So it ever was. So will it always be. Such is the nature of evil.
For a time after the birth of his pups by Paravana he had been distracted. That was due in part to his aversion of pups but also the reality that Sarabi also had a litter that was by him. So he had struggled with some internal struggle he would never speak aloud, a shame that weighed upon him in a way that dragged at his bones and turned his moods into something violent. Only recently had he come to a more calmer demeanor with the acceptance of their survival. Sarabi had begged him, in an unspoken sort of begging, to let things be and she had a manner that was the same but different as Paravana when it came to him. Paravana never questioned him and her beauty was a stunning thing; he was a dragon and she was his gold. Sarabi was his blood, the thing that had helped drive him in youth, and she fought him but also acquiesed. He was bound to her just as to his self declared mate. So he split time between them and Paravana never questioned him, as was her way.
It only hit him recently that his mate was not getting any better. Her body was still sunken and her energy had waned. She fought an illness of unknown origins, although he suspected the children had done this to her, and he had chased them from the den a few days before amid snarls so that he could sniff her. For a moment he had considered placed his maw around her neck and shaking her awake but he feared how fragile she had become. He hated it. She was so weak, so.. broken seeming and it made the god within him stir to attention. It cocked it's head and tried to decide whether it was time for her to be consumed while Underidge fought against it, furious, because she was his. She could not be weak.
He brought food back to the den often, setting it in front of her muzzle and when she sat in a haze he would growl, ears flat and stomp away. He didn't know what to do so he slipped away, taking the pups to train then leaving them to train his other children. They knew about the Shade and he was aware the question could be asked: what about mother?
Today he stood on a smooth, rounded rock that jutted out over the river with his eerie eyes peering at the equally silver water waiting to spy a a fish. To dive in and grab it. Succulent, tempting, likely what Paravana needed. It didn't occur to him that he had grown to the point where he would do just about anything to help her despite his belief that the weak must perish, his own ironic twist of fate. When Umbra comes rushing through the brush his attention snaps to her, the sun pressing against her deep gray and lightening it to silver, the black dark against her. Mother, she says, and he runs towards the den in his jackal-like gait, pausing when he finds that Paravana is gone. Until Umbra ushers him past and he follows, finally spotting his mate in the distance.
She is moving with determination, weak as it is, and he races ahead of Umbra so that he slips in front of Paravana, stopping abruptly with ears pressed back.
"Where are you going?" She had been too weak to do anything in the last months, the seasons sucking more from her, and he finds anger in her movement. Not towards him, but away, her mind in a feverish haze. Did she not see what he was doing for her? How he had taken care of her, despite her weakness? Did she not appreciate what he had done?
UNDERIDGE
EIGHT - MALE - NO HEART - STARSHADE'S SOUL
OF GLORALL - ENDERLY X BANSHEE - KILL COUNT (IIII)