“Hey, you!”

“Orange cat lady!”

“We want a word with you!”

Yawning as the angry voices – female, all of them – drew closer, Yamini glanced up at the trio of adlets making a beeline for her. Despite the scowls they were wearing and the tension in their gait, she didn’t bother to get up from where she was stretched out atop a large stone near the edge of the village.

Great, she groaned, more hassles.

That she had to sit around on a rock in the cold – rather than in that comfy little hideaway mansion, with its soft cushions and delicious food – was bad enough. That she was out here for something as stupid as protecting this place, despite having already sent those elves and their weak-ass summons running, only added insult to injury. If not for the fact that Carnelia had said that the order to guard this place had come from Lex himself, Yamini would have ignored the redhead completely.

But after nearly an hour of nothing happening, the boredom had grown intolerable.

After that, Yamini had buckled down and gotten to work making a place where she could catnap in peace.

It hadn’t been easy. After finding a large enough rock, she’d needed minutes to heat it up to the point where it had become soft and gooey without melting it entirely. After that, she’d carefully reshaped the top of it so that it was smooth enough to be comfortable, at which point she’d needed to wait again before it had cooled down enough to keep its new shape. And then, after that, she’d needed to set fires around it so that it stayed nice and warm.

And now that she’d finally gotten it to the point where it made for a decent sleeping spot, she had more crap to deal with.

“Lemme guess,” she announced as the trio stopped a few feet short of the ring of fire hugging the base of her rock. “You’re here to say that you want me to cover up, right?”

“If you know that, then hurry up and get dressed already!” snapped the first bitch.

“Going around naked like that!” growled the second. “Don’t you have any shame!”

“Maybe everyone goes naked like animals wherever you come from, but we’re a civilized people!” spat the third. “If you’re going to be here, then you have to wear clothes!”

Yamini rolled her eyes. “You do see the all the flames, right?” she drawled, waving a hand at the fire surrounding her rock.

The adlets all flinched in unison. “What about them?” huffed the first.

“That fire comes from me,” explained Yamini, hoping they’d get it and leave. “Since you’re all so civilized, I’m sure you know what pyromancy is. If I wore clothes, they’d burn to a crisp whenever I used my magic, and then I’d be covered in soot and ashes.”

“So your solution is to just go around naked all the time?!” argued the second.

“Yeah,” replied Yamini calmly. “It is.”

“There are children in this village!” hissed the third. “Do you not care if-, what’s so funny?!”

“You three are,” snickered Yamini, not phased in the least by their indignation. “The way you all talk in order like that, did you rehearse this?”

Three pairs of eyes twitched, and the motion was so perfectly synched that it made Yamini laugh that much harder.

The first adlet took a deep breath as she opened her mouth, her expression furious-

“WAIT! All of you, wait!”

-only to pause as another adlet – this one male – interposed himself between them and Yamini.

Making a conciliatory gesture at the trio, he turned and offered the tigress an easy smile. “I’m terribly sorry for my sisters. My name is Panuk, and I hope you understand that our village almost never had visitors until just recently, and fire has always been a terrible calamity to us. Add in how so many of our dead recently came back to life, and, well...I hope you can understand their distress.”

Quirking her eyes at the “back to life” part, Yamini decided she didn’t care that much, giving a shrug that immediately made Panuk’s gaze drop to her chest. “None of that has anything to do with me.”

“Huh?” Blinking as he got his recovered his wits, the male smiled. “Oh, um, right. Anyway...”

He turned to his sisters, putting on a serious expression. “Cupun, Nuliajuk, Ikiaq, I want you all to listen to me very carefully. I know what it’s like to cover nervousness with aggression, to hope that if you howl loudly enough, no one will hear the quiver in your voice. But try to remember: that’s what cost me my life the first time I met Lex.”

The trio frowned at that, sharing glances among themselves, and Panuk seemed to take that as a sign to keep talking.

“Things are changing in our village, maybe forever. But trying to fight those changes, especially in such a head-on manner, won’t accomplish anything except to make things worse. What we need to do now is accept that things are different-”

“So in other words,” interrupted Cupun, her voice sharp, “you’re worried that we might actually get her to cover up.”

“And then you and the other boys won’t get to keep ogling the exotic naked girl,” continued Nuliajuk, putting her hands on her hips.

“Which is why those pathetic losers sent you over here as soon as they saw what we were doing, isn’t that right?” finished Ikiaq, her eyes narrowing as she glanced over her shoulder.

At which point the assembled adlets – young males, all – made sure they were doing something else, eyes carefully averted.

The sight was enough to make Panuk’s ears fold back, a guilty smile crossing his lips. “It’s not like that-”

“None of you are fooling anyone,” announced Yamini, growing bored of the melodrama. It had been amusing at first, but she was beginning to resent being kept from her catnap.

“You” – she pointed at Panuk – “and your buddies want to keep eyeing me up? Go right ahead.” Laying back, she idly scratched her boobs. “So long as you keep your hands to yourselves and don’t mouth off to me, stare as much as you want.”

Blushing, Panuk fought another losing battle to maintain eye contact with her. “W-well-”

“And you three,” continued Yamini, looking at his sisters. “If you’re that jealous that the guys are all ignoring you for me, just go naked yourselves.”

“You-, you think we-, HOW DARE YOU?!” sputtered Cupun, looking incensed.

“AS IF WE’D EVER DO SOMETHING SO EMBARRASSING!” shrieked Nuliajuk.

“WE’RE NOT LIKE YOU!” roared Ikiaq. “WE HAVE SELF-RESPECT!”

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it,” smirked Yamini, her patience finally running out. She’d just told them not to mouth off to her.

But some people just don’t learn.

“Here, I’ll show you.”

As soon as she finished speaking, she snapped her fingers, setting the three girls’ clothes on fire.

Immediately, their outraged cried became screams of terror, causing Yamini to laugh as they began to hurriedly disrobe. Serves you right for making your insecurities my problem.

Panuk was also shouting, trying to grab at their clothes only to snatch his fingers away in pain before he could make contact at the burning cloth-

When suddenly a figure ran forth and bodily tackled his sisters, knocking them all to the ground.

That alone was enough to quench most of the flames, and the nearby stretches of snow that the newcomer rolled the trio through took care of the rest. But it was only after the flames were put out that newcomer stood still long enough for Yamini to get a good look at him.

It was that donkey Lex had brought back.

“Ladies, please hold still,” he murmured as he stood above the whimpering girls. “I’ll heal your burns right now.”

He was already moving as he spoke, placing a hoof on each of them. Even as he did, a soft glow – as though the sun was breaking through the clouds – came from their injuries. A moment later the burned flesh was healthy and pink again, and then the fur covering it was restored. Within seconds, the only evidence of what had happened was the scorch marks on the trio’s clothes.

“Are you all okay?!” fretted Panuk, rushing over and checking his sisters as soon as the donkey stepped back.

“I think so,” panted Cupun, still shaking.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” agreed Nuliajuk, though her voice was numb.

“There’s not even a mark,” murmured Ikiaq, looking herself over.

Despite their responses, Panuk spared no effort in making sure they were okay, before finally pulling the three of them into a hug, looking at the donkey as he did. “Your name is Long Road, right? Thank you for saving my sisters.”

“No thanks are necessary, good sir,” answered Long Road with a shake of his head. “I am both duty-bound to help those in distress, and indebted to your people for allowing me to impose upon them. And now I must impose upon you again with a request.”

Letting his sisters go, Panuk gave Long Road a confused look. “A request?”

“That you please take these young ladies and fall back” – slowly, Long Road turned and looked toward Yamini – “so that I may deal with the perpetrator.”

Panuk looked ready to protest, his mouth opening...but then he seemed to think better of it, and helped his sisters to their feet before ushering them back toward where the others had been watching, the crowd having grown larger in response to the girls’ cries.

Long Road seemed not to notice them, staring intently at Yamini. Unlike Panuk, he had no trouble looking her directly in the eyes, his gaze not wavering in the slightest. “I was under the impression that you had been told to protect this place and its people from harm, not cause it.”

“Oh get over yourself,” groaned Yamini, shifting in place. “I gave them a scare and a few small burns so they’d shut up and leave me alone. Don’t act like their lives were in danger.”

“There’s a foul aura around you,” noted the donkey after a moment’s consideration. “One that speaks to soul filled with cruelty and selfishness. Even your relaxed posture in the face of instructions to remain vigilant betrays the fact that you care nothing for these people.”

“Yeah,” shrugged Yamini, “and? Just because I’m lying down doesn’t mean I can’t also throw down. Anyone comes looking for a fight, and I’ll burn them a lot worse than those three.”

She smiled then, raising one hand as flames appeared within her palm. “Care to put me to the test?”

“Injure any of these people again,” came Long Road’s reply without hesitation, “and I will.”

Yamini quenched the flame in her hand as she burst into laughter. That donkey was clad in metal armor, which was not only an excellent conductor of heat, but was also heavy and encumbering. His only weapon was a spear that had obviously been borrowed from the adlets, its tip fashioned of stone rather than steel. And there was something about him – something in his posture and tone of voice – that suggested a deep sense of exhaustion, as though he hadn’t slept in a very long time.

That he thought he could threaten her was so ludicrous that she almost felt sorry for him.

“You know, a lot of guys try to get into a tussle with me, hoping that they can cop a feel or something while we’re going at it. But most of them back off when they realize” – with a snap of her fingers, her entire body burst into flames – “that I’m too hot for them to handle. You really think that you can take the heat?”

Long Road neither flinched nor frowned, instead continuing to stare her down evenly. “The flames of my goddess, the Sun Queen, sustain this entire world. Her fire is far greater than yours, and yet offers renewing light and gentle warmth. Having seen such grace with the dawn of each new day, I fear no lesser flame.”

Despite herself, Yamini found her amusement turning to annoyance. All she’d wanted to do was take a nap, and now this loudmouth was talking down to her?

Sitting up, she formed a sword composed of fire in her hand. “I’ll show you whose flame is less-”

“Yamini, what are you doing?”

“Butt out, Carnelia,” snapped the tigress as the redhead strode toward them. “I’m just dealing with this nuisance.”

“This ‘nuisance’ is a guest of our prince,” noted the brachina pointedly. “One who, I might add, we’re supposed to be working with, not against, in order to secure this place.”

“He’s the one who stuck his nose into my business!”

“And now I’m the one telling you to put your nose back to the grindstone,” answered Carnelia. “Otherwise I can tell Lex that you’re making trouble instead of helping.”

For a brief moment Yamini entertained the thought of immolating Carnelia then and there. But she knew it would have been pointless to try; devils were completely immune to fire.

Even so, she could barely resist the urge to try it anyway.

But instead, she gave a tight smile and quenched her flames, the fiery sword vanishing. “No trouble here,” she offered, lying back down on her rock. “Just kicking back, wondering exactly what it is we’re supposed to be watching out for.”

“About that,” answered Carnelia, pulling a folded piece of paper out of her cleavage. “I’ve been interviewing several of the locals, and put together a list of the usual predators and threatening creatures in the surrounding biomes. Most of them aren’t particularly dangerous, but there are a few monsters in the nearby woods that are supposed to be unusually troublesome...”

Yamini nodded absently as the pleasure devil went on about what she found, but the tigress wasn’t paying attention, instead watching as Long Road turned and left, his expression never having changed.

It was irritating enough to make Yamini wish that the village would be attacked. Ideally in a place where Long Road was the first one to rush its defense.

If that happened, then Yamini silently swore to introduce him to a kind of fire which – despite its name – was unlike anything his goddess oversaw.

Friendly fire.

Author's Note

Sparks fly as Long Road confronts Yamini, with Carnelia managing to avert a conflagration erupting!

Will the tigress have a chance to pay Long Road back for talking down to her? Or is the donkey paladin stronger than she's expecting?