Word Count → 240 :: Out of Character text
It had not occurred to Ataxia to feed her serpent the bodies of newborn pups. Although she was raised in Salsola, a place which many outsiders considered dark or dangerous, she was still young and not yet jaded enough to approve of the idea. Even if it was the offspring of an enemy, she would have found more use out of raising a pup to a life of slavery than feeding it to her snake. Mice and rabbits were plentiful, after all, and far less useful than alive than luperci were.
Because that idea wasn't in her mind, she didn't catch her cousin's concern when she looked at the snake; Ataxia thought it was simple curiosity and paid little attention to it. Her eyes fell instead to the pale creature in her cousin's arms. "Ankh. An interesting name; did you or your mate think of it?" She had an urge to pet him as if he were a cat - but thought better of it. Some mothers were protective of their young, and perhaps Odessa wouldn't like that - blood relation or no. She kept her distance, content to look and gauge the boy's health from here.
A stray thought made her consider what it might be like when she had offspring of her own, and whether they would be as healthy as Odessa's child, but the young hybrid dismissed it; she wasn't going to have children any time soon.
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