Divitiae chose to do this. He’d never let himself forget that.
He wasn’t like the other demons, like his “brothers”. Cruelty and selfishness came naturally, even to the ones that weren’t Triticum. They never had to question, ponder, convince, plan. They felt the itch and they scratched it.
Divitiae was jealous. Dragons were demons because they weren’t gods and they weren’t mortals, but the gulf between dragon and demon couldn’t be any deeper.
Demons were, well, base. They were more like mortals and gods than dragons ever could be. All of them were just simple networks of preferred stimuli, un-preferred stimuli, and responses to those stimuli, tangled up into little balls called personality. They considered themselves black boxes, but it was all forced complexity. Divitiae knew what button to push to get what response, and the only reason he wasn’t doing so was because the thought experiment was more engaging to him than the manifestation of its results.
A constantly cogitating machine. That’s what Prifma called him one time while pressing a kiss to his forehead.
Divitiae tried not to think about Prifma too much, especially not now when he was on his way to ruin his beloved city.
The impulse to be cruel crept upon him suddenly, slowly, like most things do when you’re a dragon. You feel a sensation, you poke, you prod. It grows, you poke, you prod. And by the time you finally put a name to it, the full weight of it is pressing down on you.
That’s how Divitiae felt right now. But he couldn’t do much about it. He couldn’t simply lash out. Not without thinking about it first, devising a plan, considering variables, min-maxing the ratio between people harmed and people unscathed—all while the desire blazed hot within him.
Planning the best way to be an asshole felt worse than just being an asshole. He wanted to sink to the bottom of Lacus and stay there, and he wanted to do it even more when a God-eater appeared on the shores and told him the news.
The news. Divitiae’s stomach churned.
A sinkhole had opened up in one of the city’s plazas. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the God-eaters who went down to investigate found a cavern full of green-gold.
Now, green-gold, electrum, was already a thing. But this green-gold was a fractional percentage greener than electrum, which meant that the gods went absolutely ape shit for it back in the day. And, of course, any time the gods went ape shit over anything, the God-eaters were the first to suffer.
They wanted Divitiae to go into the mines, confirm that it was, in fact, the greener variant of green-gold, and then fucking get rid of that shit like they did with all the things the gods were obsessed with.
It was a simple task, but a perfect opportunity for Divitiae to act a fool. He couldn’t not take it, not if he wanted his cruel desires to fade away temporarily.
He shifted back into his human form with a scowl. Everyone assumed it was because of the god business and kept their mouths shut. This left Divitiae on his own to ruminate over exactly what he planned to do with every step he took. He had to look down into the sinkhole and decide that, yes, he did want to belly-flop into it and take his dragon form halfway though.
Thank, well, himself, for the Square-Cube law. The god-eaters cheered as he lumbered forward and captured a massive outcropping of green-gold in his jaws. Then cheers turned to murmurs of confusion and screams of fear as he somehow maneuvered himself into a land-based death roll, taking the whole mine with him and, subsequently, most of the district.
It only lasts about three minutes before he collapses from exhaustion, taking his shame into unconsciousness with him.
Artem was sitting next to him. Divitiae didn’t need to open his eyes to figure this out, and, honestly, he didn’t want to. It still hurt, and he wasn’t ready to see anyone.
Waves of shame were crashing on the shores of Divitiae’s mind, which was a fun metaphorical way of describing something that felt infinitely worse. Indescribably terrible. He couldn’t move his body—he was still exhausted—but he felt so embarrassed he was boiling over with it. The bedsheets felt suffocating, soaked through with his sweat.
It would be so easy to ask Artem to help him. He could feel his discomfort showing clearly on his face, could feel all the phantom sensations of Artem settling in next to him. The clunk and thud of paint jars placed on the bedside table. The clack and rasp of brushes, their tips ghosting over the grained wood before being set down. The click and clutter of wooden tablets shuffling. The scrape and slide of carving tools.
He could see Artem clearly in his mind's eye. One leg was delicately crossed over the other, bracing the wood as he carved it. His posture was hunched, then corrected to ease discomfort with his corset, then hunched again as he was drawn back into hyper-focus. He breathed shallowly so that his hand stayed steady, but his mouth moved minutely as he subvocalized the subject of this piece.
Divitiae swallowed, then mustered up the energy and slowly opened his eyes.
They immediately locked on to Artem’s. They couldn’t not. Artem was carving, Divitiae was right about that, but somewhere along the way he had stopped and started watching Divitiae, waiting for him to overcome his cowardice.
“You’re angry.”
The words slipped out of Divitiae’s mouth before he could stop them, a private assessment made public. Of course Artem was angry. It was there in narrowed, indignant eyes, a slightly clenched jaw, and a ruined district on the other side of the city. But Artem was a demon like the rest of them, Divitiae figured he wouldn’t care.
Artem shut his eyes and took a deep breath, then started carving again.
“Are you proud of what you’ve done, older brother?”
The term of endearment dripped with derision.
“No,” Divitiae said softly, wanting to melt into the cot.
“Then neither am I. It’s that simple, isn’t it?”
Divitiae supposed it was. Artem was a lot older than the rest of them, and more stubborn than Iustitia at times. If he had even an inkling that something was off, he wouldn’t hesitate to pursue it—and he didn’t have Iustitia’s moral scruples holding him back.
“Was anyone hurt?” Divitiae asked, his throat burning from the exertion.
Artem paused, glared at him, and started carving again. “Thankfully, no.”
Divitiae wished he could nod. Instead he just closed his eyes again.
“Di-vi-ti-ae,” Artem said after a while. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
Divitiae opens his eyes. Of course that was his name, why wouldn’t it be?
“Your original seal, the one Prifma bound you with, said ‘Divitae’ instead,” Artem says, his tone as grave as Iustitia when he was at his bench. “Did you know this?”
Divitiae didn’t know anything about his original seal. The gods were the ones who put it on him to begin with.
Artem raised an eyebrow.
“So this—“ He gestured vaguely with his tool at Divitiae and the world at large. “—wasn’t you trying to dismantle our new society from the inside out by taking advantage of a loophole in your binding?”
Divitiae didn’t even know what to say to that. “I’m a demon too.”
He didn’t consider himself one, but he wasn’t a god and he wasn’t a mortal. The admission was enough to make Artem’s expression soften.
“You were always an awkward one, weren’t you?” he said, hands instinctively going to stroke the seals at the ends of his braids. He opened his mouth to say something else—
And then Triticum yanked open the room’s curtain.
“Are we interrupting something?” he said with a shit-eating grin, knowing full well that he was interrupting something all the time.
Artem sighed and started moving his chair over. Triticum, who was never explicitly invited in, entered, followed by Iustitia and Instrumenta, who carried enough stools for the three of them.
They settled in quickly, like an unexpected afternoon storm. Instrumenta took the seat next to Artem, and Artem transferred carving duties to him while he mixed his paints. Triticum and Iustitia sat on the other side of Divitiae, Triticum wearing his cardigan and sandals, and Iustitia wearing his shawl and Triticum’s usual bamboo hat.
So it was date night for them. Great.
Divitiae wanted to melt into the cot. The last thing he needed was scrutiny from these three.
“Aw,” Triticum said, squishing his cheeks. “Not happy to see your big brothers?”
“No,” Divitiae said, because Iustitia was right there and Triticum was going to have to try a bit harder if he wanted blood.
Triticum laughed and squished his face more tightly. Iustitia tapped his shoulder, and a moment later he eased up.
“Has Prifma come to see you yet?” he asked, toying with a ringlet.
Divitiae shook his head slightly, then burrowed into his bed. Prifma was the last person he wanted to see right now. No doubt he’d be disappointed, angry even. Divitiae wasn’t useful to society like Instrumenta or Triticum or Iustitia, and he wasn’t even popular or wise like Artem.
Not to mention…he couldn’t even think of the man without being mortified. Prifma was the only person who had ever seen his dragon dance, and, while Prifma was certainly deserving of it, at the time when it was given Divitiae was desperate, touch-starved, and regular-starved. He had given it too freely, which was embarrassing in and of itself, but he didn’t even get to finish the damn thing because a certain someone decided to knock him on conscious.
Instrumenta glanced away, like he knew Divitiae’s thoughts had strayed in his direction. Iustitia was still waiting for an answer, so Triticum flicked Divitiae’s forehead, which made Artem stop mixing his paints.
“Stop that, he’s exhausted—“
“He was talking to you just fine a moment ago—“
“I don’t think Prifma wants to come see me,” Divitiae said.
Everyone stopped and then turned to give Divitiae a Look.
“Who the fuck are you talking about, man?” Instrumenta asked. “Our Prifma? Like, our dad, Prifma?”
Divitiae mustered enough energy to throw an arm over his face like a disgruntled teenager.
“Divitiae,” Iustitia said, “Prifma loves you.”
“Prifma loves everyone,” Divitiae grumbled. “I know out of all of you I’m the least favorite.”
“Prifma doesn’t have favorites—“ Artem started to say.
“He has ‘superlatives’,” Triticum finished.
Divitiae rolled his eyes under his arm. Superlatives. What a polite way of stating the obvious.
“No,” Iustitia said. “Superlatives are his way of acknowledging that some of us are better suited to certain responsibilities than others and that he’s not going to just give you the pantheon because he finds you charming. I guarantee, Divitiae, out of all of us, you are ‘Most Likely to Succeed’.”
“Haha, nice,” Triticum muttered. Iustitia frowned.
“Have you never, you know…” Instrumenta began. When Divitiae finally uncovered his face, Instrumenta was squinting and wiggling his fingers, a very poor imitation of a dragon’s telepathy.
Divitiae sighed and covered his face again. “I don’t think about Prifma in the same way that Prifma should not waste his time thinking about me.”
The room went silent again. Someone, everyone, opened their mouth to say something—
And then Divitiae felt it, the shift in the air as the curtain opened once more. Everyone’s objections died on their tongue and Divitiae’s breath hitched in his throat.
The room was silent as death as Prifma, in his full regalia, stepped towards Divitiae’s bed.
Divitiae kept his arm clamped over his eyes, his jaw clenched as his hitched breath built up in his chest, threatening to explode in an ugly sob. He felt it when it happened. Prifma smiled, and the light from his beatific joy fell onto all the demons sitting there. When Divitiae couldn’t press his arm into his face anymore, he picked at the nails on his other hand instead. He hoped, he prayed, that anything other than this was happening right now.
Nothing was.
After a moment of Prifma standing there, doing nothing more than smiling, the demons scrambled to their feet, abandoning Divitiae as suddenly as they came without even a farewell between them. Divitiae tensed as Prifma walked around the bed, the light growing stronger as he settled in Artem’s seat, right by his head.
“If you please, Deliciae.”
Deliciae was here. Divitiae relaxed at that, relaxed more when he heard the creak of a wicker basket being set on Instrumenta’s stool, and felt the dog’s weight on his legs as he flopped across them like it was his bed. Divitiae’s free hand went out to give him a little pet, his fingers feeling the material of the dog’s frilly outfit.
He realized he had forgotten himself when he heard a sharp knife puncturing the thick skin of an apple, digging into the tough flesh beneath. He swallowed and dared a glance, just like he did with Artem.
Prifma was, blessedly, not looking at him. His bad eye was the one closest to Divitiae, covered by an imposing black patch, while the other was obscured by a strand of long, white hair that he didn’t bother to comb out of his face as he deftly carved up the apple into slices.
“And how are you feeling, my love?”
The sentence felt so aimless that Prifma could’ve been saying it to anyone. Divitiae wasn’t actually stupid enough to believe that. He still didn’t answer, but he slowly lowered his arm, and watched Prifma carve, making sure their thoughts weren’t touching.
Prifma frowned slightly, like he was aware of what Divitiae was doing.
“The God-eaters are calling it ‘green-gold sickness’. They’re clearing out the mines as we speak, dumping out anything that might harm our darling.”
Prifma turned to him and smiled. Divitiae shrank into the bed. He had a feeling they were told to get rid of it, and Prifma very rarely told anyone to do anything.
Prifma finished slicing the apples, then cut out the remaining core bits so that the flesh on each one was a nice even cream color. Prifma admired them in the light for a bit, taking in every shift in hue, the texture, the speckles on the red skin, then set them down and gathered the excess to feed to Deliciae, pushing the cores through the holes in his leather muzzle. He seems eager for the treat, butting Prifma’s hand with his muzzle and spending a little too much time lingering on his fingers.
Something…somethings inside Divitiae at the sight. Another one of those unidentified feelings, creeping up on him. He didn’t even have the energy to begin deciphering this one, but it made him glare at the dog lying across his legs.
Deliciae stared back at him for a bit, then shut his eyes like he didn’t want to be involved.
“What if I did it on purpose?” Divitiae said, slowly starting to understand that the feeling within him was something like spite, biting acid at each one of his words.
Prifma hums at the idea, then goes back to carving his apples with the same smile.
“What if you did?”
“You’d be mad,” Divitiae said, angry and annoyed and not wanting to do anything other than prod at Prifma until he just said what Divitiae knew to be true.
Prifma shrugged, his smile growing broader as he dug the knife into the skin of the apple slices again. Divitiae wished he could just interpret that as a thinly-veiled threat. Even if he didn’t want them too, his thoughts brushed up against the edge of Prifma’s and he knew the smile and knife-work were coming from the same place.
Once they touch, meld, Divitiae couldn’t help himself from falling further into the depths of Prifma’s mind. He always imagined it would be like the gardens in the Palatium—colorful, perfectly cultivated. Instead, it was more like a pit. A perfect one, with smooth sides that only made Divitiae fall faster. It’s like Prifma wanted him to enter, wanted to suck him into the deepest depths of his mind.
Divitiae hauled himself out of Prifma’s mind with a gasp. The sheets were wet again, soaked with his own sweat, forcing Deliciae to sit upright on Iustitia’s stool like a normal demon would. Prifma, calm as can be, finished carving the last of the bunny apples, and pressed the best one against Divitiae’s lips. The flesh was cool, the texture crisp. Prifma let his fingers linger on Divitiae’s lip before pulling away and combing Divitiae’s short, sweat-plastered hair out of his face.
“You like me,” Divitiae said, breath rushing out of him all at once.
Prifma smiled and offered him another apple.
“You…” Divitiae wet his lips and stared up at the ceiling, trying to muster up the energy to say what he wants to say before Prifma silences him with another apple. “You want to fuck me.”
Prifma’s expression changed so abruptly Divitiae thought he was still hallucinating. His smile grew even wider, as if that was possible, and his eyes narrowed, blazing with aggressive, unabashed lust. Divitiae felt like a small rabbit that had just been scented by a wolf, but Prifma’s expression snapped back to something more saintly before Divitiae could even process it.
And that was really saying something.
“I’m sorry,” Divitiae said. He didn’t know why he was apologizing. It wasn’t like he didn’t or couldn’t reciprocate, but he had been pulled into Prifma’s mind, and nothing he could offer would ever be able to quench the roiling seas of single-minded devotion that lurked beneath such a calm exterior.
Next to him, Deliciae rubbed his temples like he couldn’t fucking believe this conversation was even happening.
Prifma shut his eyes and elegantly flipped the knife though his fingers, then skewered another bunny apple and offered it to Divitiae.
“I’m not expecting the world, Divitiae,” he said. “I’ll be happy with whatever you give me, even if it’s nothing at all.”
Divitiae chewed, swallowed, frowned.
Prifma definitely deserved more than nothing. Even he could give that much.
It was a bit easier to breathe now that things had been…addressed.
Divitiae knew it wasn’t the perfect conclusion his adoptive siblings were hoping for. He and Prifma had other discussions while he was recovering, more in-depth ones, and the outcome seemed paltry by comparison.
In short, they had agreed to take it slow, at a crawling pace that was really only satisfying for Divitiae. You could hardly tell that anything had changed between them at all. Prifma had always kept himself somewhere within Divitiae’s orbit, either by standing just a bit too close or by being bold enough to put a hand on his shoulder.
The only difference was that Divitiae didn’t feel like he was being hunted whenever it happened anymore.
Now that he had addressed the situation to his satisfaction, he could start analyzing it properly and, upon doing so, he found some minor points of concern.
The first being: When exactly did Prifma develop a non-filial interest in him?
It could have been at any point really. It wasn’t like any of them were related to each other. But it wasn’t as if Divitiae had been doing anything to warrant any sort of attention. In fact, out of all his siblings, he was contributing the least to the pantheon. This didn’t necessarily need to be a bad thing; no one was hoarding any excess wealth, so Divitiae was out of a job in a good way.
But people—especially productive people like Prifma—didn’t fall in love with people who did nothing—like Divitiae.
So that ruled out everything after their first meeting, which only left their first meeting. And that made Divitiae uncomfortable.
The dragon dance was very embarrassing and he didn’t have to think about it again, especially since Prifma seemed to understand the significance of the act itself. But did he understand the significance of it because Divitiae, who he had never met before at that point, was doing it, or because…
Well, Divitiae had a sneaking suspicion that Prifma didn’t like him per se, but was enamored with dragons as a concept. Perhaps if there were more of them swimming in the Lacus (impossible, but nonetheless), Prifma wouldn’t be interested at all.
They had spoken a few times about Prifma’s trip to the Crocodylia Gardens before the big lake dried up. He always spoke of the event with a wide eye and hushed voice as he recalled all the dragons and their headpieces and their beautiful scale patterns.
Divitiae had never been, but all of them were a tangled knot of psychic signatures in the back of his mind, one he often dipped into when he wasn’t doing much of anything else. They were all rather friendly, a second family enmeshed in his psychic network.
To say that Divitiae did nothing for Prifma after their discussions would be a gross mis-characterization. He had begun his preparations for Prifma’s birthday well in advance. Every so often, he’d ask the Dragon Patriarch, Pinguis, to send one of his scales to Domum.
Prifma didn’t know Pinguis by name, but by his matte white scales and their glimmering red color shift. Divitiae fashioned those scales into a striking neck-piece for Prifma, thoroughly knocking everyone else and their presents out of the water.
He felt smug in the moment, and then insecure once more. Didn’t Prifma’s delight just prove Divitiae’s worries?
But didn’t Divitiae also say that he might not be able to reciprocate Prifma’s feelings? Why be insecure if Prifma was rightfully moving on?
So he tamped down his growing unease, and immediately started on Prifma’s next birthday present.
It was a house. Well, it was more like a shack, but a large shack. Divitiae was still small for a mortal, but his dragon form had grown exponentially, and he planned to maximize all of his head space for Prifma’s comfort.
The house would be strapped to his head and between his jaws with several very thick pieces of leather, crafted by his fellow conspirator, Deliciae. Once Prifma was securely inside, Divitiae would swim down the Flumen and out into the ocean, then travel along the coast to the New Crocodylia Gardens which were nestled in a mountain range to the east. From then on, Prifma would be able to see the sights in perfect comfort, a far cry from his last trip.
Only Triticum had the gall to doubt Divitiae’s ability to build a solid home, and he stared, gob-smacked, as the whole thing went off without a hitch.
The plan really went off without a hitch when Divitiae slipped into the Grand Crocodile Lake. All the dragons he had been communicating with for millennia were waiting for him with politely closed jaws, ready to lay eyes on the dragon that had been taken from them when he was so little.
Prifma was right—all of them were a sight to behold, and his accompanying commentary was bombastic and overzealous if not completely mortifying to all the dragons present.
It was hard for Divitiae to remember his own insecurities when he was enveloped in a blanket of unconditional love, swimming in a float of his true kin.
The New Crocodylia Gardens were much bigger than the previous site. The lake stretched out as far as the eye could see, shadowed by the mountain ranges looming overhead and shrouded with a gauzy mist. This meant that the actual Dragon Village was nearly impossible to spot from the Gardens’ public entrance, which was great, but it also meant that swimming from one end of the lake to the other was nothing short of a journey.
Normally, this was fine. There needed to be enough room in the lake for the entire float to drift aimlessly and let their minds wander. But when there were esteemed guests, such as Prifma, and missing family members, like Divitiae, of course they needed to be shown proper hospitality back at the village.
Divitiae made sure the portable house could stand upright in the soft sand, then shook the excess water off his body like an eager dog, splattering Prunum, the Matriarch, and her daughter, Coccymelum, with a few excess droplets. They both frowned for the sake of it—their kalasiris weren’t even wet—and Divitiae gave them a little wink before looking around for Prifma.
As expected, he had immediately approached Pinguis upon landing. Their conversation seemed very involved, as all dragon conversations tended to be, but Prifma was holding his own remarkably well.
At first, this was fine. Prifma was free to talk to whoever he wanted, especially since he had always been curious about Divitiae’s kin, and Divitiae planned to hang out with people who were not Prifma during this trip anyway.
It got old quick.
He couldn’t say that Prifma was neglecting him. That would be weird and clingy. But he spoke to Pinguis after their arrival, and at dinner, and the day after, and the day after that. Divitiae felt a spike of annoyance every time he glanced over someone’s shoulder and saw Prifma standing just a touch too close to Pinguis.
It didn’t help that, despite his name, Pinguis was a sight to behold. He was tall and muscular, with long white hair that revealed streaks of red when you combed your fingers through it.
And Prifma had been combing his fingers through it a lot, right where Divitiae could see it.
Those little spikes coalesced and festered until Divitiae was just plain annoyed. The sensation radiated off him in waves, digging its hooks into the careful psychic network the other dragons had crafted. Finally, Prunum had to kick him out of her home, covering her mouth and nose with a little cloth as she shooed him away, like that would keep Divitiae’s noxious energies away from her.
That was probably for the best.
Divitiae made sure to grab some nice carving stones from Coccymelum’s garden on his way out, then enveloped himself in his negative feelings as he headed deeper into the jungle.
It was difficult for dragons to talk about interpersonal violence.
It never happened all that often to begin with. Everyone was connected telepathically, so everyone knew what everyone else was thinking. Perpetrators knew what their victims were feeling, victims knew what their perpetrators were feeling, and everyone else in the Dragon Village was there to mediate. Most acts of violence were headed off before they began.
Emphasis on most.
Sometimes it couldn’t be helped. Sometimes, a dragon set their mind on something, and nothing could be done to dissuade them. They stewed in their negativity while the future victim had to sit their and stew with them, anxiously counting down their last days.
Pinguis’s expression as he spoke to Prifma suddenly turned ugly. Only one branch was needed to make a decent club. A good wallop and all of this would be over with.
Instead, Divitiae had gathered multiple branches and was carving them into twisted poles, fusing them all together with hate-fueled magic into one long shaft.
Pinguis swallowed and quickly made his excuses, leaving a confused Prifma by himself. Perhaps if he could find where Divitiae was in the jungle and clear up this little misconception—
It wasn’t about the “misconception”. It was about proving a point. And Divitiae worked faster than expected, as expected of living with artisans like Instrumenta and Artem and Deliciae. The shaft of the spear splits into two prongs, both tipped with wicked looking barbs.
Pinguis doesn’t even bother trying to convince himself that the weapon is too unwieldy for the tiny Divitiae to use. In the space of a few hours, he had completed the first anti-dragon weapon in history, cursed it so that no one else could use it but him (small blessings), and he had every intention of testing it out on Pinguis.
The shaft and the prongs were long enough to really dig into dragon flesh, and those barbs could tear through scales like butter.
Deep in the jungle, but not as deep as Pinguis would have liked, Divitiae stands, dusts off his kalasiris, mounts his new weapon on his shoulder, and heads towards the village—towards Pinguis—at a clip that would leave most other dragons winded, even in mortal form.
Pinguis took a deep, shuddering breath.
Anything I can do to change your mind? he asked telepathically.
“Absolutely not,” Divitiae said, emerging from the undergrowth.
He set the butt of his spear on the ground, making sure everyone in the village got a good look at it, looked at Pinguis a bit regretfully, then rubbed his nose and made a vague gesture.
“You know how it is.”
Pinguis did not and he didn’t want to.
He turns and runs, but he is unused to moving like this in his mortal form and these mortal garments. He drops to ground and shifts into his proper dragon form part way through, landing with a thud that makes the mountains tremble.
A mistake. His dragon form is graceful in the water, but slower on land, and the lake is damnably far away—
Divitiae walks over to him and plunges the bi-dent into his gut. It is unimaginably painful. Everyone in the village can feel it, even Divitiae. Dragon violence never got this far, but this is when it stopped, when the pain surged through the victim’s body and then the perpetrator’s.
If Divitiae felt like he was being skewered just then, he certainly wasn’t showing it. He frowned for only a moment, then put all his strength into levering the shaft of the spear, scooping Pinguis up over his head and splattering the village with his blood.
Divitiae widened his stance, then, with a gesture that was almost trivial, flung Pinguis off the bi-dent and over the mountains, the speck of him disintegrating over the horizon.
The villagers, wracked with pain, covered with their Patriarch’s blood, stared. They stared at the sky where Pinguis disappeared, they stared at the still-calm Divitiae, they stared at the weapon in his hand, and they stared at Prifma, who stared right back.
Divitiae glanced at the ground, then sniffed and rubbed his nose again.
“Um, he’s not mortally wounded or anything,” he said, as if that made anything okay. “He’ll do one full rotation around the planet, then splash down in the lake by tomorrow morning.”
Everyone stared at him, their expressions complex. He wouldn’t be saying anything if he didn’t feel something. And that feeling wasn’t regret, really. Perhaps he shouldn’t have done that, should’ve found a healthier way to express his feelings, but he would also do it again in a heartbeat. They infused his feelings with their own and reflected them back at him—comforted, chastised, mocked, and interrogated him all in turn.
Divitiae’s face felt hot, and he felt a headache coming on.
“Have some medics ready, I guess,” he murmured to the ground, unable to face them any longer even as they were all beginning to recover.
It was embarrassing being this vulnerable in the wake of such a terrible thing, having a village full of psychologists picking at his insecurities and inner turmoil.
“I believe that should be your job.”
Prifma placed a firm hand on his shoulder, and Divitiae resolutely looked away. He could not face him right now, and he didn’t want to get sucked into his mind again either. He certainly needed to accept the consequences of his actions, but he couldn’t bear seeing the disappointment on Prifma’s face, not now—
Prifma sighed, interrupting his thoughts. And Divitiae had heard this noise before. He knew this particular sigh. Prifma had been making this noise all week whenever he saw Divitiae diligently building the travel house, whenever someone brought him new dye samples, whenever Deliciae did anything even remotely charming.
Divitiae’s breath caught in his throat as he allowed himself the gentlest of prods into Prifma’s psyche—
Prifma pinched his earlobe. Divitiae flinched, but he still kept his gaze firmly pointed away.
“While I wish you would have just joined our conversation…”
Prifma leaned in so that his lips could brush the shell of Divitiae’s ear.
“I think I like this side of you much more,” he purred.
A frisson of delight ran down Divitiae’s back.
Divitiae sighed and ran a hand down his face.
It was morning. Again. The sun shone through gauzy, finely woven curtains, covering everything in a soft light. The colors were muted, and everything was still, frozen in time.
Divitiae had all of three minutes to get his thoughts together before Prifma woke up. Again.
Three minutes was more than enough for any dragon, but Prifma was a master at making his ownership clear, even when he was asleep. He had one arm wrapped possessively around Divitiae’s torso—as if Divitiae wasn’t insecure about being tiny already—and he was using Divitiae’s shoulder as a pillow. He didn’t imagine that would be comfortable for the older god, but it kept his bad eye out of Divitiae’s view.
Divitiae did a lot of things to that socket, and he didn’t like to recall them in the light of day.
He couldn’t say that he was unhappy. He was vaguely aware that Prifma had needs, but being taken back to the Palatium for a 7-day-and-counting fuck session was not how he personally would start a new relationship. Even Triticum bought Iustitia dinner first.
And while it was certainly gratifying, all the moments that weren’t spent fucking just made Divitiae feel more insecure. They could fuck all they liked, but that didn’t change the fact that Divitiae contributed the least to Domum out of all his siblings. There must be something he could do beyond being Prifma’s living dildo.
The door opened suddenly, pulling Divitiae from his thoughts.
Deliciae walked in, eyes on the bookshelf in the corner, but his eyes landed on the dragon-killing spear, still slick with Prifma’s…fluids, then darted over to where Divitiae and Prifma were cuddled up. In Prifma’s bed. Naked.
Deliciae’s eyes widened. Divitiae motioned for him to be silent. He was lucky that no one had seen Prifma dragging him up here, but the last thing he wanted was the news being spread by the fucking family dog.
Deliciae gave him a wink and a thumbs up, then silently shut the door behind him and slunk over to the bookcase. Divitiae sighed internally. All the books over there were impenetrably dense reference texts, because that was what Prifma liked to read when he wasn’t getting his back blown out.
Even the dog had more on his plate than Divitiae did.
While Divitiae wallows in his filial failure, Deliciae turns back mid-research and eyes the spear leaning on the wall. Divitiae wished he wouldn’t. It was already tainted by the blood of the Patriarch, but thanks to Prifma it was just…tainted.
Though now that he was looking at it in the light, he was a little impressed with himself. It was a terrible tool of destruction, yes, but it was well-carved from quality wood and it felt great in his hands.
It was amazing what one could create when they were overcome with emotion, but Divitiae wouldn’t downplay his own work like that. Instrumenta could carve and make things, but comfort was the last thing on his mind. Even the toys he started making looked dangerous, though the God-eaters were truly patrons of Prifma in that they both loved shoving terrifying things into their bodies.
Maybe Divitiae should, you know, weigh in on that front. It would be a good first step, he supposed. Instrumenta was one of the nicer demons, and the sex toy business was just one of his little ventures for filling up Death Street. He probably wouldn’t be offended if Divitiae offered his opinion.
Mind made up, Divitiae sat up in bed and reached for his clothes. Prifma, still sleeping, tightened his grip, forcing Divitiae to drag him along—
The bed creaked dangerously. One of the wooden supports broke with a snap and they fell to the ground with a thud. As Divitiae and Deliciae struggled to process what happened, Prifma yawned, and rolled onto his back.
“Mm. Did I do that?” he said, knowing full well that he did.
He propped his head up one hand and smiled at Divitiae, who was still awkwardly reaching for his clothes.
“If only there was a young, hung, handsome young man who was as good at carving as he was at making sure everyone was comfortable and happy during family dinner night. If only there was an empty lot at the end of Death Street where such a young man could start some sort of emporium that made high-quality furniture. If only.”
Divitiae’s face felt hot. “Right. If only.”
“It’s a shame really. If some handsome young man were to do that, then my bed would be so cold and lonely.”
Divitiae finished dressing and walked over to the other side of the room where Deliciae was pretending to not be involved. He politely took the book out of the family dog’s hands and set it back on the shelf, then took Deliciae’s hand and led him back to the broken bed where Prifma was lying.
Divitiae nervously cleared his throat.
“I…just want to prove that I’m worth keeping around here.”
“You are worth keeping around,” Prifma said. “But I’m not going to stop you from testing your limits. Here, boy.”
Deliciae flopped into Prifma’s lap and Prifma immediately reached under his mop of hair with a sigh.
“Muzzle off. A certain young man has reminded me that I’ve been neglecting my affairs, so let’s get this over with.”
Divitiae mouthed a ‘thank you’ to both of them, and shut the door behind him.