🐉🌸♀️'s baby, who barely knows how to speak, suddenly runs to papa, crying.
🐉, carrying him: "What is the matter? Why are you crying?"
🍼: "Grampa Lilia... Grampa... WAAAAAH!!!"
🐉: "Did he turn your clothes blue again?"
The child shakes his head.
🐉: "Then what did he do? How can we have our revenge if you don't tell me?"
🍼, trying to verbalize through sobs: "Grampa said Papa... Papa..."
🍼: "Papa's... Papa is Malius..."
🐉, confused: "Did he now?"
🍼: "PAPA IS PAPA! NOT MALIUS!! PAPA IS MY PAPA!!"
At the boy's furious wailings, the father laughs. Now he understands. It's the distress of a child who had his only knowledge of the world turned upside-down.
🐉: "I see. Well, I call you my son. Your mother calls you 'my baby'. But does Uncle Silver call you 'son' or 'baby' too?"
🐉: "What does he call you?"
🐉: "And that is because that's your name. Your mother and I call you 'son' because you were born from us, and you call me papa in return. But I was not born from Lilia, so he calls me Malleus instead. That is my name."
Malakai hiccups, trying to digest what his dad just said.
🐉: "Do you know what Mama's name is?"
The child's brows crinkle in concentration. Then they loosen. Then he explodes into another fit of cries.
🍼: "Malakai is not Mama! Mama is Mama!!"
🐉: "No, not the pronoun. Her name is Yuu, spelled Y-U-U."
The boy is too young. He doesn't understand those terms.
🍼: "Why Papa say Mama is not my Mama?"
🐉: "What do you mean Mama is not-- No, no. Don't say it like that. The castle will misinterpret you and spread nasty rumors--"
🍼: "PAPA SAY MAMA IS NOT MY MAMA!!"
🐉: "Stop, stop-- YOU THERE, THE GAGGLE OF MAIDS. This is the incoherent rambling of a child, understood? If I hear ANY RUMOR about our family, I have your faces memorized--"
But the boy has already slapped him in the face with his tail; hopping to the ground before making a beeline to somewhere else-- likely his mom.
By the Seven, he had a lot of cleaning up to do.