Gryfala princesshood, have been taken in by—and are entertained by—humans’ antics.
She should try to get humans to mind her orders. One little flat-toothed whinger back-talking her, and she won’t be so entranced then. Gryfala love nothing more than to have their every whim obeyed, and these humans couldn’t obey an order if it stood up and slapped them.
A seductive possibility I contemplate all too often.
One of the females rubs at the wrist she’s been favoring. “This job sucks. Everything hurts,” she complains in a barely restrained whisper.
And I barely repress a groan. This is a cog-damned quarry. We expose rock. We cut rock. We haul rock. Can humans break rock apart? No. Can they lift rocks? No. Can they at the very least haul rocks? NO. They’re weak, they’re small, and they injure with frightful ease. If you so much as trip, experience a strong sneeze, teveking cough loudly—across the canyon, a human yowls in pain. This is absolutely the worst work zone for them. Humans have the thinnest, most easily-tearing flesh of any creature I have ever seen, let alone had the misfortune of spitting on. And I spend half the day spitting on all their tiny injuries. My saliva, like all Rakhii saliva, has healing properties. Especially useful when dealing with thin-skinned aliens. They tremble, staring up at me wide-eyed, but coming to me—TO ME—to tend to them, as if I’m their shepherd and they are my dutiful dull-witted herd of micro-sized useless beasts.
Unfortunately, being that I am this quarry’s master, for now, these are my pitiful excuses for micro beasts of burden, and the fact that I am temporarily their shepherd is an unfortunate truth.
To break up the cheerful chattering pair currently in my crosshairs, I growl to clear my throat—and take a deeply perverse satisfaction in how high the two females jump. They spin, instantly smelling of terror—and I wish I enjoyed the scent of fear more, but it’s a terrible smell. It’s a travesty that human fear doesn’t smell as enjoyable as the fear in their eyes looks. White shows around their eyeballs, they’re so startled. And their formerly healthy complexions have lost all color. “Can you invent a good reason as to why you’re sitting on your tailless rumps when you should be working?” I ask silkily. My tail snaps behind me, and one of the females gulps.
One of the two has a lighter mane. She proves to be the braver of the pair, drawing herself up all of half a finger-span taller. “We needed a break.”
I feel my dorsal spines rise with my climbing temper. “Ah, yes. One of your infamous human breaks. You should have asked. I would dearly love to give you a break.”
The more terrified-smelling one shakes her head weakly. “Not that kind of break.”
I smile—all teeth. And fang.
The frightened one turns paler. Even the braver one loses her courage. “S-sorry.”
Smoke billows out of both my nostrils, arrowing past their bodies as I keep them firmly in my sights. And well within charring range. “You demanded to be here. You demanded we make way for you to work. I’ve been ordered not to kill any undeserving women—”
This is a bald-faced lie; I was ordered not to kill any humans at all. Tyrant’s rules, for certain.
“—yet you sit idly by and natter to each other? Creator knows your hands are ineffective enough, you may as well be pretending to work the damn stones if you’re going to do nothing but sit on your rumps and incessantly yap!” I finish my tirade in a low roar, stopping only because both of them are sucking in shuddering breaths.
Damn it all to hells.
DAMN IT ALL TO HELLS.
I’ve worked with these undersized brainwilts enough to know what the shuddering signifies. My voice is deadly calm. “Are you sniveling?”
“N-no,” one lies, while the other squeezes her eyes shut and sobs once. Answer enough.
“TEVEK!” I thunder.
Something pings off of my shoulder. Quickly, it’s followed by a second, after which I’m struck with a very deliberate third.
Snarling, I whip around, and find…
INFERNOFIRE.
This day is out to see me beheaded for popping all these little humans like clusterfruits for fine wine. ‘Archrival,’ is the greeting I give her in the silence of my mind. “Gracie...” is the greeting I growl aloud.
“Bash!” she cries with what almost sounds like genuine cheer.
I narrow my eyes on her, and she drops the handful of pebbles she’d been ready to keep slinging at me. “Here to retrieve your near-useless little subjects?” I ask,