show me how defenseless you really are; Harmonia

[Harmonia]

Had that whore of a fairy restored her magic like she promised she would have known things about her daughter that Deimos did. Instead Ajatar - unknown to the palomino thing - absorbed the restoration into herself in the womb. Parasites - that's what children were. Mewling things that took and took and took. Harmonia had every intention of leaving this one behind like the others - but those scales. It was the physical manifestation of her traits that caught the eye. Had she her powers Harmonia would have known much more about the girl. She would have known to be afraid.

Instead she treats her like most of her children - long silences, cool touches, no outward affection. They rarely speak but the child doesn't seem upset by this. She is the picture of noncomittance. She's happier to watch the world roll by a study those around her.

She learns words - bottom feeder. Dad. New words.

Harmonia smiles the way you smile when your aunt tells you they voted for Trump - a thin smile that is more a smirk than anything else, a grimace. She is not offended by his statement, you live long enough in Beqanna to only become offended by yourself. Her father does not know her, not truly, no more than her absent, career driven mother did.

The bottom is where she could skate by.

"What brings you back from the dead?" she asks by way of no conversation, watching him approach with his dragging wings with disinterest.

At first Ajatar is curious, then alarmed by the sudden movement. Without knowing what she's doing, without understanding or truly knowing, she unleashes it. Harmonia is closest and feels it first - blistering pox climbing up her leg with rapid intensity.

HARMONIA

the pied piper