Chapter five: Kazzy
It had been sickening at first; the way Takinom loved the child as though he were her own. But Chaor owed Kaz, and the least he could do was let such a loyal Underworlder occasionally visit her when she wasn't too busy. Chaor knew the nerdy, useless human hadn't really been sneaking into the throne room to see her, but it was a nice cover up and she fell for it. It wasn't long before she had taken another child under her batwings. She would have adopted him if he was really an Underworlder, but thankfully the boy was just a helpless human who wouldn't be anything more than a distraction.
Chaor couldn't help but wonder why the human risked his life to spy on him. Why didn't he just tap into somebody's head with that stupid scanner? More importantly, why couldn't Chaor bring himself to break it when he had the chance? What made the boy so hard to love? Chaor thought about it a few times before realizing how highly he thought of the humans. They were helpless, yet they played in Perim all the time, seemingly unaware of the dangers. But this human didn't just go to the Undreworld to play. Kaz was loyal to Chaor, and over time Chaor accepted that. Once, when he thought nobody was looking, Chaor let the kid scan him. Takinom never forgot about it.
Takinom wanted so badly to just take his scanner and brake it, trapping him in her world forever so that she could take him home with her and raise him as her own. When she told Chaor about her idea, he told her what he thought. It wasn't what she expected.
"Why can't I take my Kazzy home with me?" She screamed at him, tear rolling down her cheeks.
"Because Kazzy isn't yours." Chaor yelled back at her, making sure to add plenty of ridicule to the pet name she had given her 'son' "Kaz is human and needs to stay with the other humans. Nobody knows enough about them to raise one of them. They can't eat all the things we can, and we can't handle the things they eat. You remember what happened to that one guard, don't you?"
"That one who ate chocolate." Takinom crossed her arms, holding herself tightly as she thought about the timing. Word hadn't gotten around to the humans yet that chocolate was poison to creatures, so Kaz offered her some. Agitos wasn't happy about it, but Chaor and Takinom shut him up.
That conversation didn't made Takinom love Kaz any less, but she wasn't so bent on raising him after that. Chaor was another story. That was when he started to see just how much he cared for Kaz. He even mockingly used the name Takinom had given the human, but nobody, no matter what their tribe, could ever bring the ruthless leader of the Underworld to hate the boy. Because that was his boy.
That was their Kazzy.