“You awake?”
“Snake boy...” she spat, mere moments after regaining consciousness. But then, she fell silent. Losing to me must have been quite a shock.
After tending to my wounds, I sat quietly to recover. While resting, I worked on releasing my essence over and over. I could do it; what I couldn’t do was discharge it at the same levels I had during our spat. My overwhelming fury must have been the trigger. I wondered whether she would pick up on that and try to kill me in my sleep. The boy reassured me that she wouldn’t.
“You want to die?” I asked.
“No.”
She didn’t seek death—she just found living impossible. That was what I gathered from her expression, anyway. I felt myself more able to read it just then. Maybe it was because she wasn’t forcing herself into a state of aggression.
“Are you going to hold a grudge against me for winning?”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t nod either, but it was definitely a yes. She was currently in a position where she couldn’t even fight back against other children. Well, to be fair, she could. It was just that she was punished tenfold for it because of a system implemented by a greater power. That she couldn’t win against the adults was another thing that she couldn’t abide. Torn to shreds as she was, she just couldn’t accept it.
“Do you know how pathetic you appear right now? It’s making me want to look away.”
I heard her teeth grinding. Her golden eyes flashed open, and she glowered at me. While I had nothing left to give, her body was still brimming with the same levels of essence as before she passed out, if not more.
I smiled at her faintly. “What? You’re mad? Give it up. I beat you.”
“Shut up!” Without warning, she grabbed me by the collar and slammed me into the wall. She wrenched the fabric around my neck and started strangling me with it. “How dare you make fun of my pride?!”
“I-It’s not,” I choked, clutching desperately at my splintering consciousness. “It’s not...pride!”
She slammed me hard against the wall again. The boy had something he wanted—needed—to tell her.
I inhaled as best I could. “What you’re...clinging to isn’t...pride... It’s...arrogance!”
The hands holding me up loosened.
“You think it’s pride?” I continued. “You don’t think much of me, do you? If it’s pride, why did you lose to me? Why are you still losing in your resistance against the adults? What have you done to try to win? What’s your strategy?”
I never had any pride nor shame. I didn’t care about winning or losing. If I had to put it in those terms, winning was survival and losing was death. I didn’t see how anything could be more critical than that.
“I don’t know much about pride, but how can you have it when you haven’t done anything to work toward it?”
As far as I knew, pride wasn’t about how others saw you. Rather, it was the conviction that came from bracing discipline, honing your strength, and the results of that. A little girl like her had no business possessing such a thing. I removed her hands from my throat.
“Have you ever tried poison? A sneak attack? Driving a wedge between one adult and another? You know Sister’s faith is stronger than the instructors’, right? Have you ever thought about using that to break things down between them?”
She didn’t answer.
“What about stealing their tricks and using them for yourself? They’re even teaching them to us and very carefully too. Haven’t you realized? All you need to do is watch and learn. It’s easier than dying.” This wasn’t my idea of revenge or anything. I was just stating the truth.
I slammed her against the wall. “It doesn’t matter how strong or talented you are or how much you develop those things. That ‘instructor,’ the masses of kids made up of brats just like that tigerborn... They shouldn’t stand a chance against someone with your strength and talents, especially if you work on developing those things.”
The boy, who had been watching her more closely than anyone else, knew that well. The queen he had looked up to in that tiny room had the potential to grow stronger than anyone. He recognized that she had the power to eventually balance her arrogance with humility.
I suspected the boy was clinging to a myth of sorts, something born from his narrow worldview and shallow life experience. One thing was for certain: She had a stronger mentality than I did.
“You haven’t lost,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
The children may have been excited when enacting their adult-sanctioned punishment, but lock them in darkness and take away their food, and you could transform them into quivering, whiny cowards. Myself included.
“You never broke down in your reflection room. The adults tried to crush your spirit, but they failed. Think of it like that, and you’ve already scored one victory off them.” Assuming her feud with them was still ongoing, the score right now was tied at one each.
“Are you messing with me?” Perhaps she thought I was trying to console her.
“All you have to do is get stronger, and then you can kill whoever you don’t like, right? You can’t say you’ve lost to them, then.”
She didn’t say anything, but I took that to mean she understood what I was conveying. I figured it was a good idea to close this conversation with something meaningful. The boy took the initiative, leaning in to her as closely as he could.
“You have to be serious about it. I mean it. Learn your enemy. Sight, sound, smell, taste, everything. Think about them so much that you don’t have time to sleep. I’m not about to let you wallow in your pride anymore. If you want victory, you dedicate every facet of your life to it. Identify every one of your enemy’s weaknesses and strengths, and leave no room for defeat. You need to win, don’t you? Then you can’t waste a single second. Or are you gonna keep letting those shitty adults walk all over you forever? I didn’t think you were that lazy. Am I wrong about you? No? Then turn things around. Quickly.
“How long are you gonna let that tigerborn and those other kids push you around? Show them what you’re capable of so that they can never sleep at night again. Why are you acting all docile like you’re some regular kid? I know that’s not who you are. I’ve been watching you this whole time. Remember how you used to boss me around like you were more important, better, than everyone else? When are you gonna get it together?”
The boy clenched the fingers he had wrapped over her shoulders. “How long are you gonna keep me waiting? How long am I supposed to hold back the rage I feel whenever people make an idiot out of my queen?”
I was surprised by the maelstrom of emotions swirling in his stomach. I had taken him to be an ordinary young boy, but I was wrong. He didn’t just admire her. This was a twisted form of jealousy, perhaps an inferiority complex stemming from what they shared physically: tails and scales. How would she react having witnessed every ugly thought he held inside?
“Don’t tell me what to do!” she growled.
He gave a dry laugh. She had rejected his most earnest wish with nothing but a thorny remark. It was so inconsiderate, and most of all, arrogant. He loved it. This was who she really was, he thought, and I confirmed that he truly was twisted.
The dragon girl glared when he inadvertently laughed. “You think I’m a fool!”
“No, I’m happy. Because you said—” He grunted and doubled over. She had just driven her fist into his solar plexus. “What was that for?”
“You’re smirking at me!”
Again, he laughed. The last thing I remembered from that day was her fist coming right at my face.