MINYA
take that look from off your face
you ain't gunna burn my heart out
you ain't gunna burn my heart out
Sweat still gleams across her skin as she steps out from beneath the blazing candlelight of the stage. The wings are dark and cool and she drinks in that shadowy air. Behind her applause fill the room and already a stagehand is picking up the scattered flowers and jewels thrown in adoration upon the stage. “Take them to my room, as usual.” Minya says dismissively to the girl and sinks into the black.
Only the white of her Scarab tattoo gleams as she moves through the dim, dim light. She steps into a hallway, better lit. It oozes rich reds and glittering golds, chandeliers shine lavishly overhead, expensive artwork lines the halls, but Minya knows she is the most expensive thing here.
Smoke peels from her skin, licking and crawling up the walls of the narrow hallway. This noble girl smells of fire and smoke, perfume dances and melds with the smoke upon her skin, creating a tantalizing scent across her body. Another stagehand drapes a silk cloth across her back as she slinks by and her lips tip into a sultry smile, an echo of “thank you …?” dances by as she pauses and waits for him to give his name. Oh the boy stutters and stumbles over his words, he blushes and skitters after her – for when did Minya ever look at stagehands like him?
Danny he chirps at last and swallows, his eyes wide as he trails her down the hall, hopeful, misguided. She slips into her changing room. Inside it gleams more lavish than a dragon’s cave, and she is the exquisite creature that lies atop it, guarding. Could Minya ever be anything different? With smoke still curling across her skin and flames only just turning to ghosts within her mouth and skin that gleams like steel scales, Minya could never be anything less that draconic.
Carefully she draws a brush through the silken waterfall of her pink hair, petals and diamonds fall like confetti from it as she does. The gems skitter across the table and fall to the floor – they are more than she needs, they are everything that she wants.
The boy hovers in the doorway, suddenly unsure yet unable to leave not since she paid him any attention… “Danny.” Minya hums again, her eyes finding his in the mirror, studiously avoiding her own – never would she let anyone see how she avoids herself, how she avoids that wretched darkness and hatred that blooms and rips and tears like a dragon’s claws. She holds Danny in her gossamer web, she lets her words move to him like a black widow across her shining web. “Will you fetch Aghavni down to see me?” She asks lightly. “I need her to take my gifts upstairs to my bedroom.” Danny’s dark eyes widen, forest deep. “I- I can’t… That – that’s not…” He stammers off and in the mirror Minya pauses, her gaze unwavering, she is soft, she is hard, she is a spider, a dragon. She watches, as if he is a fly freshly flown into her web. The firedancer waits for him to finish to dare to say that’s not Aghavni’s job. Yet he doesn’t, his lips shut tight and he shifts uneasily before nodding tightly and disappearing into the lavish hallway to find Aghavni. If August were here, she is sure he would not let her play such games, yet he is not and the boy is impressionable, young and pliable as putty.
Her smile is content and mocking when she returns her gaze to her dressing table. The mirror reflects her: a girl of beauty, a monster an beautiful devil… a girl with a broken heart. Only the mirror catches that glimmer of darkness in the corner of her glossy lips. It is a darkness that holds, not a dragon, but a girl full of self-loathing and guilt, a girl whose better dreams are filled with street art and the wilds of Solerra’s desert. She is better in firelight and shadows, in smoke filled air and the gasp of street crowds. There she is Minya but here they adore her like a queen, they think of her a goddess upon the stage – and so she lets them.
Yet, when Aghavni comes, for her there will be the Scarab’s fire girl, whose patrons adore her like a queen and think of as a goddess upon the stage. And, like a goddess, Minya is the only one daring enough to expect Aghavni to do such menial tasks as the Scarab’s porters.
@Aghavni - eeee I am so ready!
@Boudika| "speaks" | notes: eee <3
