do you think God stays in his heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he has created?
He does his best not to think of his parents – of Bible, torn open and bleeding in the snow. He tries not to remember the silhouette of Litotes moving toward the horizon without looking over his shoulder. But in the depth of night when he can find neither Gospel nor Greta, he thinks of them as well as Dawn, all gone beyond these borders. The drake could follow his surrogate mother to the Cove but he does not know how to admit that he is lonesome without her fussing over him. And besides, she deserves a child who is beautiful and soft like her. She has done nothing to warrant an awful thing like him stalking around behind her.
He has learned this much and little else. When he kills, he lets the blood coat his mouth in a crimson mess that taints the stars across his cheekbones. What does he care if the world knows he is a fierce hunter? But perhaps she will share her secrets with him and tell him all about how to lure them close enough that he can hear their pulse through their tender skin. Gospel might even tell him what it’s like to have your prey eating from your palm like a docile lamb just moments before you choke the life from them.
Ghaul watches with delight as the outline of her warmth devours the plump quail whole, feathers and all. His pleasure is evident in the way he smiles with those impressive fangs, glimmering in their crooked rows. She has grown refined while he has grown bolder, more reckless and unconcerned with the intentions of others. Their goals are tawdry baubles next to his. His empire of embers would consume theirs and still be ravenous for it.
The blind monster follows her gaze but he cannot discern her target from its surroundings. Its shape blurs into the other trees just inches above its base. Still, he spreads his wings momentarily to part from her side, inhaling deeply through thin nostrils. He extends his scaled neck and opens his jaws wide to let loose a billowing flame, far greater than the flickering plumes of heat he showed her parents. Despite the cold and the bit of snow gathered on the thin branches, the dry bark catches easily and begins to crackle as it burns. Ghaul watches, excitedly gnashing his teeth as the flames climb up the naked branches of the tree. Now, he can see the thing for what it is.
He turns his head and the ridge of spines down his back glow orange in the reflection of the fire. All those shimmering galaxies across his face and legs seem to dance and rejoice in his first real case of destruction. “Kings will walk gladly into the pyre I will build for them,” he purrs, stepping back closer to her now as his nose searches the fearsome angles of her face to see her expression. “But I’ll save your father for you.”
He croons softly as he thinks of the way an entire kingdom would look, plunged into his flames. Would their screams echo like the quail or would they shriek as they smoldered? His breathing quickens at the thought of it, to see a world painted from only yellows and orange instead of the cool blues and greens he sees now.
@[gospel] he's only like. kind of turned on by fire.