It was fascinating, watching the venom take hold on the newly hatched calf. His fearful response due to pain shifting quickly to euphoria.
Doru's claws were coated in blood faintly, and he brought golden claws near his mouth and licked the blood off of it, almost idly at first. While Doru was an omnivore technically, there had always been a great appeal to blood, so he preferred hunting over anything else.
But he had never tasted blood of a greater gembound. It was fascinating, thinking that this blood had come from a speaking being, had been part of the life that still existed before him. Doru wanted
more.
He barely resisted his instincts telling him to lunge once more. Doru was a being of logic and whims both, but he was not so weak as to give into base instincts.
"I taught you a lesson," he stated, a slight tremble to his own voice that the calf likely could not detect in his current state of euphoria.
"About listening, and about power, too, I suppose."
He considered the calf, a hungry glint in his purple gaze.
"I suppose if you'll listen this time, I might as well answer you. This is not magic. This is a venom unique to me," he told the truth, only to partially lie at the end. In truth, his parent Erasmus shared this same venom capability.
And perhaps Doru's child or children would have it as well, one day.
But for now, Doru wished the calf to think he was the only source of such a venom.
@September
Doru had a sense of pride, he realized, one that was easily aggravated. And this calf was good at pushing his buttons, much to the other’s misfortune.
He was aware enough to recognize the hiss as aggressive, and the stance as dangerous. And so, as the calf charged, he attempted to kick up some of the softer ground, sand or dirt, to get in the other’s eyes and stop him in his place.
The sand itself worked, disorienting the drugged calf enough that the fresh gembound only grazed him. But it seared against his scales, and he hissed, wings springing open and taking him to the air even as his side continued to burn.
”A lesson on what? I insulted you by assuming you defenseless, and you attacked first. I tried to teach you. You insulted me by ignoring me, so I attacked. And now you’re insulted by my attack. An endless cycle,” his voice was a harsh growl.
”You will learn nothing, and be nothing,” Doru proclaims, taking up higher into the air of the cave.
@September
The child was throwing a tantrum at this point, and Doru's lips lifted at a sneer. His words weren't even articulate, let alone worth responding to. Still, a part of him was glad that he hadn't told the child his name, because he had clearly made an enemy today.
Suddenly, he could sense a shift of the winds, air creature he was, and Doru realized the child's magic was sending a blast his way. He attempted to dodge away, not wishing to be caught up in strange magical air currents.
What an annoyance. He dodged with a drift in the sky, not overly hard when there was a blinded child throwing a tantrum, and he was glad, because the wind that went past seemed decently powerful.
There was no reason to stay now, nor even attempt to reason with the child, whatever his name was.
Doru was done with this.
[Exit Doru]
@September