>>5745401>>5745412>>5745433>>5745467It in unavoidable. You may resent the Dark Gods their impositions at times, but they are your very genesis, and your destiny: Alpha and Omega. You were conceived as the result of illegal, unauthorized cross-caste breeding, raised as a weapon, but it was your own choices—your own True Faith—which made you an Antipaladin. Religion is no mere transaction to you, justa s it was not to your Reptilian infiltrator mother. You are truly devout, and you must reconcile yourself with your Gods, or you are nothing.
“Eka, My beloved One…”
“You’re leaving.”
You’re stunned by her matter-of-fact response, and confused by the small (albeit sad, you think?) smile upon her flattish, pink-skinned human face. You hold it in your hands, and she giggle softly and blushes, brushing your hands aside and then holding them for a moment.
“You are not so sly a serpent as you seem to think you are, Prince-Consort,” she teases you gently.
You’re not so sure about THAT, since she still doesn’t know the full, grisly story of how she BECAME the sole candidate to succeed her father and (Gods willing) never will, but you let it slide.
“We share a bed. I’ve seen how this, ah, religious matter has troubled you,” she points out.
“I know you are due to be coronated ssoon,” you say, and your gaze drifts down, to her midsection—to her womb. “And…”
She squeezes your hands and stands on her tip-toes to kiss your cheek—a tender gesture.
“Then hurry back, if you can,” she says. “And if you can’t… You have done a lot for me. You need to do this for YOU.”
You smile, an expression that comes more naturally to you with each day you spend here in Hawksong, among the humans, in your human disguise…
“You know,” Ekaterine gently chides you, “you still do that too wide. You don’t need to show ALL your teeth.”
“It isss genuine,” you assure her.
“I know,” she says, smiling back. “It reaches your eyes.”
And so, with the blessing of your Human Queen, you set out.
Your course will be a winding one, over hills and through dale. Your ‘big brother’, the Great Green Dragonborn, has been waiting for well over the allotted week in the rocky hills past the ruins of Hawksong’s farming communities. Reestablishing security and food production in these places will be vital for your wife once she ascends to the throne, and preventing your brethren from falling into conflict with your newly-secured kingdoms will thus be key for the both of you… Something that will be difficult if they begin raiding farms for livestock (and farmers) to eat once more.
