[Crow]

The cathedral, once an revered landmark that captured his dragon’s immense majesty, lay all smoldered rubble at his pale yellow paws.

He observed the ruins alone, venturing through them like a vulture observing a days-old cadaver. They had in common fire as a cause of death, with one most important difference: he had come back. Crumbled stone and dead wood was displaced and scattered by his walk; he seemed not to notice.

Sometimes he’d come to Azuhel here at night to curl wraithlike and oily around her body, to whisper soft mad words in her ears, to shiver with a zealot’s pleasure when she responded in kind. It had been... oh, it had been. Had it ever. Slowly and deliberately, Crow ran his tongue over his lips and teeth.

“Miaaaaaa,” he singsonged to the empty air suddenly, raising his stare to the brushline. “I know you’re around here somewhere...”

He could smell her, of course. He did so like to smell what was his

[Crow]

He led her to the cathedral once, to Azuhel and their offspring, and she followed despite the jealousy.

She always followed.

She's come not to reminisce memories she only has secondhand, or some futile effort to find the High Dominus (although her mind wanders as she crawls through the ruins of the Dragon's lair, imagines unrolling a boulder and finding her stashed beneath, reptilian, curled possessively about her horde). Miasma scrabbles against displaced brick, teeth locked on a perfect pelt while she tugs. Her attempts at preservation are still shedding to leather, and maybe if she can only uncover the fruits of the Artisans before her, she can dissect their methods like any animal--

"Miaaaaaa," floats across the sea of rock, and the pelt tears as her head snaps up. Ears swivel to seek out where he calls to her, and once found, she frantically descends the rubble, and barks a quick confirmation while running that way.

It is likely unwise to follow a monster's call into the woods, least of all willingly, but isn't the daughter of the monster a monster herself? Excitedly, she spotted him, bounding over mortar with an agility she doesn't normally express. She's so very changeable.

"Dad!" Miasma bleats as she reaches him, lamb to the slaughter, tail high and eager.

[Crow]

She’d grown quite a bit, filling out in all directions, fluff morphing to silk, but the childlike hunger for his approval had not fled from her eyes. That was how Crow liked it with the children he deigned to bother with: stay close enough to curb the resentment of his unreliable absence, withdraw to stoke the flame of that craving all over again. It fixed something inside him, seeing his vicious brood become puppies once more, rooting for milk or love or poison, or —

“There’s my pretty girl. It’s been a minute.” His flinty muzzle descended to rub at her face and neck and shoulders, christening her with his possessive scent again; to her it probably felt a lot like affection. “Who’s your friend?”

One of the old queen’s granddaughters, of course... he and his really could not stay away from leaders, for better or for worse.

“Are you happy here?” asked Crow of Miasma, as if her answer mattered much in the scheme of things. “I thought we might find better pastures now that our Red Dragon is gone...” He glanced around, indicating the rubble of her cathedral. “But my son has taken the crown. Shares it with a cripple and a meatsack. I can’t help but wonder what they might have in mind for this old shithole...

What do you think, my love?”

[Miasma]

  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..."

Your Dragon. I have my own, now.

  "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."

Don't make me go.

  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?"

[Crow]

“Well, she smells delightful.” A quick flash of teeth that served as a smile for the vicious old black wolf. “Young girls, they all need friends their own age, I think...” Not that Crow ever awarded much empathy to young girls.

“Alteron is very old, you know. Does Sarissa come from someplace old herself?” Like, say, you know... a dead queen. Just a shot in the dark. He winked at her with his blind eye. “You might miss out on some *juicy* bits of its history otherwise.”

Teenagers were so very emotional. He remembered it well. Miasma’s face showed swallowed down rage at one name, cruel amusement for the next, and — was that a hint of confusion he detected, when asked for her opinion? Ah, how cute! Don’t be silly, girl, of course your happiness matters! Beat a loyal lapdog too liberally and it will always turn on you given time.

And he’d already done far worse than that. The very first time they met. The beginning of the rest of her life.

“There are always more followers,” he answered blithely, “if we need them. But I think you may be right. It’s like that saying, about greener grass...”

He seemed to trail off, looking unblinkingly into her liquid blue eyes, this crafty and feral daughter of his, pretty as a diamond necklace stolen right from the slit throat of an enemy.

“You have a lot of faith in me. I like that.” Here, he moved to stroke her again, his muzzle at her cheek this time, a sort of reward. “I take good care of you, don’t I, Mia dear?”

[Miasma]

  "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.