The violet flames of the campfire flickered, casting long, dancing shadows across the
clearing. The young lady watched Jee-shahn with a mixture of awe and suspicion, still
trying to calculate what kind of entity resided within the small, elegant frame of the
boy. He looked human, yet the way he manipulated the world suggested something far
more ancient—perhaps a spirit of the mountain or a wandering dragon in disguise.
Meanwhile, Jee-shahn was busy dismantling the roasted Grey Hawk with the focus of
a true connoisseur. He had already polished off two wings, his long silver-tinted hair
swaying as he chewed with a look of lazy satisfaction. Without looking up, he tore off
a massive, steaming leg—a piece of meat nearly as large as his own torso—and thrust
it toward the lady.
"Eat," he commanded, the grease glistening on his chin. "The 'noise' of your stomach
is distracting me from the flavor."
The lady's eyes widened as she stared at the giant limb. "It... it's too big!" she
stammered, waving her hands frantically. "I couldn't possibly finish even a fraction of
that!"
Jee-shahn let out a huff of pure boredom. "Wasteful." He pulled the leg back, took a
massive, unceremonious bite out of the thickest part of the meat, and then shoved the
half-eaten leg back into her hands.
Dumbfounded, she took the warm, charred meat. Despite the absurdity of the
situation—and the fact that a cosmic monster had just shared his spit with her—the
smell was heavenly. She took a tentative bite, the rich, gamey flavor exploding on her
tongue. "Who are you, really?" she asked, her voice mufled by the meat.
Jee-shahn was already deep into the other leg. "Me?" he mumbled through a
mouthful. "Just a traveler on vacation. I was planning to find a nice chair by the
ocean, sit on a heavy chain so the wind doesn't blow me away, and do absolutely
nothing for a century or two."The lady paused, her half-eaten leg suspended in mid-air. "A... traveler? On a
hundred-year vacation?"
"Vacations should be thorough," Jee-shahn replied, glancing at her with an azure eye.
"So, what about you, running lady? Why were you playing tag with a giant hawk in the
middle of a forbidden forest?"
The lady's expression instantly soured. She looked down at her striped stockings, her
voice dropping to a low, fearful whisper. "The time..." Then, she suddenly bolted
upright, her pigtails snapping like whips. "The time! I have to return home! If my father
notices I'm gone, his anger will burn hotter than this fire!"
Before Jee-shahn could even swallow his latest bite, the lady lunged forward and
gripped his arm with a strength born of pure panic.
"What are you doing?" Jee-shahn asked, suddenly chewing much faster. "If you want
to go, go. Just leave me alone and let me finish my bird."
"You're coming with me!" she cried, her blue eyes blazing with desperation as she
began to drag him toward the tree line. "You have to explain everything to my father! If
he hears it from a witness—a 'traveler'—maybe he won't lock me in the shrine for a
month!"
"I don't do 'explaining,'" Jee-shahn protested, his heavy robes rustling as he was
hauled across the dirt. "I do napping and eating. This is a violation of my vacation
rights!"
But the lady wasn't listening. She was already sprinting, dragging the infinitely
powerful, paradoxically lazy monster behind her. Jee-shahn looked back over his
shoulder, his heart breaking as he saw the remains of his feast being immediately
descended upon by a pack of hungry forest scavengers.
"My bird..." he whispered mournfully, his silver hair flying in the wind as he was
kidnapped into the "noise" of her life. "I didn't even get to the thighs.