[private] a shadow in paradise

[Velkan]

It’s a good thing Eva hears what I say because I don’t think I would have had the courage to repeat it. I would have just had to go and run cartoon-style across the water to get away. It’s just so wacky because I know Eva is nice and she’s probably not counting down the days until our twins are old enough and then she’ll give us all the boot but the fears circle in my mind like vultures anyway. They fade away, though, when she replies and moves closer. I’m careful with my muzzle, conscious of that slight beak to it, but I move to touch it gently to Eva’s - marveling at how this gesture of hers soothes me. How much kind words and kind touches affect me at all. I breathe deeply, calming myself and the fears that had been ghosting my thoughts ever since I had first came to these islands, ever since I first found out that I was going to be a father. I move to bump Eva gently with my muzzle again when she makes her joke about keeping me here and my smile is not hard to find after that, it returns like the sun moving from behind a cloud. It makes it easier to say the next bit, to be utterly honest for a moment - to explain to my dear friend why these worries had existed in the first place. “I’ve never been a part of a family before, not really. My mothers… when I wasn’t the monster they wanted me to be, I was chased out.” Which is the nice way to say ‘one of them tried to eat me and the other didn’t care enough to stop her’. Some details can be left out. “I never… never thought I would have a family or even a home.” I have to mentally stop myself from shrugging or laughing this painful truth off, reminding myself that it’s okay to show my vulnerabilities around my friends. Still, that doesn’t stop me from continuing, my voice growing stronger at the same time as my grin. “But I am happy to be your prisoner here, Eva. Always.”

artwork by space1993

@[Eva]