[In The Way Of] Life and Death • Sweet Pea [1]

The Hills Have Eyes

"Guess who?" I chirped with a smile, my hands covering Sweet Pea's eyes after I had snuck up behind him. I gave a wink to Fangs and Toni who he was sitting with at lunch.

"The one and only." He spoke before removing my hands and leaning up to kiss me shortly.

I pulled away before filling the empty seat next to him, setting my bag down. "Fogarty. Topaz." I greeted and crossed my arms on top of the table.

"To what do we owe the pleasure?" Toni asked curiously while she ate her apple.

"I wanted to see how my three favorite Serpents were doing of course." I smiled, looking around the table of members.

"As a matter of fact, Topaz here is thinking about joining the old cheerleading team." Sweet Pea teased the pink-haired girl, pounding his fist onto the table rowdily along with Fangs.

"Is that so?" I folded my hands underneath my chin with a wide smile, "Some people think it's retro but I say it's eternal and iconic."

"And also boring." Fang dragged out his insult causing me to glare at him and slap his arm lightly.

"Ignoring you ignorant, underdeveloped, pea-brains.." Toni insulted making Sweet Pea's face scrunch up in offense.

"Ouch!"

"What else did you need, Bird?" She asked me kindly.

"I, uh, I also wanted you guys to tell me more about my mom." I said quietly while rubbing my arm.

Since I had no actual contact with the woman, Sweet Pea, Toni, and Fangs were my way of getting any type of information about her. Yes, I could go down to the Whyte Wyrm anytime I wanted but I wasn't nearly ready for that yet.

"Are you sure?" Fangs asked concernedly, knowing how I felt about the sensitive topic. Though if I wanted some type of closure I needed to know more about her.

I nodded slowly, glancing at Sweet Pea who also seemed worried, before I turned back to Fangs. "Why is she so legendary?"

He chuckled shortly, "Where do I begin?" He joked, lifting his elbows onto the table and folding his hands together, "Cora Peabody is one of the toughest Serpents we've got but her title wasn't just handed to her."

"As you know, when women want to join the club, they have to do the Serpent dance. It's an outdated sexist tradition we tried to get outlawed but misogyny dies hard." Toni rolled her eyes. "So Cora refused to do the dance."

I stared at Toni with a confused expression before shaking my head, "Then how did she get in?"

"The same as me." Sweet Pea answered, though with no context.

"And me." Fangs added, but it only confused me more.

Toni clarified what the two were trying to say, "Cora decided to become a Serpent like every other male in the industry. She went through initiation and completed the four stages."

I bit my lip, debating on asking my next question, not wanting to sound stupid, "Why is that such a big deal?"

She half-smiled before continuing, "Initiation is hard enough as it is for the guys, a lot of them quitting before completing every trial, so for a female to even think about attempting it- people thought she was crazy." Toni scoffed.

"Especially the last stage." Sweet Pea chimed in, causing me to shift my attention to his direction. "The Gauntlet requires the joiner to walk through the line of every member while they throw punches to all areas of the body. And don't think they held back because she was a girl, because they didn't."