BURN
BRIGHT
BRIGHT
Ninazu’s flames flicker with her breathing, burning oxygen as her lungs expand to draw it in. The pause between her breathes is noticeable, an unnatural stillness in an otherwise dynamic mane, and Ninazu’s head tilts lightly to the side. The dragon called the view beautiful—but, with ten eyes locked on her, Ninazu guesses they’re not referring to the landscape.
The lioness hesitates, then breathes normally again. She never understood the flirting game. When her emotions hit, she lashes out without considering the consequences. Indirect actions and discrete hints are not the lioness’s style, and the stretch of silence between Argus’s words becomes a noisy chatter of contradictory opinions in Ninazu’s head.
The dragon’s next words interrupt Ninazu’s internal monologue and put a suppressor on the internal debate. The lioness’s golden eyes squint for a microsecond, and she doesn’t look out to the landscape stretching out from the mountaintop. This puzzle has become more interesting than all the tiny little details to pick out of the land, and she tears through the internal analysis like a starving animal gnawing at a fresh corpse.
“Are you… flirting with me?” Ninazu sounds flattered, but confusion mixes in there.
But there are not enough data points to corroborate that assumption, and she sighs. She doesn’t give Argus a chance to answer before she speaks again. “That was arrogant of me. To think everyone in the world falls neatly into little categories for my individual amusement. Caesar fits nicely as a punching bag, in the same broad category the Typhoon and Elysium also slide into. I suppose most of the world is simply there, to play with or not to play with.”
“I never quite know what to think about the ones outside that convenient bin. Are the condemned my friends? That’s a strong word for animals I’m allied with out of convenience. But you’re a friend.”
She sighs again. On the inhale, the flames lick down her shoulders and spine. “Meditation makes me… introspective. Ignore all of that? Ignore all of that. What did you want to… see me about?”
The lioness hesitates, then breathes normally again. She never understood the flirting game. When her emotions hit, she lashes out without considering the consequences. Indirect actions and discrete hints are not the lioness’s style, and the stretch of silence between Argus’s words becomes a noisy chatter of contradictory opinions in Ninazu’s head.
The dragon’s next words interrupt Ninazu’s internal monologue and put a suppressor on the internal debate. The lioness’s golden eyes squint for a microsecond, and she doesn’t look out to the landscape stretching out from the mountaintop. This puzzle has become more interesting than all the tiny little details to pick out of the land, and she tears through the internal analysis like a starving animal gnawing at a fresh corpse.
“Are you… flirting with me?” Ninazu sounds flattered, but confusion mixes in there.
But there are not enough data points to corroborate that assumption, and she sighs. She doesn’t give Argus a chance to answer before she speaks again. “That was arrogant of me. To think everyone in the world falls neatly into little categories for my individual amusement. Caesar fits nicely as a punching bag, in the same broad category the Typhoon and Elysium also slide into. I suppose most of the world is simply there, to play with or not to play with.”
“I never quite know what to think about the ones outside that convenient bin. Are the condemned my friends? That’s a strong word for animals I’m allied with out of convenience. But you’re a friend.”
She sighs again. On the inhale, the flames lick down her shoulders and spine. “Meditation makes me… introspective. Ignore all of that? Ignore all of that. What did you want to… see me about?”
© MADI