Chimera Fields Roast Mutton

Mal would never miss a chance to badmouth the ones he deemed the witches of Elysium.  Hell, as he went through it, he'd probably wonder if this all had been their plan all along.  He wouldn't put it past them, and the longer he was away from them, the more he could speculate in safety without worrying about them coming after him.  It was also gratifying to have someone actually agreeing that it was wrong, which would have mollified him except he wasn't exactly tantruming away at the moment.  So uh, he'd just be his normal prickly Mal self?  Aside from that slight upward tilt of his head from her affirmation, which was something he would quite greedily devour if he could.

Of course, Mal's take on things wasn't always 100% correct, but it was apparently close enough that nobody had ever bothered to correct him about any of it. But he couldn't talk without being sour about it all, Well, some of them? Two women showed up with their kids, then my mom disappeared.  Everything went downhill from there -- they didn't care when my sisters went missing, moved the pack when my dad was looking for them... If I told their kids no to stuff, I was being bad.  My dad stopped teaching us stuff like a year ago.  Though they were about the same age, he wasn't being too hyperbolic about the dates.  Probably.  But when he became their mate I was so done.  They couldn't even keep my remaining sister safe when I was looking for a new home for us -- she was gone when I got back.  Cliffnotes version.  It was unlikely that their family would have been postcard perfect even if everyone had stuck around, but so far Mal's luck had been pretty much a joke. And depending when this thread actually is in time, there's also the fact Delight might be actually dead instead of just "dead to Mal" but that's a whole different thing that by now would be lesser to the giant chip on his shoulder of every grievance that had never been atoned for.  Lily had kind of realized her errs, Okeanos had seen them and agreed with him -- but what about the rest of that damn pack?