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PELIEL
Only a few of the humans decide to flee on their own, but most remain behind, freeing a group of women and children from a burning tent.
I watch the procession with marked interest.
The men are burned in the process, and I have seen how slowly humans heal. It’s inefficient to be injured, but they risk life and limb, pulling more people out before the flame engulfs the tent. “There are more children in here!”
The whine of wood tells me it’s about to collapse.
Still, another man dives in, and when several small humans pass through the opening of the tent, I have to reconsider my initial assumptions, even as sparks fly and the beam finally yields to gravity with the man still inside.
I think I can hear his dying shrieks, but they are shared by no others.
Those who were helping him take the little humans and race to the survivors, mostly the weak and small and injured. It’s a pitiful group, almost not worth the effort of destroying them.
One of the bigger humans is handed a smaller one, and she begins to weep, cradling the little creature to her chest. With death hanging above them, they still manage to exhibit sentimentality over their living property. I scrunch my nose at the response, fueling the flames around them with a wave of my hand.
There are still several ways out of the camp, but I hope to spur their panic, force them to make the wrong decision and get each other killed. It’s amusing to plant the seeds of destruction and watch them grow, better still to reap them myself.
I land hard on the ground, setting it to tremble as I storm towards the group.
They don’t have time to pick up their meager belongings, clutching the little ones and fleeing with wide eyes and screams. My flames kiss the stragglers’ ankles, but even as they regroup, two of the men turn around to face me.
They know their fate.
I can see it in their wild gazes, how they bare their teeth at me and let out shared battle cries as they charge with poles in hand. The first one, I strike with a backhand, breaking his neck on contact, but the other I catch by the throat, forcing the pole from him with a jerk.
“Why do you protect them?” My voice radiates through the ether, echoing into places long forgotten by man or elf. My ungrateful caller chokes and flails, turning red. “You have sealed your fate, trying to save them.Why?”
His mouth moves as if he means to speak, but he is blinded by my radiance. He catches my arm as if to lessen the strain on his neck, and finally manages to spit out a curse. “Fuckyou, monster.”
The human’s condemnation should offend me.
But I find myself laughing instead, the humor growing in scope and breadth. My fingers tighten around his neck, closing off the air and blood. They go further, to grind his bones and make his eyes bulge. They don’t see me any longer, so I throw his body down like a ragdoll into the flames, still humoring myself over the folly of it all.
"Did I truly expect them to be intelligent?"
Even lesser creatures like orcs and elves use them for their labor, being little more than beasts of burden and pleasure. Nothing pleasurable about the mess I’ve made here, but it is a singular joy to know I’ve rid this place of their contamination.
I rain down true hellfire upon the camp, burning away the remaining corpses and supplies. The fires rise around me of their own volition, being whipped into a frenzy by a playful breeze. Those still twitching with life are quickly swallowed up in the inferno, so all that’s left to see is the hot yellow flames.
The others are still fleeing, and a few fighters are left to defend themselves.
I should track them all down and ensure they don’t return. But something has left a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe it was the woman’s blood, but I doubt it. It was sweeter than anything I could summon on my own, so close to the source.
“Pathetic,” I say of the broken tents all around. “And a waste of my time.”
I fold my wings in close and bolt up into the sky, letting them fan out as I hover high above the wreckage. Everything seems so small from up here, and even the survivors have hardly made headway in their egress.
I could keep one of them, I tell myself, eyeing a few of the small ones.
They clutch to the skirts of their superiors, looking up at them with undiluted trust. The humans are holding hands and comforting one another, tossing back frightened glances in the direction of the camp. Their closeness is strange to me but appealing.
I clap my hands together, trying to rid myself of the soot and blood.
The very elements yield to my command, and still, they do not provide the warmth of an embrace or the reverence of a subject to their divine protector. To be touched and worshiped and venerated. A delicious shiver crawls up my spine.
Their fear is easily earned, but their adoration?
