I hold a different face for every person I meet. Smiles peel from sneers and earnestness sheds into timidity. I glide from person to person, none knowing the fangs I bare. If they do, it would be their last. 

My sniveling father fears me, I can tell. His eyes bulge and his feet patter across the wood as soon as I enter, darting away. It is the natural order of things, I feel. He is small and aged, I am long and young. This house was meant for me, and now it is mine.

My mother, comparatively, is far more dangerous. My nose wrinkles in her presence, her wallowing obvious. Empty dishes and rotted food litter her abode, and were I not as lithe the clutter might have obstructed me. Still, there is a deftness to her speech, a spark in her eyes. I wonder how much of her is a veneer of foolishness, and how much is her unbridled self.

My partner, on the other hand, was a most difficult prey to acquire. They were meatier than my usual meals, and their horns, though dulled, proved a challenge. At the end of the day, it was only a single lapse in their judgment that allowed for my interjection in their lives. Knee deep and their vision obscured, I struck. 

They were certainly more of a challenge than my previous fling. They hobbled and hopped about, and it was all too easy to lie in wait, lunging once they were vulnerable. 

My current partner, as exhilarating as it was to tame them, did not come without any headaches. Their father, for one, is someone to be wary of. The small chain I manage is but a subsidiary of his company. Relations are strained as is, after my marriage. They call him the king of his little jungle, but at the end of the day he is but another cog in a larger plan. 

Weak as he is, his brother-in-law holds a more real power. His family say fate cursed him with gangly limbs and an over-abundance of body hair, but his blood runs thick, and his mind is perhaps the sharpest of any among them.

His sister, on the other hand, seems to have been given the opposite hand of fate. Blessed with a strong body and a thick skin, she is perfect for headstrong negotiations requiring a firm hand. However, much to the family’s chagrin, her tendency to charge into any situation with little regard to collateral or niceties leaves something to be desired.

Their partners complement them perfectly, though, serving to fill their cracks. The sister’s husband is patient and leal, always ready to serve and do what needs to be done, even if he is rather simple. Many remark he is more like her best friend than her husband.

The brother’s wife, on the other hand, is almost majestic. Her mane of hair is beautiful and thick, a contrast to his stringy and haphazard growths. She enters first, taking the breaths of all within, and is a permanent fixture at his side. She leaves them pliable and stuttered, weak to his cunning.

It is a shame their son did not inherit much from either of them. Not the majesty of his mother nor the wit of his father. Despite their best efforts he could do little more than bob his head to and fro, looking from maneuver to conversation in complete incomprehension.

None of that matters, however. Petty things like the line of succession matter little to a family like theirs. Even though the father is their head on paper, all know that the true power lies with the grandmother. She is old, more than any knows for certain, and though her bited words and breaths of consternation have slowed, they are no less deadly. She looms over the entirety of their house, guarding and keeping watch over them as if they were treasures and not people. 

Distant as it is, I am also under her purview now. It goes against my very nature to bow. My instincts tell me to retreat, to lunge, or to hide. 

But what am I to do?

What is a snake to a dragon?