moves from the shadows toward them. He cuts an imposing figure, but his prowess has never been in his lean muscle or large build. It’s always been in the cunning of his mind. The control he wields over life and death itself. There is something of that in his belly.
Something cruel.
Something cold.
“Are you pleased with yourselves?”
His voice has no warmth for his children—only the barest glimmer of paternal pride at their ferocity. He looks down his nose at the two of them, the endless black of his eyes searching them before nearly dismissing them. Stave stretches and flicks his tail at his hocks, almost impatient as he stands there.
“Where is your mother?” A glint of white teeth against the black of his muzzle. Something living there in the unsaid, in the real reason that he would want to see their serpentine of a mother.
An arched brow, a slow breath.
“Please take all day to answer. I have nothing better to do than wait.”
