Smolder Schools Her Friends in the Art of the Bitch Slap
Smolder grimaced as she glanced behind her at the rather saccharine display. Dragons shouldn’t even know the word “saccharine.”
Silverstream held her talons to her cheeks. “That looks so adorable!”
Homework for Rarity’s class, of course, and for her part, at least Ocellus could simply create the illusion of clothes instead of going to the trouble of making them. Some kind of lacy, frilly… Oh, Silverstream was right, that dress looked adorable, but as soon as Ocellus lost her concentration, it’d dissipate, so no chance of borrowing it from her. If only Smolder could wear that with a nice big puffy bow, some lilac lipstick, matching eye shadow, and attend a prissy tea gathering…
She forced a scowl onto her face. “You two knock that off!”
“But it’s for homework!” Ocellus replied, the dress wavering and… gone. It was gone.
It was gone. She gave the little dowel of hickory wood in her mouth another chew. “What is that thing?” Gallus asked, pointing at it with a wingtip instead of a talon, even though he knew it pissed her off when he did that.
“You know how Big Mac chews on a stalk of hay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Same deal, but dragon version.” She let the heat in her throat rise just enough, until a thin trail of smoke rose from it. “Plus we can do that with it,” she added as she tapped the ashes off the tip. Big ninny, sitting there with those luxurious feathers that’d make a wonderful boa to wrap around her neck as part of a nice burlesque ensemble.
Gallus grinned at her, a big, stupid, goofy one.
Smolder added a growl. “I will slap you.”
Sandbar raised an eyebrow. “Slap?” he said. “What’s that?” The rest all gathered around, too, and not a single one offered the least bit of explanation. How could they not know?
Quiz time, then. Professor Smolder would school them. “What do you call it when you hit someone?”
“Um…” Sandbar held a hoof to his chin. “A buck?”
“Punch?” Yona offered.
Gallus chuckled a little too slyly. “I don’t think she wants anything to drink.”
“I will slap a bitch,” Smolder grumbled, cocking an arm back.
“Ooh, yes! Demonstrate!” Silverstream chimed in. She and Gallus shoved Sandbar forward.
So Smolder slapped him, open palmed, across the muzzle. And took a puff of her hickory stick. He looked slightly confused as he rubbed his cheek. “Tada!” she said with a dismissive wave. “Class dismissed!”
“Wait,” Yona said. “Wait, wait, wait. Yona not see right. How Smolder do that?” She held up one of her hooves and flexed it several times.
With a sigh, Smolder clenched one of her fists. “See? Closed fist.” She slugged Sandbar in the shoulder. “Exhibit one: the punch.”
“Yona was right,” she said, hopping up and down and dislodging everything hanging on the wall.
Smolder then uncurled her fingers. “Now open palm.”
Again flexing her hoof, Yona asked, “Now how Smolder do that?”
“You just straighten out your claws—”
“I have talons,” Gallus cut in. “And paws on the back.” He demonstrated by scritching behind his ear with a rear foot.
“Same here,” Silverstream added. “Just the talons though. What’s a palm?”
“It doesn’t matter. Talon, paw, claw, it’s all about the same shape—”
A green light flashed. “I can do whatever,” Ocellus said, holding up a foreleg with a claw, a talon, a tentacle, and some other kind of fleshy appendage on it.
Sandbar pointed at it. “What’s that, a minotaur—” he waggled his hoof “—what do they call it?”
“Hand!” Lyra called from the courtyard outside. “And the little bits are fingers!”
“Thank you,” Silverstream shouted.
“I will slap a bitch.”
“Wait, let me try one!” Ocellus said. She wound up her arm, gritted her mandibles, and struck Sandbar across the face, the tentacle in particular making a very moist sound of meaty flesh.
The little bug had talent. “Good, good,” Smolder replied, another wood-smoked breath curling away from the corner of her mouth. “There’s hope for you yet.”
Silverstream stepped up next. “Is it my turn? Is it? Oh please say it’s my turn!”
Smolder snorted. “Knock yourself out.”
“But I thought I was supposed to hit Sandbar, not myself,” Silverstream muttered to Gallus, but he just groaned and gave her a shove toward Sandbar.
In one fluid motion, she drew back her talon, but then… she punched him in the neck.
“Dammit, Silverstream!” Smolder barked. “Open palm!”
“Oh yeah, sorry!” she said with a sheepish grin. “One more try.”
“Fine, but if you can’t hack it, I’m gonna have to move on to the other students.”
With a nod, Silverstream once more drew back her arm, started to clench her talons, and shook her head fiercely. Then she stretched out her digits, set her jaw, and smacked Sandbar with the most delightful sound Smolder had ever heard. Sandbar’s cheek gathered in a wave near his muzzle, then oscillated back and forth a good three times before coming to rest. “That’s for disrespectin’ me!” she shouted in his face, then suddenly blushed. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to ad lib. It just felt natural.”
“Damn!” Smolder said. “Maybe you should be teaching this. That was badass!”
Silverstream giggled and ducked to the back of the line again, but Yona strode up next. Yet again, she flexed her hoof. “Yona not understand ‘open palm.’”
Hm. That could pose a problem. “Maybe… if you bend it forward as far as you can and tried to catch Sandbar with the back of it? So he’s getting more skin and fur than hoof?”
Yona nodded and breathed deeply. Then she took a mighty swing and clocked Sandbar in the mouth, knocking him over the table and into the wall. After a moment he stood up, wiped the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, and glanced down at the trace of it on his hoof.
Taking a generous draw from her dowel, Smolder nodded. “Not bad,” she said.
“Yona… uncomfortable.” She briefly stared at her hoof. “Should… Yona do again?”
Sandbar’s eyes flicked back and forth between Yona and Smolder. He licked his bleeding lip. “…Yes?” he croaked.
