The young lady sat on the dirt, her mismatched stockings now stained with forest
grime, staring at the crater where a majestic predator had been reduced to a heap of
broken feathers and leaked crimson. Her grip on her azure-crystal staff tightened, her
knuckles white, as she looked from the "pancake" on the ground to the boy standing
before her with his hands tucked into his dark, fur-lined sleeves. The silence of theforest was heavy, broken only by the distant, mocking chirp of a bird that had been
smart enough not to attack the silver-haired monster.
"You... you want me to cook that?" she finally stammered, her voice high-pitched and
incredulous as she pointed a trembling finger at the biological wreck of the Grey
Hawk. "It's not even a bird anymore! It's... it's a puddle! And I was almost killed! I am a
priestess of the—"
"I don't really care if you're a priestess or a professional leaf-gatherer," Jee-shahn
interrupted, his voice a smooth, lazy drawl that carried a terrifying lack of empathy. He
leaned in slightly, his azure eyes scanning her frantic face with the same curiosity one
might show a particularly loud insect. "What I care about is the 'noise' your stomach
is making and the 'noise' mine is making. You brought the bird to my tree. You
disturbed my meditation on the nature of doing absolutely nothing. Therefore, you
owe me a meal."
He began to circle her, his steps silent despite the heavy, ornate robes he wore. The
lady felt like a mouse being watched by a cat that wasn't even hungry enough to
hunt—just bored enough to play. She realized with a jolt of terror that this boy wasn't
normal; he had flattened a beast of the South with a snap of his fingers as if he were
flicking away a piece of lint.
"Well?" Jee-shahn prompted, pausing his walk to look at her over his fur collar. "The
fire isn't going to start itself. Unless, of course, you'd like to see if your gravity is as
weak as your running speed."
Gulping, the lady scrambled to her feet, her pigtails swaying as she frantically began
to gather dry branches. She didn't know who this "Jee-shahn" was, but she knew one
thing for certain: she would rather pluck feathers from a gravity-crushed hawk than
find out what happened if he snapped his fingers at her.
"I'm... I'm starting the fire! See? Fire!" she squeaked, waving a handful of twigs while
Jee-shahn simply sat back down on a nearby rock, looking perfectly content to watch
her work like a servant.