She bows to me, head lowered and body quaking ever so gently (I do not know it is because she holds in a cough, a resistance to her health that cursed her in the womb). My ego swells beyond my grasp, a vast mass of my pride and arrogance that I cannot contain for long— that seeing even this younger child bow before me is enough to make a smile flicker over my previously lax features. My chest ever so slightly puffs out, broadening my shoulders and straightening my posture to accept my role as the superior.

Perhaps her parents had taught her that she was supposed to respect me like this, to bow before someone who was of a higher power— who was beyond her scale of ranking, who traversed such a dismal order and went beyond it. We were on entirely separate levels, she was so far behind me that I need not worry of her ever taking my position as king, because she would never reach it.

And as soon as I had begun to enjoy the idea of her accepting my dominance, my excellence, my prestigious equine heritage that brought me to the lead before she even had a chance to line up. Yet she tells me very blatantly that she is in fact not inferior to me, and that makes me want to laugh in her face for even trying to step off the path that she was set to run before she was born— when she took from her parents their horns, and grew from her brow her sign of weakness. It was then she was set on this course, ushered to drag along her heels while those without extra appendages and horns freely strode along at whatever pace they pleased. This is our game after all, where we set the pace— and they have no choice but to follow at a rate that will never get them any closer to winning.

"I don't believe that you fought off your attacker— you probably had your mommy fight it off." I almost added mockingly, 'she probably only did it because she didn't want a child's blood on her hands.' But that was unspeakably cruel, and as much as I would like to crush her where she stands, I couldn't bring myself to play such a foul joke. So my lips remained sealed.

Children would only cry, after all— not protest or demand forgiveness. They would not pose a challenge or a threat— they would weep simply because their idol, their own mother had been insulted.

I would not weep, not even a twinge of defensive need arose when she attempted an insult at Mother. Despite my conditioned love for the woman whose womb I originated in, I could not love her more— I could not defend her honour when it is hers to defend. It is not my place— even as the son— to do what she is supposed to. So I simply stand, watching the sooty features of the child turn into pitiful rage, an anger simply because I poked fun at her mother. This amused me, watching her face sour at my remark. "Why do you defend your mother like this?" I ask her, looking down upon the rage red mask with utmost pride, that my words sparked such an amusing reaction from a babe who was even younger than the body by her side.

"Well then I would be dead." I tell her matter-of-factly, looking upon her with a raised brow. And if that didn't kill me, the pain of having my essential organs torn from the cavity in which they belong certainly would. Her insult sails over my head (if it could even be called such), completely ignored because it was so impossibly weak, even a newborn (isn't that what she is?) could create a better come back than that. "Yes, and so would you." I confirm, knowing full well that it's true. If either died, we would rot and become just that— smelly, gross carcasses for scavengers to tear apart when their stomachs rumble and their eyes sharpen with a trivial need to survive. That is a fate I could accept, so long as my body is shielded from curious children (like this one), who might have their companions engorge on my entrails, or poke fun at my decomposing tissue with gruesome glee in their beady eyes (almost like vultures).

"Talk."

kid