peel away the layers till you're nothing and no one; birthing, any

[Chaol]

When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend

Do it again? Why he wasn't even sure how he did it the first time. So he thinks about it, thinks about what he had done and makes that newborn brain of his work. "Show us again, child." This male says before him. Who was he to make demands on them? Chaol's ears fall back into the scruffs of his mane at the words. They were not like his mother's soothing and gentle to his ears. They were rough and harsh. He did not like them.

But his momma had asked him to do it again, so he would try. His ears flicker back and forth and he shifts his weight side to side. For a few long moments there is nothing, but then they land on his mother's wings, so bright and vibrant that they make him smile. His own wings start to bleed with color, until they matched the colors of his momma's wings.

The purple turned to red and blue and yellow. He stretched the wings out awkwardly at his sides, moving around so he could touch them against his momma's. "I did it!" There's excitement in his words, in the way that he looks up to his mom with pride in his stance, and a shine in his eyes. "Just like yours momma."

And they fade to purple again before their eyes.

He smiles to himself, his dark eyes turning back to look at his grandfather, studying and waiting to see what they would both say.

c h a o l