Shakti, the power of goddesses, raged darkly within her gut. She held it there, nurtured it, let it smoke a little, and seep out in wisps from her nostrils. The eyes of the other girls watched her, curious and uncertain. What would she do, this girl with midnight hair and sweeping cheekbones? What would happen?

Her stance was coiled, as if prepared to lash out and strike dead poor Millicent, the playground bully, who had not realised the terrible trouble she was now in, to have provoked a sleeping dragon by the name of Katherine.

Millicent startled when Katherine’s fists began to tremble at her sides, took in a sharp breath when the live creature flashed her opal eyes, devastatingly, sizing up stout Millicent in the most egregious way. Millicent wiggled the lunch bag from off her broad shoulder, and picked up a foot to back away with. The milling crowd behind her split down the middle for her departure, wishing upon no one whatever fate it was that she had in store. The darling scent of brie and homemade cinnamon curls hovered between the two, the hydra and the thief, but an innocent caught in the feud.

Far outmatched, breathless Millicent prostrated herself with hands outstretched towards the beast. She placed the tasty lunch bag before Katherine’s black-shoed feet, and eyes lowered, slowly began to back away. The crowd stood tense, unnerved, not knowing if the debt had been settled between them. To have stolen so thoughtlessly from the dragon’s lair, what foolishness had flown through Millicent’s mind this day! And lithe Katherine took heed of her fear, of her dry swallows and moist corneas, and flicked her forked tongue with mirth at the scene.

She’d learned a lesson, and a hard one at that. Never tempt a serpent’s wrath, lest one face the consequences of such conceit. And if one should so happen to incur its fury in wait, beware its purple-flamed vengeance, for it may sooner turn one’s skin to cinders and char the unsuspecting perpetrator bare.