Two Eyes Cenote A Winged Insect to Your Funeral Pyre

He spoke not in words but plainsong; divine, shining. True-voiced and clever. And when she looked into his eyes he was no mere servant, but an officiant of justice; of great deeds. The procurers, the customers, the masters- did they not deserve to suffer as they had suffered?

Beaten. Betrayed. Humiliated. She was never going to be her again.

She searches the fellahin’s kaleidoscope eyes. Were they the same? This grove of venom, was it so different from the rows of black hellebore she cultivated within her own quarters?

She is dazed, wearied by a sense of hopeless disgrace and by the darkest of cravings in the secret parts of herself that she could not even comprehend. His hand appears in front of her face, in it a pale bloom with the most delicate of petals. She is struck that a small, ordinary thing of so much beauty could be capable of destruction. She imagines taking the flower; holding the power of life and death within the palm of her hand. Her throat strains. Her paw lifts…

She slaps his hand from her with a defensive snarl. The ruptured petals fall in limp pieces to the ground.

Machiavelli thinks he understands her. But he doesn’t know a thing about her.

She braces herself, spine arching, tail flaying, casting blades from the fire of her eyes. “There are innocent people here- families. Children. I want this destroyed. I’ll give you two days to do so.”

She slants herself into his face.“We are not the same. I am not a murderer.”

She fled then, and did not look back.