Will you smile?

She swiped at his tongue and he quickly retracted with a loud ‘slurp’ sound, a goofy grin showing on his dark features. The boy, in front of those he didn’t know, was quite stoic and serious, his dark and demonic image adding to this, but with his family he was a normal kid. He liked to play around with his littermates and make jokes, even if he couldn’t verbalize them. They all seemed to understand him, though, and he never had trouble getting his point across. It was a part of the reason he loved them so much. With them, he wasn’t a weird, mute anomaly (well, to everyone except his father, perhaps).

Kit said she was glad to see him looking better and a pang of guilt squeezed his chest, but he did his best to push it away. He felt bad enough that he’d worried his family and had been out of commission for so long. He had a lot of catching up to do, but he was determined to prove himself still fit for the Abraxas name. She asked if he’d been training and if he’d show her some moves later and he gave a firm nod. His siblings knew he’d do anything they asked of him within his ability. Anything they wanted, they’d have.

Finally, the flame licked girl removed her paw from her trinket to reveal it to him. He blinked his glowing red gaze in surprise, a warmth spreading within him when she said it was a gift to him she’d made herself. It was a patchwork of solid, dark scales, not necessarily as sturdy as the ones that laid on his body, but still protective all the same. It was laid in a strip, with two protruding pieces at the top to shape it like a curved ‘T’ where it would likely secure snuggly to the base of his horns, slip between them, then provide extra protection toward the base of his skull.

The large, bioluminescent boy leaned over to place a big, slobbery kiss to his sibling’s cheek, and when he pulled away, his eyes conveyed the great thanks he felt. He was so lucky to have such an awesome sister. Then, Take lowered his head to allow his smaller sibling easy access to the top of his skull to put it in place.