Serpents In My Mind

He straightened slightly at her question, a faint smile touching his lips. “In all honesty until I came to Ruina I didn’t know who my father was.” He explained calmly. “I was born in Abaven; a pack east of here, and I was raised as a bastard.” He took in a deep breath then and let it out slowly as he remembered his childhood. “I hated it there, I never fit in, and from the beginning I was told that I would be nothing but a bastard.” He shook his head and sat reposed, while the cobra’s lifted head watched him from below.

The man’s eyes steeled then, filled with the same fire and determination that had fueled him for so long. “I left when I was a year old, and started my own pack, but I was young and ignorant to the ways of a pack. My people were undisciplined, and my laws were often broken.”  He said, careful to avoid telling the girl that many of those laws had been broken by himself as well. “I began to have nightmares, where I was tormented by Abaven’s former leader, eventually they became too much and…” He let the admission hang in the air between them, glancing at the girl to gauge her reaction. “And I left. I abandoned them, too tormented to lead and too cowardly to admit it. I went searching for my destiny, nearly killed myself in the process.” He smiled openly then “Imagine my surprise when I returned and found my destiny here waiting for me.”