No one believes it.
“Ah, I see.” Charley strokes his chin, looking like someone pretending to be thoughtful without actually putting effort into thinking.
“Not a very long story then.” Angel seems almost disappointed.
“I told you it wasn’t. Most of my life was spent as a human, see? I’ve not been a sphinx for even a full day yet.”
“Riiiight.” The woman keeps cooking her multiple steaks at once, her arm starting to bulge as she’s struggling to keep the entire mass of meat out of the flowing ash and only inside the flames.
“This won’t be all that exciting for my twitter followers …” now it was Keth’s turn to be disappointed. And Daniel’s be to be bemused.
“A giant talking lion eagle shows up on a camping trip and you don’t think it’s exciting?” The sphinx could only balk at how bewildering this was.
“Well, not as exciting maybe. Could I get some pictures of you roaring? Or … oh-oh, like hold your claws up and smash something while I film it?” Keth offers with far too much bounce in his movements for someone who was afraid no t terribly long ago.
Angel reaches her arm out and shoves into Keth’s shoulder, all but knocking him over.
“Only if the thing she gets to smash is your computer. We don’t need some media frenzy about a wild killer lion the size of a house, okay? Don’t make this worse.” The woman seemed solemnly serious.
“You ... you’re going public with this?” that was something Daniel hadn’t even considered up to this point. How his friends might react was one thing, but how would the world react to a flying tank with a woman’s face on it strolling into town? What were people going to think?
“Well yeah I posted pictures of you before you even landed. I was previously unaware you could communicate verbally and now everyone is interested to know how I’m still alive.” Keth answers, his phone beeping and the man once more reaching down to fiddle with the buttons.
The Sphinx had no idea how to even react to this. How could wrap their head around it? Was it a good thing? Was it bad? If Keth stopped now would people assume he was killed and then suddenly the entire media sees her approach as a threat? If he kept going then was a Sphinx flying through the woods and sharing smores with a few campers going to be a mass sensation? Deemed a hoax and all but forgotten? He didn’t know. Daniel had no way to even begin to figure things out.
“G-gnn. Enough about me I guess, I don’t have anything more to tell. Not unless you want like, stories of my childhood or something.” Daniel lowers his head down into the crook of his arms, chin rested between the two feline paws. At this height with his head touching the ground, it almost looked like he was face to face and eye to eye with the normal humans. Almost. His sphinx eyes being so much larger gave him a distorted sense of perspective, and the fact all three of them were sitting down didn’t exactly help.
“I was really hoping for something less boring you know?” Angel pouts.
“Do you have a more interesting one?” Daniel can feel himself perking back up. “I just went from normal to lion girl overnight and spent the last few hours higher than an airliner jet. You have something better than that?”
“Naturally.” Angel closes her eyes, the woman tilting her head high and proud. “You see it all started in the year 1893, I can remember it well. The sky was dropping red pudding and the great, terrible … uh, gilgameth was tearing out of the ground! The world itself wounded by his very presence.”
Keth looked at her as if she was insane for a moment. “Waitwhat?” all but dropping his phone.
Charley simply raised an eyebrow, reaching up to pluck the cigar from his lips and stare at her.
Daniel couldn’t turn his head away, brows arched in confusion and his entire attention devoted to this girl’s words. A villain? Damage to the world? What year was this even, what did the girl know that he didn’t?
“Myself, but a lowly and humble grand sorceress wizard of the imperial troops, fought bravely against his army of tripmites.” She stands onto two legs and in doing so lifts up the metal spike and all the meat still attached. Flame licking out across the browned flesh, she wields it like a child might hold up a toy sword. “But alas, my homeworld of totalynotmadeupica was destroyed after many long days of intense battle. With nothing else to do I tore open a portal into the void with my powerful magic! And then I’ve been here working as only a supermodel billionaire shoe designer ever since.”
The sphinx was staring down at her with a mouth agape. Charley quietly puts the cigar back to his lips and breathes deeply, the barest hint of a grin noticeable on the corner of his face. Only the left corner, and only if one looked closely. Keth simply brings up his phone and appears to be taking photos of Angel holding her flaming steak covered stick.
“I knew it.” He mutters. “I knew this was a dream.”
“Is that, wait is that true? What happened to the monster? Did anything else fallow you here?” The lioness body stands back onto four legs, raising one paw and sliding forward as if she were about to walk, about to start pacing. She lowers the paw and has to actively stop herself, lest she break that promise of holding still to avoid breaking camp supplies.
“Are you really magic? Please! Can any of your spells help me, can you tell me whats going on here? I’ll do anything you want, honest, can you actually- ..”
“No you overgrown kitten, that was all sarcasm. Sheesh. Magic isn’t real, duh.” Angel rolls her eyes and flicks the stick of meat back into the flames. It would have been far more casual and impressive if not for the fact she needed both hands to lift it and careful manuveing to hold it at all.
“That, but … I …”
“If you aren’t going to tell me the truth for your story, why am I going to tell you the truth in mine? So long as we’re both making it up off the top of our heads might as well play along.” She answers smugly. Charley’s grin never wavered.
“Its sarcasm now, but she’s Gilgameth.” Keth snapped more pictures from his phone, and seemed to be tracing his finger over something.
“I pronounced Gilagmet.” The woman corrects, just as smugly as before.
“That’s not how you pronounced it the first time.”
“Whatever.”
“So … so you can’t change me back?” Daniel whines, the largest, dish sized eyes staring down at the three humans. Bits of water starting to pool along the corners, his dainty looking lip started to quiver. The sphinx settles back down onto her chest and belly, once more flopping down to rest her chin between each paw.
“Afraid not, but I can help you out with something else.” Angel gets back onto her feet, looking over at Keth. “Want to help me carry thi-“
“Nope.”
“You are no fun at all.” Angel shrugs, turning around and padding the few yards she needed to reach Daniel’s face. She taps lightly against his forearm with her foot, only to step back at the sudden hissing and pained flinch. The sphinx re-folds her arms in such a way that it was harder to reach her wounds.
“O-oh. Thank you, miss … miss Angel.”
“Don’t mention girl, just hold her palm out.”
Daniel twists the fuzzy yellow-brown palm upwards once more, allowing Angel to drop the seared meat directly into the center. It did not appear especially well cooked, but it also wasn’t red and bleeding. Nor did it look smokey and charred. Too hungry to care at this point Daniel leans down, closes his mouth around the meat, and then tries to hold the metal pipe still while pulling it back.
The fingers of a lion were quite assuredly not suited to the task.
“I got this!” Angel shouts, reaching up with her own palms and gripping onto the handle. “Just hold still. Clench your teeth, alright?”
Daniel went as still as if a butterfly had just landed on his arms and he was trying not to scare it off. The meat covered stick still jutting out of his maw, now with a woman dangling in front of his nose. The sphinx grits down hard, watching Angel’s muscles bulging at her newfound effort. The woman pulls, pulls, like drawing a sword from a stone, and as Daniel’s teeth slide the meat right off soon the metal is empty and pulled free. Damp and hot but perfectly usable.
“Ahah!” Angel grins, looking up at Daniel’s amazed, and rather content look on his face. For the first time in too long actually tasting something, and with a few gulps the lioness body could feel like it had something.
“Phew. Almost thought I’d have swallowed your stick there.”
“Don’t mention it.” Angel flings her fingers into her hair. “But if you ever feel like actually telling us the truth, I’ll be right there waiting to tell you my own story.”
“I am telling the truth … I am a human, just like you guys.’ Daniel gulps a few more times, tongue going limp to simply let the flavor soak into his mouth. He honestly did not expect slabs of meat to taste this vital.
“Suuuure you are. Because you are completely humanlike. I can see it now!” Angel teases, stepping back and holding her arms out like this were some grand discovery. “Behold, the first every giant lion human. She talks! She riddles! She flies!”
“She’s not a girl …” Daniel interjected.
“Whatever.”
Written by Arbon on 19 August 2016