#not sure im fully satisfied w how it came out but its passable

[nelithic]

　𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐥 ████ ,　𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 　/　drabble ₊

the first time her mother received their lord father, she thought her the most inestimable creature in all gradlon.

young and eager to please, she had witnessed little more than the passing of feet wreathed in royal cloaks, knelt down and head bowed to honor his arrival and blacken not the name of her mother in disgrace. that he could be understood as ' father ' then had never once crossed her mind. her existence in his origin came detached and absolved of presumption, unmoored from connections of the body or the heart ; as it was with all her siblings, he was progenitor as a god who with a wave of one hand fashioned life and law: his blood and fangs a gift not to be squandered.

though tender of age, she understood that others across the land received similar visitation, that their proud and strong gradlon reigned and culled and cycled only as result ; but, being tender of age, still she imagined her mother somehow exceptional. them, somehow exceptional.

. . .

throughout history, magic had always run rich in the line of the fell dragons. but none so fertile as those born from their subjugated counterparts. the mage dragons of elusia had long lost their history. but among them, there were those who preferred it that way.

nel grew with no elegant, splendid horns, wreathed in rune and cloth. no tie to the fogbound fields of the snowy kingdom of man, whose blood ran similarly quicksilver with magic and ritual. her attention was directed and shaped with care to the red sun of her inheritance, gradlon's waiting throne beneath the lord-god's watchful eye, reserved only for the righteous by strength.

you are the lord sombron's child, and only partly mine. inheriting all of his greatness, and none of my wretched kind's weakness.

but she could still teach her something. brutal, punishing, exacting as could be: it was time, and it was love. the concoction of her might was in half owed to her, and this the young nel was never made to forget for each spell that wracked her limb from limb, agonized her nights on end, imprisoned her without remorse.

if you wish to be relieved from pain, or if you desire freedom, then be stronger. then you can have everything you want. i will not save you. nor will your brother.

. . .

but matricide begins the same as fratricide: a contained storm that loses control. she had been aware of her mother's growing frustration with her children's inaction for some time now, steeling herself for the reckoning that, given her temper, would inevitably come.

nil would not seek his strength in the orchestrated death of his sister, no matter how she pushed.

and nel would raise no hand against her brother in that promised defense, no matter how she warned.

where had she gone wrong as parent? after all, her daughter had everything if not for this, a simple and natural action that for incomprehensible mulishness, she would not take. a crown aligned, and a father's approving eye. what is a mother's desire if not for her young to excel: far beyond expectation, far beyond even herself, and win for that accolade, safety, success. where had she gone wrong, that the priceless fang of a precious child, pride of the brood and of her heart, should be turned upon her instead with everything she had instructed?

in that cool and unflinching rage so reminiscent of their liege lord, not bloodlust but bloodbelonging, as easy a thing as to die. in this, she witnessed sombron again—— and knew that her daughter kept the blood of kings.

. . .

centuries later, that daughter would stand upon the elusian ground and wonder at the home the mage dragons must have walked once. but perhaps that one had never walked at all. had she been born here? or had she too only ever been a product of that raging sun? to ask back then would have been out of the question.

so grasping amidst the fog, she reached out again as she had over and over since those days long flung:

what had been her mother's name? and what had she looked like? m. . . m. . .

there was no hope. after all, she had been born a fell dragon, raised a fell dragon — a birthright to kill, and a birthright to forget.

　

　 NEL has mastered dread fighter.