The Sentinels gayatri

she shrunk beneath the moniker of kind.  it was not an uncommon adjective to be associated with her, but she never understood it.  she was so conventionally and exotically beautiful on the surface that it was easy for others to associate good things with her, such as kind or compassionate.  it was better that way, that they did not see the darkness that gnawed away at her bones.  when her spirit animal had revealed itself to her, she had wept.  all she could remember thinking was so beautiful on the surface, but there's poison underneath.  and the same was true of her.  being beautiful only got you so far in life.

i am educated in the art of healing, she says.  but that does not make her a healer.  let me show you.  she plucks dry seaweed from the sand and rests close to him.  she's worked on many attractive men, and the youthful, girlish part of her wants to see if she can goad him into looking at her
(poison)
but she knows better than to taunt a man who has been through so much.  he has nothing left to lose.