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“We’ve been forgotten about again,” Emile said. He and Susan were perched on a branch, staring down at a dragon bathing in a pit filled with red liquid. “But forgetting about that for a moment, what do you think she’s doing?”
Susan covered Emile’s face with her wing. “She’s taking a bath. Stop peeking.”
Emile batted away Susan’s wing and frowned. “It’s not like there’s anything to see,” he said and snorted. He gestured towards the bald man crouching next to the lip of the pit. “Look at him. He’s staring so intently, but the dragon doesn’t care.”
“It looks like he’s casting some sort of spell,” Susan said. “And looking at how it’s laid out, it doesn’t seem to be the good kind of spell either.”
“Hah?” Emile raised an eyebrow. “You can tell whether a spell is good or not just by looking at it? Since when? We’re siblings, and I’m the older one—therefore, the smarter one—but even I can’t differentiate spells based on how they’re drawn on the ground.”
“You’re not the older one, dummy.” Susan pointed at the symbols surrounding the pit with the tip of her wing. “And look. It’s drawn out in the shape of a dragon’s skull. How can it be good? If it was good, then maybe the symbols would be heart-shaped or flowerlike.”
“My egg came out of Mom first. It doesn’t matter if you hatched first, I’m the oldest. And, so what?” Emile asked. “You think that man is plotting against the dragon? Dragons might be very dumb, but humans are even dumber, okay? There’s no way a human can fool a dragon.”
“You should stop calling everything that isn’t a phoenix dumb,” Susan said. “Look at Vur. He’s not a phoenix, but he’s really smart.”
Emile rubbed his beak with his wing. “Are you taking Mom’s mission for you seriously? Don’t tell me you’re really falling for Vur.”
Susan smacked her brother’s head. “I’m not! Vur just happens to make very good points all the time,” she said and nodded. “What if that man over there is like Vur? That dragon could be in serious danger.”
Emile fixed the feathers on his face that were ruffled by Susan’s attack. “You might be right,” he said, drawing out his words. “Should we save her? I’d rather have a rivalry with dragons since we already know all their weaknesses from our previous experiences. If we fought with humans, we might actually lose due to our lack of knowledge.”
“Stop spewing things out in such a roundabout way and say you want to save the dragon if you want to save her,” Susan said. “There’s no need to make excuses.” She flapped her wings twice, lifting herself off the branch and into the air.
“I wasn’t making excuses,” Emile said and followed after his sister. “I was just trying to convince you to help her.”
Susan rolled her eyes at Emile before turning her head towards the bald man on the ground. She took in a deep breath, puffing her chest up. Then she exhaled out a stream of blood-red flames that crackled and whistled towards the man. The man raised his head just in time to see a red light wash over him, and he let out a short scream before he disappeared underneath the curtain of fire.
Emile gasped. “You killed him! You killed a man!”
“What? No,” Susan said, furrowing her brow. “I set him on fire. He’s not dead. Once he turns to ash, he’ll be reborn as a baby.”
“See!? I am the smarter one! Only phoenixes come back to life from their ashes, you nitwit, not-older-or-smarter-than-me sister!” Emile jabbed towards the direction of the burning man with his talons. “You’re a murderer now!”
Susan clacked her beak twice and frowned. “Why didn’t you stop me if you knew?”
“How was I supposed to know you were going to do that?” Emile asked in reply, nearly shouting. “I’m supposed to be the reckless one! You’re supposed to prevent me from doing stupid things like that!”
“But…, I just wanted to….” Susan hung her head, her wings flapping up and down to suspend herself in the air. “I wasn’t thinking, alright?” She swallowed hard and stared at the smoldering body on the ground. Flames were still thriving on its back, dancing in the breeze. “Do you think he’s still alive?”
“Is the sky green? Of course he’s not alive!”
Susan pointed. “But he’s still moving.”
“Of course he’s not mov—ing?” Emile tilted his head. “Why is he moving?”
The two phoenixes didn’t do anything as the charred man picked himself off the ground and ran towards the pit. He leapt inside and landed besides the dragon with a hissing sound as the flames engulfing his body was extinguished by the red liquid.
“I think he’s alive,” Susan said and nodded at Emile. “See? I didn’t kill him. I’m not a murderer.”
Emile blinked, keeping his gaze on the man. “But he’s melting.”
“Humans don’t melt,” Susan said and turned her head back towards the ground. “He’s just … dissolving into a liquid. Is that supposed to happen?”
“Are you dumb? Did you eat something wrong for breakfast today?”
“Hey. Vur’s done it,” Susan said and pouted. “He’s dissolved into purple liquid before.”
Emile opened his beak. Then he shut it. He opened it and made a small sound. Then he shut it again. “Okay,” he said after a while. “That’s true. But Vur never screamed as if he were dying when he did that.”
Susan watched with a pale face as the charred man dissolved into clumps that dispersed throughout the bath, his screams sputtering down to nothing. “Um. At least we saved the dragon, right?”
“We still don’t even know for sure if the dragon was in any actual danger,” Emile said. He sighed. “Next time you want to set someone on fire, tell me first, okay? Since no one saw that except for the two of us, we can pretend it never happened, but if you had done it in front of anyone else, you’d definitely be labeled as a murderous wicked creature and hundreds of adventurers will try to kill you.”
“What about the dragon? Didn’t she see?”
“No,” Emile said. “Her eyes have been closed the entire time. Look, she doesn’t even notice that her bath water is black now.”
Susan swallowed. “Should we flee before she opens her eyes?”
Emile sighed again. “You really did eat something that messed with your brain. Of course we’re fleeing!”