I grew up outside Yuan-Ti society, so that was the main problem.
My parents were purebloods too. Both spies, earned respect and freedom for their work. They settled down in an outsider city, hoping to raise a clutch while still occasionally keeping their halfblood superiors updated. I didn't go outside a lot.
Other children weren't afraid of me, but their parents never approved. I could tell. Small, skinny child with dark hair covering their face, scales on their body, claws and fangs and a forked tongue. They saw a monster in the little dress. A snake in sheep's clothing. It was upsetting for a while. Things got better once I left the city on my own. Got my personal identity sorted, became Jalita. I wasn't close with my parents, so I think they were almost happy to have me out. I wasn't their ideal child.
I guess that's enough about my tragic backstory. I just wanna get to the point, the little ones are hungry.
When I first moved into that cottage, the first thing I noticed was the elven finery in the wardrobes, still there and forgotten. Behind it, that's where I saw it. A large hole in the wall, filled with dried up grass and leaves, dirt and mud. I didn't think much of it at first, maybe just some birds had nested in the hole. Maybe that's why the cottage was for sale.
Then the singing began.
Well, I understood it as singing. Most would understand it as hissing. Sweet, melodic hissing. I thought it was piping, then I thought it was the sun beating down on the puddles outside, typical changeable weather on its whims. Somehow, I think I always knew what it was, in the back of my mind. I heard it every day, every night, when I ate and slept and breathed.
Eventually, I sat down and stared at the nest, sprawling and cracking in the shadowed corner. The movements, the sounds, the patterns of scales on dead vegetation… I could have sat there for hours. I have sat there for hours, just watching. Sometimes, a head would pop up, and watch me back.
But it wasn't the patterns that got to me. I had been training as a ranger for a while, I knew what was really going on. But it also reached further than anything I learned. It reached into me, my blood, my soul, the small thread of my lifeline. It hummed and sang, it asked me to sing too. It sang that I was beautiful, that I was loved, that I was home with them. All I had to do was listen.
It all seemed so simple. I was enthralled. I still am. The idea that I could be accepted, that I could be known and adored.
The idea that I could let what loved me, consume me. That's why I didn't hesitate.
