TRIGGER WARNING for eating disorders, unsupportive attitudes to such held by friends and family, implied generally abusive parenting, and suicidal ideation.
starving snakes devour own hearts
Long ago his people taught him 'take only what you have earned', and that always included food. Nourishment was a privilege, never a right. The fact that they're all gone now doesn't mean he can stop believing that; if anything, it's the opposite. After all, it's his fault they're dead.
So when he can force himself to eat, now, it's when he can convince himself that the calculus works out in his favour; that he's done something good enough to allow him a few morsels, even weighed against his huge culpability.
When Leo or the Lady Jade offer him food, he deflects by claiming that he isn't hungry. It's very nearly true. His belly is almost always empty, but he's not sure anymore how to feel that, let alone recognise it as imperative.
(It doesn't fool them. Leo and the Lady aren't stupid. They can see how thin he's gotten. He knows they know. He knows they're worried.
But they're not Serpents; they don't understand. So they express their worry by shouting and snapping and lecturing, by heaping on guilt-trips, telling him he's doing wrong by starving himself, being irresponsible, hurting them. And that doesn't help at all. It just makes it even harder to choke anything down.)
Eventually, nauseous with shame and steeped in misery, seeing no other way out, he puts an end to himself the only way he can think of that won't take the world with him. He curls in on himself and forgets, dreams himself small and mortal, guiltless, ordinary. A human child, who might—admittedly—be in possession of a Marvellous Wish-Granting Engine, but nevertheless could not possibly be a god who by the foolish desires of a child destroyed his people, his parent, and their world.
...It's a funny thing about the Engine, though. It'll do all manner of impossible things easily, but there's one very simple kind of wish that never comes out right.
Fill: Chuubo's Marvellous Wish-Granting Engine, Chuubo
starving snakes devour own hearts
Long ago his people taught him 'take only what you have earned', and that always included food. Nourishment was a privilege, never a right. The fact that they're all gone now doesn't mean he can stop believing that; if anything, it's the opposite. After all, it's his fault they're dead.
So when he can force himself to eat, now, it's when he can convince himself that the calculus works out in his favour; that he's done something good enough to allow him a few morsels, even weighed against his huge culpability.
When Leo or the Lady Jade offer him food, he deflects by claiming that he isn't hungry. It's very nearly true. His belly is almost always empty, but he's not sure anymore how to feel that, let alone recognise it as imperative.
(It doesn't fool them. Leo and the Lady aren't stupid. They can see how thin he's gotten. He knows they know. He knows they're worried.
But they're not Serpents; they don't understand. So they express their worry by shouting and snapping and lecturing, by heaping on guilt-trips, telling him he's doing wrong by starving himself, being irresponsible, hurting them. And that doesn't help at all. It just makes it even harder to choke anything down.)
Eventually, nauseous with shame and steeped in misery, seeing no other way out, he puts an end to himself the only way he can think of that won't take the world with him. He curls in on himself and forgets, dreams himself small and mortal, guiltless, ordinary. A human child, who might—admittedly—be in possession of a Marvellous Wish-Granting Engine, but nevertheless could not possibly be a god who by the foolish desires of a child destroyed his people, his parent, and their world.
...It's a funny thing about the Engine, though. It'll do all manner of impossible things easily, but there's one very simple kind of wish that never comes out right.
Wish for food and the Engine digs in its heels.
"You can't have an ice cream and eat it, right?
"Everyone knows that."