Chapter Text
Fickle. Merciless. Sly.
Words often used to describe her. Terra never really understood why, but now, looking at her husband holding their third son, she understands.
Terra is a bad, bad woman. She didn't really even hesitate to marry him even after watching him murder his own brothers. Rather, she had found it attractive, that a man could care so little yet so much.
She mattered to him bcause of her usefulness, and that's what made her trust him. But now, she can feel that attachement flickering like a candle flame.
She's fickle in a way no one else but her dear father ever understood.
Terra attached importance to something based on how much they value her, and the more they love her the less important she finds them.
Zeno had not loved Terra, no, he proposed because Terra was strong, and had a suitable background. A princess of the nasty variety her father had called her.
But now, with 3 kids and 7 long years of marriage, Terra knows Zeno has fallen.
His shield was a strong one, and one that took her nearly a decade to erode.
Now though, all she sees is a man in love and unless he proves to her that he is still capable of killing her without an ounce of hesitation in a blink of an eye, Terra sees no value in staying with him anymore.
3 sons. The second born with mellow platinum silver of Zeno and the other two with Terra's murky brown.
She can feel her grandfather-in-law's eyes fall upon her figure, and they both know that she will not see this one grow up.
Zelsi, Silva, Valjo.
She bore 3 sons and that is enough. Valjo is already an extra, only born because Terra hadn't been done unraveling the covering of Zeno's heart.
Maha Zoldyck looks at her and knows his grandson has fallen for her long, cruel game.
If there had been a need for a 4th child, she doesn't know what he would have been named. This string of names had always been planned for 3 and no more. Maybe Jolyn would have fit if the 4th would have been a daughter.
But daughters are so very rare for the Zoldycks.
Terra stares, unmoving still at bed, the exhaustion of the labor pulling at her eyelids and her limbs, bringing her closer to unconciousness.
She thinks, gazing upon the brown hair of her third, that this one won't live well.
Perhaps it would be considered a kindness to kill him now. Perhaps giving birth to him and bringing him to this world, having him born in this family, is the most cruel thing she could have done.
Zelsi is 6 this year, she thinks. Silva turned 4.
Married at 18. Now 25, with 7 years spent in this house, Terra feels right at home.
If she slipped away during the night would her kids understand? Likely not, her eldest is a frightfully precocious and clingy child even now at 6 years old. He never truly understood what it meant when his little brother was born silver haired, made of platinum and silk woven from stars and fate.
So much jealousy, so much envy. The games of little children are often the most cruel, naive and innocent as they are. When one doesn't truly understand the repercussions of their actions, horrendous actions don't really feel all that horrendous at all.
Well, if Silva can't take what Zelsi throws at him, was he truly a child of silver and stars? Who knows, maybe her eldest will wisen up sometime in the future to his role.
This child though, Valjo, wasn't really born with a permanent role. A general one, absolutely, as all Zoldyck children are born and bred assassins with no choice in the matter, but not a specified one as his older brothers.
But really, this youngest likely wouldn't grow up loved or happy at all.
Terra smiles, her exhaustion finally making her eyes slip shut, the small cries of Valjo being drowned out by the fuzziness in her head.
Would he be resented by his siblings, she wondered, if she dissapeared without a trace? Would her straightforward husband resent this child he was looking at with such love just now?
Terra chuckles, her half delirous mind shutting down and melting her plans with them.
She falls asleep.