Wheeling Gull Isle wordlessly watching, he waits by the window

pleased that she had not turned him away, ramesses settled a comfortable distance nearby. he was not unaware of how her alabaster frame seemed to grow.
there was indeed something different in maegi this day, and others past, but because it did not concern pharaoh he did not care to learn the why of it. she had mentioned a mate. children. he had sought to remove her from his royal favor, but like a burr she had clung inside him.
now he parted his lips to answer, domesticated, self-loathing, scrambling for the edges of his pride.
"they are black and gold. they live and die beneath the sun. a single bite may kill a wolf in five steps." he warmed to tales of it, remembering lotus blooming upon the water as obsidian coils warmed themselves along the shoreline.
"one has a great hood he opens behind his head; he hisses and warns others not to come near. his bite too; it makes the heart heavy and that is how one dies. a third moves only under the cover of night, stealing life before one has the chance to know their fate. i have a great reverence for serpents."
a musing pause.
"have you ever seen life taken with poisons, maegi?"