Supposedly, a person's life flashed before their eyes as they died. This was the case with King Zog as he struggled to breathe inside the coffin. Most of those flashes involved his children, but mostly Bean.
Zog had flashbacks to Bean at various points in her childhood, such as all of the times she had grabbed onto his nose. When Bean was three, she had grabbed her father's nose yet again, and Zog said, "Just for that, I'm gonna get your nose!" He grabbed Bean's nose, then as he pulled his fist away, he stuck his thumb out from between his fingers. "See, I got your nose!"
Bean gave him a bored, annoyed look.
"No, Daddy, that's not my nose. That's your thumb."
"I guess there's no foolin' ya, huh, Beanie?" Zog said, and he affectionately tussled her hair.
"Nope!" Bean said proudly.
Bean was a smart, bold kid, and Zog thought she would have grown into a strong king had she been a boy. Derek was the complete opposite of his sister: timid and not terribly clever. Zog had once tried the "got your nose" thing with Derek when he was little, and Derek screamed his head off because he thought Zog had really taken off his nose. According to Oona, Dankmirians could lose their noses and other body parts, but they could also grow them back. Bean had said, "Oh yeah, like how a lizard can regrow its tail after I-I mean, somebody-cuts it off."
Zog found that remark funny, but Oona hadn't.
Then there had been a time when Derek was seven, and he had run into his parents' bedchamber screaming his head off.
Oona, dangling from the rafters like a bat, woke up and turned herself right-side up. She had asked, "Derek, what is wrong?" while Zog grumbled about Derek waking him up.
"There's a fly in my room, Mommy!" Derek wailed, clutching his Mr Bear.
Zog could recall grumbling, "Aw, fer cryin' out loud" and a few other, more profane things.
To placate Derek, Zog had the guards catch the fly in a jar, and then he had made Stan "execute" the fly with a flyswatter. Zog knew the kid would never survive in the real world if he was afraid of flies, so he wrote that message in the book of the royal family history and put in under Derek's mattress. He knew Derek would find the book eventually, and with luck, it would help him learn to toughen up.
Honestly, though, Zog had once been a lot like Derek: an awkward, anxious second-born child who liked to hide under his bed when he was afraid.
That was part of the reason why Zog hadn't been very nice to his son, because Derek reminded him of everything Zog had hated about himself when he was young.
Darkness all around him, little air left, and a weak chance of ever seeing his children again. It was more than enough to make the king's mind snap. He saw a vision of a toddler Bean, crying out for her Daddy in her adult voice: "Daddy...where are you?"
Little did Zog know that his Beanie was really calling for him at that moment.
