Thick tail swings madly, panting midly from th exertion to reach him-- and now, excitement. She looks nothing like him, or any of his mates, but still he calls her pretty. Still, she believes him.

  Miasma blinks at the question, but realizes quickly the two most important parts of her life haven't met. "Oh, Sarissa! She's so wonderful-- she said she'd teach me all about Alteron. You'd like her." And, perhaps, he might-- though maybe not for the reasons his daughter imagines.

  "Are you happy here?" What a strange question. What weight does happiness have in the equation? "I thought we might find better pastures, now that our Red Dragon is gone..."


  "But my son has taken the crown." Sharp, stout teeth clench. He was useless until now, and he'll be nothing but bones once he's dead. She fancies that tail as a scarf, or train, perhaps. "Shares it with a cripple and a meatsack." Those same teeth show through a slow grin. She's met Falco, and he's expectedly Yellow-- a weight to the other two's words. Meatsack is accurate.

  "What do you think, my love?"

  She's taken aback by the question-- what does happiness have to do with anything -- but glances beyond him, at the remnants of what was once a dragon's nest. Ruin, now. "It"s better than elsewhere. Your son, on the throne." He is not my brother. "If we went..." quietly, in considering treason, "I don't know who would follow."


  Tail, sagging now, flicks once with some small surety. "Besides..." Turquoise gaze follows the line of her father's body, slipping over the silvery burn on his back before locking on the blind eye. "You've killed kings before, right?"

  "Roses," she returns at his very first words, all breath and something like reverie. "She smells like roses." Where she lives-- like the gods, of a life ago. Blinking back to herself, her tail starts to swing again. "Oh, yes! She was born here-- royalty, as the Dragon's granddaughter." And one of Alteron's even older queens-- but Mia knows nothing of Rapier yet.

  The girl grins, nodding along to his answers. They understand each other-- as family, as allies, as only monsters do. Miasma is relieved she won't have to go. She's not certain Sarissa would let her.

  "You have a lot of faith in me. I like that."

  Tilting her head closer into his touch, she says, "You've never been wrong." Even the Scions failed at times, but not her infallible father. How lucky is she, to have been taken as the Devil's own?

  "I take good care of you, don't I, Mia dear?"

  "Of course," she agrees, easily. He's under no obligation to care for her at all, and she soaks in every facsimile of affection ravenously. Still, even as she basks, something in the back of her brain wants to know why he asked.