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It wasn't as if he forgot.
One doesn’t just forget these things. Red Son remembers it every time he catches a glimpse of his reflection without his jacket. Every time his hair falls down just a centimetre in the wrong direction to re-contextualize his face. He got it from the bull clones occasionally- though the look of terror at their mistake was enough to soothe the insult; and so many filthy, idiotic, blind peasants got it wrong that he’d learned not to care whenever he had to interact with them.
But the people who weren’t worthless robots or peasants remembered. ‘People’ consisting in the singular- his mother saw fit to remember. Flawlessly in fact, she didn’t slip up even once since he’d voiced the preference. Princess Iron Fan could never be wrong about anything, much less her child.
Her son, thank you very much.
So it stood to reason that Red Son’s father, the mighty Demon Bull King, wouldn’t forget. Red Son had been young when they… parted, but he remembered him. The way the earth shook. The way the world seemed just a little darker with him in it. The sheer power of the Demon Bull King even an infant could understand. He was perhaps the only demon on his mother’s level, one of the few beings that wasn’t so pathetically beneath Red Son as to get it wrong.
But as Red Son cheered the rising of his father a brief thought occurred to him- perfect or not, the Demon Bull King simply might not know .
Red Son saw it in the dismissive look that passed over him, recognition only for his wife. DBK’s daughter didn’t seem to be in the room- which probably wasn’t too concerning for him. Why would he associate this random young demon with the little girl he’d left some 300 years ago? I-it wasn’t a big deal- he wasn’t wrong or even unaccepting- he- he just didn’t know! It was a piece of information he wasn’t privy to- something that could easily be remedied in a moment. Red son was okay with that- it was fine if he just didn’t know.
...But it did mean he’d need to tell him.
Panic welled unaccustomed in Red Son’s throat- he hadn’t felt genuine fear for decades and yet there it was freezing his insides. This wasn’t the right time to get into this- there was so much else they had to prepare for- Red Son should have seen this part coming- should have known that his father couldn’t exactly receive updates from beneath a mountain.
“Demon Bull King, how I’ve missed you!”
His mother held all of his father’s attention. No one else in the room could possibly matter- no one else DBK recognized.
“Princess Iron Fan, the years have been kind…”
The low rumble was a comfort in Red Son’s memories, a voice that could make the heavens quiver with fear. Old words he half remembered gave a younger version of himself some peace of mind. Some semblance of protection. But now that voice had a person behind it- a person who could see him, judge him, a person who didn’t know what he was.
“...how did you free me?”
Red Son’s head shot up at the question, breaking him from his trance. That he could answer!
“Actually,” he slid out from behind his mother before she could get a word in, “It was I, father.”
Emphasis on 'father'. The words were tumbling out before he could stop them. He had no reason to be concerned- his father just had to be caught up! Surely someone as great as the Demon Bull King could catch on quickly- he just had to focus on what was important.
“I moved the staff!” he puffed out his chest, tried to embody the pride and elegance of their family, “I learned how to harness it!” Only he, the Demon Bull King’s own child, could have done it, surely- “I made its power…”
There was a thud, a shadow that fell over him.
300 years was a long time, the decade or so it took to transition had flown by along with all the voice cracks and awkward stages it came with. But the gleam in the Demon Bull King’s glare made Red Son feel small again, smaller even than his mother could make him feel. Smaller than the Bull Clones. Than any demon.
As if he wasn’t one of ‘us’.
“...Our...power...” he squeaked, hating how high his voice went.
Surely mother would intervene if it came to violence, but the glare suggested something so much worse than physical harm. He didn’t want to watch an argument, to need his mother to convince the Demon Bull King that he was family. Red Son wanted to belong intrinsically, he wanted this to be something they didn't even have to discuss. They had a world to conquer, so many plans and expectations and hopes that couldn’t just be thrown away because-
“...Excellent.”
It was difficult to discern what exactly the Demon Bull King was thinking, whether he smiled in recognition or acceptance of this new stranger. But Red Son would take it! Relief and joy flooded through him, the adrenaline washing away his fear of before. He hefted the staff over his head.
“Now, together, we,” Emphasis on the 'we', “The Demon Bull Family will plunge the world into eternal darkness!”
It was truly his moment of triumph. The… awkward conversion didn’t matter. His father was no idiot- it didn’t even need to be explained surely. They had more important things to-
And then he was on the floor, something heavy and infuriating and moment-ruining and stupid crushing him.
Red Son snapped. Like a spring loaded with anxiety and frustration, he was about ready to murder whatever roadblock stood in his way now. It was a farce that followed, a series of humiliations that didn’t do well to assuage his concerns. By the end of it Red Son almost wished his father didn’t recognize him, it had to be about the worst way to come out to one’s parents ever conceived.
They didn’t talk about it. The ajna was still there from his childhood and the flames were a giveaway. Only an idiot wouldn’t be able to connect the dots after the excitement died down. And the DBK wasn’t an idiot.
...but they didn’t talk about it.
It should have made Red Son feel better not to talk about it. He could sometimes overhear his father referring to him as ‘the boy’ which bode well. But he also didn’t call him ‘son’. Not in the way he’d used to call him ‘daughter,’ anyway. The Demon Bull King- the D. B. K. was never affectionate. He didn’t know the meaning of the word, none of them did, they were better than that!
...But he used to call Red ‘daughter.’ Used to let him climb up his fur. Used to acknowledge the connection. He hadn’t done that yet- and they still didn’t talk about it.
Because Demons didn’t talk about things. That… that was for filthy peasants who always got it wrong and the Demon Bull Family never got things wrong. They didn’t talk about it because they didn’t need to. His father was aloof because he was never affectionate in the first place, and he might not say the word ‘son’ but at least he didn’t say daughter because that would be wrong.
His father, the Demon Bull King, couldn’t be wrong.
“I, Red Son,” Emphasis on the ‘son’, “Have come up with an ingenious armor to make you even more powerful than you were before!”
Acknowledgement would come in conquest. That was how these things worked- he wasn’t a calf clinging to scruff anymore. There had been a minor setback, an awkward introduction to the long and prosperous dynasty they had ahead of them. Once that Noodle Boy was a stain on the concrete and the staff was theirs everything would be right and his father would be the Demon Bull King just as he would be the Red Son.
...Emphasis on the ‘son.’